PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Ashley Thompson is the Hiram W. Woodward Chair in Southeast Asian Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, UK. Her research explores the nexus of aesthetics and politics in Southeast Asia, with a thematic focus on questions of memory, historical consciousness, subjectivity and sexual difference.
In this luminous, challenging, closely argued book, Ashley Thompson offers a new set of readings of early Cambodian history, connecting them in her final substantive chapter to certain ritual practices in Cambodia today... I am sure that such a second volume, when it appears, will be at least as welcome and rewarding as this long-awaited, passionate, and tightly woven book. David Chandler, Monash University, Journal of Asian Studies All students of Cambodian history should read Engendering the Buddhist State: the depth of conversation on key topics that have constituted the canon of Cambodian studies will be deeply rewarding. Graduate students in particular should engage with the text as a possible pathway through the study of these key examples. Students of sovereignty and the gendering of culture will find well-studied cases pertinent to their field within this text, and practitioners of the methods of deconstruction may appreciate the application of their preferred approach to the novel material of Southeast Asian history. Erik W Davis, Macalester College, Religion
