Biography
I first subscribed to my Teochew Chinese immigrant identity from the periphery of Thai-Lao polities before acquiring academic uniforms of anthropologist and historian of Theravada Buddhism and mainland Southeast Asia. This background encompasses my primary attention towards border, migration, religion and ethnic identity. My extensive fieldwork experience at Buddhist sites in India and within Greater Mekong Subregion as well as a decade-long engagement with peace movements in post-genocidal Cambodia encourage me to reflect on Buddhist responses to atrocities created by human and non-human agents in different historical periods. My broader interest also includes the predicament of spirituality in the face of contemporary uncertainties and global/cosmological disruption.
Education
M.A., Thammasat University
B.A., (with Honors) Silpakorn University
Field
- Southeast Asian Histoy
MA Title
- “Pilgrimage and Voluntary Displacement in Cambodia after Year Zero” (2011, Faculty of Sociology and Anthropology, Thammasat University)
Selected Publications
- Kittisenee, Napakadol. 2021. “Of Dhammacārinī and Rematriation in Post-Genocidal Cambodia” Religions 12, no. 12: 1089.
- Kittisenee, Napakadol. 2021. “Buddhist Meditation.” In Bloomsbury Religion in North America. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
- Kittisenee, Napakadol. 2011. “Macbeth in Chiang Mai: Staged Theatre in Theatre State,” The Canadian Council of Southeast Asian Studies’ Newsletter, Vol. 10 No.2 (Winter 2011).
- Kittisenee, Napakadol. 2011. “Rethinking Conceptions of Borders in the Greater Mekong Subregion: An Interview with Chayan Vaddhanabhuti (RCSD)” In ASEAS – Österreichische Zeitschrift für Südostasienwissenschaften, 4(2), 314-324. ASEAS – Österreichische Zeitschrift für Südostasienwissenschaften, 4(2), 314-324, 2011.
Selected Awards
- Teaching Assistantship 2021-2022, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Project Assistantship Summer 2021, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Graduate School Fellowship 2020-2021, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Travel Grant, CAP Research School of the Asia & the Pacific, Australian National University, February 2012
- Travel Grant, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois, U.S.A., September 2012
- Travel Grant, Association of Southeast Asian Studies in United Kingdom (ASEASUK), September 2011
- Travel Grant, Singapore Heritage Society, December 2011
- Small Research Grant (2009-2010) Regional Centre for Social Science and Sustainable Development (RCSD) Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University as a part of the Program for Knowledge and Educational Enhance in the Mekong Region “Reconceptualising the Mekong” funded by Rockefeller Foundation
Professional Affiliations
- Theravada Studies Group UW-Madison, co-founder and coordinator
- The Association of Mainland Southeast Asia Scholars (AMSEAS)
- Dhammayietra in the auspices of Samdech Preah Maha Ghosananda
Courses Taught as TA
- History 246: Southeast Asian Refugees of the “Cold” War, Spring 2022
- History 308: Introduction to Buddhism, Fall 2021
Courses Taught as Instructor
Minnesota Studies in International Development (MSID), Chiang Mai, Thailand
- MSID4002 – Thailand: Country Analysis (Fall 2015-Spring 2019)
- MSID4002 – Historical and Political Context of Thailand (Fall 2019-Spring 2020)
- MSID4001 – International Development: Critical Perspectives on Theory and Practice, Education and Literacy Track (Spring 2018)
- MSID4001 – International Development: Critical Perspectives on Theory and Practice, Social Services Track (Fall 2018)
- MSID4001 – International Development: Critical Perspectives on Theory and Practice, Social Services Track (Spring 2019)
- MSID4001 – International Development: Critical Perspectives on Theory and Practice, Education and Literacy Track (Fall 2019)
Junior Resident Research Fellow Program at Center for Khmer Studies (CKS), Siem Reap, Cambodia
- Contemporary Cambodia (Summer 2019)