Dr. Theresa de Langis rejoins American University of Phnom Penh as Director of the Center of Southeast Asian Studies and Professor of Global Affairs and Humanities. She completed her doctoral degree at the University of Illinois at Chicago in Literature and Gender Studies and has worked for two decades in the field of women human rights internationally, including leading a state governmental department in the US and serving as a senior technical advisor to the United Nations throughout Asia.
Based in Cambodia since 2012, Dr. de Langis’ teaching at AUPP includes gender and development, genocide and peace and conflict studies, and the literature and film of Southeast Asia. Her research focuses on women, peace and security issues, in particular sexual violence in mass atrocity settings, and her scholarship has been published in a wide variety of volumes, including a chapter in Beyond Women’s Words: The Personal, Political and Ethical Challenges of Doing Feminist Oral History (2018), winner of the 2019 Book of the Year Award by the Oral History Association.
Closely following the proceedings of the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia on its trial around forced marriage during the Khmer Rouge period, Dr. de Langis’ commitment to women’s human rights through advocacy and research has been recognized by the Gender Justice Initiative of the International Criminal Court in 2018. Thus far, she has spent the pandemic in the US “coach-surfing” with family and friends while leading the research for a UN Women study on violence against women in politics in Nepal. She returns to Cambodia for AUPP’s fall semester in late August, eager to re-engage with students, faculty and staff.
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