Literature

The article seeks to examine Judy Chan’s A Walk through the Spring in terms of correlation between narratives and the construction of Cantonese diasporic identity in the Thai social context. It is found that the novel is built upon a history of Chinese immigration told from the perspective of “inherited family narrative”. The novel, however, challenges a mainstream/malestream discourse on Chinese diaspora in Thailand, which often concentrates on the building-up-a-fortune achievements of Chaozhou men and which has long dominated the Chinese-Thai narratives. The author selects “herstory” to construct a Cantonese diasporic identity which embodies feminine culinary sphere and sensitive temperament. The feminist ideal of sisterhood also helps reconstruct a Cantonese identity, as reflected in the relationship among generations of Cantonese women which is bound by the memory of “grandmothers” and which is significant in shaping the identity of female characters in the novel.

"This article aimed to study Luang Vichit Vadakarn’s Jao Mae Jamaree as an Imperialist romance with a Postcolonial approach. It found that the novel is influenced by Western Imperialist romances in terms of fictional elements and Imperialist ideology.
The author justifies symbolic procession over the Mekong region through a male protagonist who pioneers the lost city of Jamaree as a “virgin land” and socializes a female protagonist with Thainess. The decline of Jamaree at the end of the story implies the destruction of the otherness in the arena of the Thai empire. This concept subsequently became Luang Wichit Wathakan’s colonial discursive practice against neighboring countries during Phibulsongkhram’s regime. Ultimately, Jao Mae Jamaree reproduces discourses on the glory of the Thai empire throughout Imperialist logic tied with sexuality and subtle political connotations."

This article aims to survey research on contemporary Thai literature conducted by researchers from other disciplines. The survey focuses on significance of findings as constructive pathway and pursuit of body knowledge on contemporary Thai literature. It is found that contemporary writings were utilized as corpus in the transdisciplinary research such as foreign languages and literatures, history, political science, communication arts, education, etc. The transdisciplinary research can contribute to literary researchers in several aspects: extension of data selection, utilization of alternative critical theory, new findings which can be used for literary studies. To be more inclusive, the prosperous research on contemporary Thai literature should also rely on transdisciplinary knowledge.

"This article proposes a postcolonial revisit of Thai classical literature. The texts used are various nirat poems as well as Khun Chang-Khun Phaen. The revisit is likely to unfold a power relationship between the center and its periphery in nirat, a Thai genre of travel writing. The poets construct the margin into an unfamiliar land conquered by the central power. In Khun
Chang-Khun Phaen, the poets devalue Lao culture and use feminine weakness to represent  Lao-ness whereas Thai-ness is depicted through masculine strength. The postcolonial revisit of the selected texts could also illustrate the Thai conception of otherness with regard to ethnicity as well as the existence of power beneath the texts."

This article aims at studying marginal people in urban spaces, represented in selected modern Thai poetry.The analysis focuses on representation of prostitutes, needy children and
beggars. It is found that the poets portray marginality based on intersection between class, gender and age inferiority which segregates marginal people from their urban socio-cultural
resources. The poets represent marginal people through various literary devices and humanitarian lens. This study reveals the relationships between Thai poets and their social context. However, representation of the marginal people, found in modern Thai poetry, is still stereotypical. This finding may problematize aesthetics and assertion of human’s subjectivity which could possibly be controversial.

This research article aims at studying Thai didactic literature through the lens of Feminist Criticism and challenging patriarchal ideology found in these selected texts. It is found that Thai didactic literature perpetuates patriarchal ideology by objectifying women into men’s property, transforming women’s bodies into “docile bodies” using ethical practice on manners and perfecting bodies. Furthermore, the ideology also
regulates women’s duty in domestic sphere. Thus, Thai didactic literature explicitly functions as discursive practice for perpetuating patriarchal ideology in Thai society.

This article aims at positioning Kukrit Pramoj’s “Mhom” within the context of memory culture and screen culture. It also hopes to authenticate “Mhom” ’ s potential as a memory text which revives World War II memory repressed by the state’s official memory. The study reveals that on the one hand “Mhom” , canonized through school textbooks, tended to be interpreted with the focus on human- animal relationship. This mainstream interpretation prevents World War II memory from being fully articulated; it has to be expressed through abjection instead. On the other hand, Mhom, the television series (2017) not only refabricates prosthetic memory of World War II by bridging the front line and home front, but also foregrounds humanity which enhances audiences’ empathy in the context of mass culture. Mhom, therefore, successfully functions as both a memory text and a screen adaptation, which in turn reflects the study’ s exemplary attempt to connect memory studies with adaptation studies.