I recently recorded a series of interviews with prominent Asia scholars from Columbia University and the Australian National University. These interviews are part of an emerging collaboration between the two institutions which focuses on links between the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific and Columbia’s Weatherhead East Asia Institute.

All three episodes in this series of interviews, recorded in New York in March 2012, will be released in the week ahead.

The first in the series asks eminent scholars to reflect on the most promising trends in Asia and the Pacific today. It includes comments from Professor Carol Gluck, Professor Andrew MacIntyre, Professor Myron Cohen, Professor Paul Hutchcroft, Professor Robert Barnett and a dozen others.

New Mandala readers will be interested to know that some of the discussion deals explicitly with mainland Southeast Asia, especially the comments from Dr Jane Ferguson and Dr Kristy Kelly. The next two episodes in this series will be released shortly. Each episode is relatively short (around 15 minutes) and should provide plenty of food for thought and fodder for further discussion.

Special thanks to James Giggacher, the newly appointed Editor for our College of Asia and the Pacific, for his excellent work producing this series.