Thai Studies in the United States

Abstract

“Thai Studies” in the United States have always been influenced – some would even say on occasion been determined – by American policies regarding Thailand and by Thai politics. In this paper I trace the development of Thai studies in the US from the immediate post-World War II period when a few American scholars began to develop Thai studies to the present day.

                Since the early twenty-first century, fewer and fewer American graduate students have chosen to study Thailand and fewer and fewer Thai are coming to the US to study. Nonetheless, Thai studies in America will not disappear. The impressive Thai collections at libraries at Cornell, Wisconsin, Northern Illinois University, and the University of Washington and smaller collections elsewhere ensure that there will continue to be a significant scholarly legacy for Thai studies in the United States. Future scholars – from Thailand, the US and elsewhere will be able to find in these collections significant materials for future research.