On the afternoon of March 19, 2025, the Institute for International and Area Studies of Tsinghua University invited Professor Philip Taylor, a member of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences, Emeritus Professor of the Australian National University, and former Head of the Department of Anthropology of the Asia-Pacific Institute, to give the first talk on “Environmental Regions” of the lecture series on “Southeast Asian Studies: The Intellectual Foundations of an Area Studies Discipline”. The lecture was hosted by Guan Hao, a post-doctoral researcher in IIAS. More than 100 students and faculty members from domestic and foreign universities as well as professionals who are interested in the topic attended, both offline and online.

At the beginning of the lecture, Prof. Taylor suggested that area studies is not limited to a single discipline, but is a comprehensive research scope covering political science, history, anthropology, economics and other fields, and emphasized the necessity of interdisciplinary dialogue and cooperation to promote the in-depth development of this field. Then, combining with his own long-term fieldwork in Southeast Asia, he emphasized the central role of language, culture and historical knowledge in area studies, and discussed in depth how different disciplines can achieve effective communication in area studies.

As the theme of the first lecture, Prof. Taylor focused on Environmental Regions, citing many works and perspectives in area studies from the ancient Greek period, the Enlightenment, to contemporary times that have taken the approach of Environmental Regions, pointing out the place and influence of this approach in area studies, and critiquing its limitations. By comparing different research focuses and methods of the United States, Australia and China in Southeast Asian studies, Prof. Taylor also pointed out that researchers need to be fully aware of the impact of their own positions and academic backgrounds on the understanding of the object of study, in order to avoid the limitations brought by a single perspective. At the end of the lecture, Prof. Taylor shared professional insights to questions from students in the audience, emphasizing the importance of interdisciplinary research methods.

Philip Taylor, PhD in Anthropology and Southeast Asian Studies, Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences, Professor Emeritus at the Australian National University, and former Head of the Department of Anthropology at the Asia Pacific Institute. He has lived and worked in Vietnam and Cambodia for over a decade, and has a command of Vietnamese, Cambodian and French. His research interests include contemporary anthropology of Vietnam, Mekong sub-regional studies, Southeast and East Asian studies, development and urbanization, and modernity.Representative works include monographs The Khmer Lands of Vietnam: Environment, Cosmology and Sovereignty (2014, Winner of the EuroSEAS-Nikkei Asian Review Social Science Book Award), Goddess on the Rise: Pilgrimage and Popular Religion in Vietnam（2004）, Fragments of the Present: Searching for Modernity in Vietnam's South（2001）et al. Professor Taylor has supervised more than 30 PhD theses during his tenure at the Australian National University and has been awarded the ANU ‘top supervisor’ award. He has served as Editor-in-Chief of the Asia-Pacific Journal of Anthropology, Editor-in-Chief of the Vietnam Series of the Australian National University Press, and as a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Vietnamese Studies, the Review of Asian Studies, and the Cambridge History of the Vietnam War (Volume 3).