Overview
Anna is an interdisciplinary scholar working on the Cultural Cold War in Southeast Asia and Global Asia and the theory of futurity. Her research decolonizes Global Cold War studies from the focus on the superpowers and illustrates that Asian frontiers were laboratories of Cold War modernity, cultural production, and new horizons of possibilities beyond Western capitalism. She investigates visual culture, cinema, architecture, performance, and media as technologies of futural representation. She is particularly interested in vernacular Asian socialism and its legacies.
Anna’s work has appeared in Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art in Asia, Cornell’s Southeast Asia Program Bulletin, ArtReview Asia, Art Critique of Taiwan, and the Journal of Lao Studies. Her essay on Cold War cinema in Laos is forthcoming in positions: asia critique. She is working on her book project, Cold War Futures: Visions at an Asian Frontier.
As a Visiting Lecturer at the Department of Asian Studies, Anna teaches Introduction to Southeast Asia, Cultural Cold War in Asia, Asian Temporalities, and Asian Socialist (Un)Realism.
Anna is an award-winning educator. She received J. Knight Institute’s Spencer Portfolio Award in Spring 2025.
As a passionate scholar of Lao cultural studies, Anna organizes film festivals, art exhibitions, screenings, and guest lectures. She is a member of the research activist group Vientiane Modernist that recovers urban heritage in Laos. She serves as a reviewer for the Journal of Lao Studies.
