Royce Novak is a historian of modern Southeast Asia specializing in legal, social and environmental history. His research focuses on the history of prisons and prisoners in colonial and Cold War Indonesia and Vietnam. His current project explores the history of prison islands in modern Indonesia and Vietnam, theorizing these sites as a distinct carceral form that has played a significant role in both state-building and revolution. Novak’s research focuses on continuities bridging colonial and postcolonial carceral practices and connecting them to their contemporary legacies. Besides his research on prison islands, Novak also conducts research on “comfort women” and literature in Southeast Asia.

Novak began his studies on Southeast Asia at Cornell University as an undergraduate before attending the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he received an M.A. and Ph.D. in Southeast Asian history. Before coming to Kenyon, he taught at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. His work has appeared in the Journal of Asian Studies and the Journal of Vietnamese Studies. 

Currently, Novak teaches courses on the histories of Southeast Asia and Vietnam. For the latest updates on Novak’s publications, please visit kenyon.academia.edu/RoyceNovak.

Areas of Expertise

Modern Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia and Vietnam; imperialism and colonialism; legal and carceral history; environmental history

Education

2022 — Master of Arts from Univ of Wisconsin-Madison

2022 — Doctor of Philosophy from Univ of Wisconsin-Madison

2013 — Bachelor of Science from Cornell University

2013 — Bachelor of Arts from Cornell University

Courses Recently Taught

This course is designed to introduce students to the study of Asia and the Middle East within the context of the global humanities. It serves as a sampler, which exposes students to the rich diversity of Asian and Islamicate humanities. The seminar explores a wide range of primary sources from different places and historical periods. These may include such diverse materials as the memoirs of the medieval Muslim traveler Ibn Battuta, "The Analects of Confucius," readings from the "Vedas" and "Upanishads," Farid ud din Attar's "The Conference of the Birds," Kurosawa's "Rashomon," Rabindranath Tagore's "The Home and The World," short fiction from the modern Palestinian author Ghassan Kanafani and examples of contemporary Chinese science fiction. This interdisciplinary course does not count toward the completion of any diversification requirement. Only open to first-year students.

Long before Columbus crossed the Atlantic Ocean, peoples residing along the shores of the Indian Ocean had already established an extensive maritime network that linked the civilizations of India, China, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and East Africa. For centuries, the volume and wealth of Indian Ocean trade exceeded that of any other region, and it was in hopes of gaining access to this commercial zone that Europeans embarked on their voyages of "discovery." This seminar course treats the Indian Ocean region as a site of premodern globalization and explores the wide-ranging cultural and economic exchanges that occurred across it during successive eras of regional, Muslim and European dominance from the 17th to the 19th centuries, before its decline. Toward the end of the course, we explore recent historical scholarship that focuses on modern networks of labor, pilgrimage, kinship and ideas across the Indian Ocean, and questions whether this zone of exchange and interconnection did indeed decline in the era of 19th-century European dominance. Recommended for sophomores and above. This counts toward the premodern and Asia/Africa requirements for the major. No prerequisite. Sophomore standing. Offered every two or three years.

Vietnam is a region, a country, a nation, a society and a war, or a series of wars. This seminar explores the place and its people during the 20th century, with special attention to the era from 1945 to 1975. The French and American wars will be situated in the context of the Vietnamese experience of colonialism and nationalism. Through fiction, field studies, memoirs, reportage, official documents, critical essays and films, we consider the issues of memory, race and ideology in the construction of history. This counts toward the modern and Asia/Africa requirements for the major. No prerequisite. Sophomore standing. Offered every two or three years.