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I am a cultural anthropologist with research interests in morality and ethics, visual anthropology, cultural politics, performance, folk music and theater, and cross-cultural musical pedagogies in Vietnam and Southeast Asia. I am currently an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the State University of New York at New Paltz and also teach in the Asian Studies Program. I am also a Research Fellow affiliated with the Center for the Study of Vietnamese Philosophy, Culture and Society at Temple University and Lead Faculty for the 2024-25 SUNY/CUNY Southeast Asia Consortium (SEAC).
My past research focused on the cultural politics, representation, and performance of folk music and theater in Vietnam. In particular, in my writing and film, I explored the relations of sentiment that emerge through folk performance. More recently, I have conducted an ethnographic study, in collaboration with Dr. Phan Phuong Anh (USSH, Vietnam) of the relationship between social belonging and moral personhood and how that relationship is expressed and shaped through local ritual practice in a village in rural northern Vietnam. The research focuses on two broad questions: First, how is contemporary moral personhood negotiated, embodied, and constructed in and across popular Buddhist, communal, and lineage rituals in the village? Second, what do local ritual practices reveal about the relationship between heritage, place and identity in post-reform Vietnam? I am also working on a new project on virtual ancestor worship in urban Viet Nam, with the broad goal of exploring how social relations with others—both human and divine—are formed and maintained through new forms of electronic media. Using new media technologies as a conceptual framework for understanding contemporary ancestor worship, the project explores how urban Vietnamese use online media to contact and propitiate the ancestors, and what these practices reveal about how they understand the nature of communication between the human world and the world of the spirits and ancestors.
My films include Drums on the Red River (DER, 2010), Singing Sentiment (Berkeley Media, LLC., 2014), Mother Witness for Me (Mẹ Chứng cho Con) (co-directed with Dr. Phan Phuong Anh, 2021), and Growing Rhythm (2019), a film co-directed with Alyson Hummer that documents the SUNY New Paltz Burmese hsaing ensemble’s work with acclaimed Burmese percussionist Kyaw Kyaw Naing. With funding from the Asian Cultural Council, Alyson and I also directed a short film Ko Gyi Kyaw (2021) as part of a larger project on Burmese spirit mediumship (nat pwe). My current film project, Intermittent Attunement, is a collaborative visual ethnography, co-directed with Alyson Hummer and Madelyn Colonna, that documents classically trained pianist Alex Peh’s lessons in four different oral piano traditions: Burmese sandaya, Greek rebetiko, Persian-tuned classical piano, and jazz. The project explores questions of attunement, authenticity, and appropriation in cross-cultural musical exchanges. A series of short films based on the project was screened at Alex Peh’s June 2022 concert at National Sawdust (Brooklyn, NY) and the full length film was screened at Ethnografilm, Paris in 2023.
Selected publications:
2021. Lauren Meeker & Phan Phương Anh. Reaching for texts: Evidence and ambiguity in narratives of lineage history in a northern Vietnamese village, History and Anthropology, DOI: 10.1080/02757206.2021.1885399 (Online publication on 2/16/21; Hardcopy publication date forthcoming)
2019. Being Witnessed Saving Others: Moral Personhood in Women’s Popular Buddhist Practice in Rural Northern Vietnam. The Journal of Asian Studies 78(2): 309-328.
2015. “Forgiving Thị Mầu, a Girl Who Dared to Defy: Performance Change and Chèo Theater in Northern Vietnam.” Asian Theater Journal 32(1): 136-158.
2013. Sounding out Heritage: Cultural Politics and the Social Practice of Quan họ Folk Song in Northern Vietnam. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
2013. Lauren Meeker and Jayasinhji Jhala. “Drums on the Red River: The Making of a Vietnamese Ethnographic Film.” Visual Anthropology 26(3): 247-265.
Films:
Intermittent Attunement. Directed by Lauren Meeker, Alyson Hummer, and Madelyn Colonna. 66 minutes. (2023).
Intermittent Attunement: a Series of Short Films. Directed by Lauren Meeker, Alyson Hummer, and Madelyn Colonna. (2022). Screened June 18, 2022 at Alex Peh’s concert at National Sawdust, Brooklyn, NY. Concert Video and Films available here.
Mother Witness for Me (Mẹ Chứng cho Con). Directed by Lauren Meeker and Phan Phương Anh. 26 minutes. (2021). Film Preview.
Growing Rhythm. Directed by Alyson Hummer and Lauren Meeker. 12 minutes. https://vimeo.com/377143740. (2019)
Singing Sentiment. Directed by Lauren Meeker. 43 minutes. Berkeley: Berkeley Media LLC (2014).
CQ…CQ…Who’s Your Elmer? Directed by Lauren Meeker and Dylan Lewis. 30 minutes. https://vimeo.com/97363838. (2014)
Drums on the Red River. Directed by Lan Phuong, Jayasinhji Jhala, Hoang Son and Lauren Meeker. 73 minutes. Watertown, MA: Documentary Educational Resources (2010).
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