Keynote Speakers
Distinguished experts in heritage conservation, Southeast Asian history,
and cultural memory joining us at JEDICON 2026.
Richard Adams Engelhardt, Ph.D.
Prof. Richard Adams Engelhardt is a distinguished scholar and leader in heritage conservation in the Asia-Pacific region. For more than four decades, he has played a pioneering role in advancing cultural heritage conservation across Asia and internationally. He has held senior leadership positions at UNESCO and other specialized agencies of the United Nations, and has served as an honorary visiting professor at leading universities throughout the Asia-Pacific region. His distinguished career has been recognized with numerous honors, including the rank of Commandeur de l'Ordre Royal du Cambodge. In addition to this Cambodian knighthood, he has been decorated by the governments of China, the Philippines, Myanmar, and Vietnam for his contributions to the conservation of Asia's cultural heritage. As keynote speaker for this conference, "Reimagining Vernacular Heritage and Tourism Futures," Dr. Engelhardt is widely recognized as one of the principal architects of cultural heritage policy and management strategies in Asia.
Maurizio Peleggi, Ph.D.
Maurizio Peleggi is a professor in the Department of History, National University of Singapore (NUS), and a recognized authority on Thai material culture history and heritage politics. He is the author of several articles and books, including The Politics of Ruins and the Business of Nostalgia (2002), Lords of Things: The Fashioning of the Siamese Monarchy's Modern Image (2002; Thai trans. 2024), Thailand the Worldly Kingdom (2007), Monastery, Monument, Museum: Sites and Artifacts of Thai Cultural Memory (2017), and as editor, A Sarong for Clio: Essays on the Intellectual and Cultural History of Thailand (2015). His forthcoming book, Devotional Conservation: Cur(at)ing Cult(ural) Objects, is a wide historical and anthropological investigation of the human instinct to preserve natural and manmade things. As our keynote speaker, Professor Peleggi will discuss tensions and analogies between vernacular/religious and international/secular approaches to heritage conservation.