This weekend is sure to be one giant Southeast Asian experience for all who are interested.

In conjunction with Friday’s All Southeast Asia Cultural Night at the Newman Center is Saturday’s Student Conference on Southeast Asian Affairs in the Illinois Room at the Holmes Student Center. The event is sponsored by the Southeast Asia Club and the Center for Southeast Asian Studies.

“This is an annual and national event,” Rinehart said. “The club has been around for about 27 years, but we’ve been holding this conference for at least a couple of decades.”

Jessica Rinehart, a graduate student of cultural anthropology and president of the Southeast Asia Club, said Saturday’s event primarily is a student conference. Students from different universities submitted papers on Southeast Asian topics for the conference, relating to any field they wanted.

The theme of the conference is “Religious Accommodation and Conflict in Southeast Asia.” The students presenting their papers on Saturday will be considered for possible awards and publication of their work.

“We have a keynote speaker, Kathleen Adams, from the Department of Anthropology at Loyola University,” Rinehart said. “We also have a Northern professor speaking as well, Dr. Daniel Unger, from the political science department.”

One of Rinehart’s biggest goals of the day is to have a large audience ready to be active in many discussions.

“I really hope a lot of people come out,” Rinehart said. “We don’t get a lot of people coming in that just walk off the street wanting to hear about southeast Asian culture. Instead we get more intelligent people which leads to very stimulating conversations after the papers. I hope to have a lot of feedback.”

Rinehart expects to have about 50 to 75 people at the conference, which she hopes consist of many different cultures.

“It’s important to have other cultures and different feedback available,” Rinehart said. “It would be good to have others outside our own academic bubble present.”

The conference will serve brunch provided by the HSC and will also include a lunch break during the day.

“Because we are holding the conference in the student center, we have to serve coffee and muffins for brunch,” Rinehart said. “If people would like to try specialty Asian cuisine, they should go to Friday’s Cultural Night.”