Winter 2008 Newsletter - International Institute - University of Michigan

9
Thomas M. Hunter, Ph.D. Linguistics 1988, wrote his dissertation on “Balinese Language:
Historical Background and Contemporary State”. He has served as Academic
Director/Faculty Advisor for the Brattleboro, Vermont-based SIT’s Study Abroad Program
in Bali, currently sharing the position with his wife, Dra. Ni Wayan Aryati, and as Director
of the Indonesian Study Program of the Australian Consortium for In-Country Indonesian
Studies, in Yogyakarta. His published translations of Old Javanese literature include
The Weaverbirds, a translation of the historical novel by the late Y.B. Mangunwijaya
(1991), Springs of Tears, Springs of Rage: Collected Poems of Frans Nadjira (1997) and Blossoms
of Longing: Poems of longing and regret translated from the ancient Javanese (1998).
His published theoretical articles include: “Indo as Other: Identity, Anxiety and Ambiguity
in Salah Asuhan” (2002); “The Poetics of Grammar in the Javano-Balinese Tradition”
(2007); “The Body of the King, Reappraising Singhasari Period Syncretism” (2007); “New
Tools for Exploring the Role of Language in Early State Formation of South and Southeast
Asia” (2008); and “Sanskrit in the Archipelago: Translation, Vernacularization and
Translocal Identity” (2008). His current research is on the application of sociolinguistics
methodology to diachronic studies of Southeast Asian history and literary cultures. He
continues to work on a reader in Old Javanese literature, and on a monograph on the
interaction of irrealis and the perfective verbal aspect in Old Javanese.
csabali@indo.net.id or tomaryati@hotmail.com.
Roger Mills, Ph.D. Linguistics 1975, wrote his dissertation on “Proto South Sulawesi and
Proto Austronesian Phonology”. He moved from Ann Arbor to Saugatuck, Michigan in
1990, where he enjoys retirement and continues to plug away at book-research on the
languages of Eastern Indonesia (Leti and the Tanimbar area). rfmilly@msn.com
Ronit Ricci, Ph.D. Comparative Literature 2006, wrote her dissertation on “Translating
Convergence in South and Southeast Asia: The Islamic “Book of One Thousand Questions”
in Javanese, Tamil and Malay”. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for
Comparative Literature and Society at Columbia University in Fall 2007, and currently
holds a postdoctoral fellowship at the Asia Research Institute, National University of
Singapore. arirr@nus.edu.sg
Nancy Smith-Hefner, PhD Linguistics 1983, wrote her dissertation on “Language and
Social Identity: Speaking Javanese in Tengger (Indonesia)”. Since 2001 she has been
Associate Professor of Anthropology and Director of Undergraduate Studies at Boston
University, after serving as Assistant and then Associate Professor of Linguistics and
Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts in Boston from 1987 to 2001. She
wrote Khmer American: Identity and Moral Education in a Diasporic Community, Berkeley:
University of California Press (1999) and is now finishing a book manuscript, tentatively
entitled Muslim Youth: Gender and Sexuality in Indonesia’s New Middle Class, funded by a
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship. Her many journal articles include:
“Women and Politeness: The Javanese Example.” Language in Society (1988); “A Social
History of Language Change in Highland East Java,” Journal of Asian Studies (1989); “Language
and Identity in the Education of Boston-Area Khmer,” Anthropology and Education
Quarterly (1990); “Ethnicity and the Force of Faith: Christian Conversion Among Khmer
Refugees,” Anthropological Quarterly (1994); “Reproducing Respectability: Sex and
Sexuality among Muslim Javanese Youth,” Review of Indonesian and Malay Affairs (2006);
“Muslim Women and the Veil in Post-Soeharto Java,” Journal of Asian Studies (2007);
“Youth Language, Gaul Sociability, and the New Indonesian Middle Class,” Journal of
Linguistic Anthropology (2007). smhefner@bu.edu
Malay
Muhammad Haji Salleh, Ph.D. Literature
1973, wrote his dissertation on “Tradition
and Change in Malay-Indonesian Poetry”.
He was Lecturer at the Institute of Malay
Language, Literature and Culture at
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, where in
1995 he became Professor in the Department
of Malay Letters and Director of the
Institute of Malay World and Civilization.
From 2000 to 2005, he was Professor
of Literature at Universiti Sains Malaysia.
Muhammad is Malaysia’s National
Laureate (Sasterawan Negara Malaysia),
and has published poems, criticisms and
literary theory in both Malay and English.
His anthology of poems Perjalanan Si
Tenggang II won the ASEAN Literary
Award in 1977, and he also received the
SEA Write Award in 1997 and the Southeast
Asia Literary Award in 2001, among
others. His more important works include
“Tradition and Change in Contemporary
Malay-Indonesian Poetry”; Pengalaman
Puisi; Cermin Diri; Yang Empunya Ceritera:
the Mind of the Malay Author; Beyond the
Archipelago; Rowing Down Two Rivers;
and Laughter and Romance in the Archipelago.
He was Founder President of
the Translators’ Association of Malaysia
(1978-1981) and has served for thirty
years as Chief Editor of Tenggara, Journal
of Southeast Asian Literature.
www.muhammadhajisalleh.com
mhs0042@gmail.com
Mary Zurbuchen, Ph.D. Linguistics 1981, wrote her dissertation on “The Shadow Theater
of Bali: Explorations in Language and Text”, and published The Language of Balinese
Shadow Theater (1987). She worked for the Ford Foundation as education and cultural
affairs officer based in Jakarta (1982-87) and New Delhi (1988-92), and as Southeast Asia
Representative based in Jakarta (1992-2000). She was then Visiting Professor at UCLA
from 2000, and Acting Director of UCLA’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies in 2002-03,
before joining the Ford Foundation International Fellowships Program office in New
York, where she is Director of Asia and Russia Programs. She edited Beginning to Remember:
The Past in the Indonesia Present (2005). mzurbuchen@yahoo.com
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