POSTGRADUATE PROSPECTUS

132DEPARTMENT OFSOUTH EAST ASIAThe Department offers the widest coverage in Europeof research and teaching related to the languages,literatures, and cultures of the principal countriesof South East Asia, and is the only department ofa British university within which these subjects canbe studied as part of a named degree.NUMBER OF STAFF 9RAE 5DEPARTMENT WEBSITEwww.soas.ac.uk/southeastasiaFACULTY Languages and CulturesTAUGHT MASTERS DEGREESMA LANGUAGES ANDLITERATURES OF SOUTHEAST ASIAINTERDISCIPLINARYMA COMPARATIVE LITERATURE(AFRICA/ASIA) – SEE PAGE 146MA SOUTH EAST ASIAN STUDIES– SEE PAGE 158SOUTH EAST ASIAIts primary commitment is to five languages(Burmese, Indonesian/Malay, Khmer, Thai, andVietnamese) and their literatures, cinemas andassociated cultures. The research and teaching inthis Department draw heavily upon the resourcesof the Library’s extensive South East Asia collection,and are closely connected with the work of manyof the School’s other Departments.RESEARCH DEGREESThe Department, along with the School’s twoother Asian Studies departments, received a ‘5’rating in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise.The research interests of the Department’smembers include: classical Malay literature;modern literature in Malay, Indonesian, Thai,and Vietnamese; Islam in South East Asia;language pedagogy; phonetics; gender studies;oral literature and folklore; cinema in SouthEast Asia; and translation. These interests areincreasingly reflected in the kind of work that isundertaken by the Department’s research students.The research training offered by the Departmenthas been enhanced in recent years by theintroduction of interdepartmental researchseminars organised by the School’s languageand culture departments.SOME RECENT RESEARCH THESESSarah Hicks – Syair Selindung Delima: a literary andphilological studyMontira Rato – Peasants and the countryside inpost–1974 Vietnamese literatureSoison Sakolrak – Thai literary transformation: ananalytical study of the modernisation of Lilit Phra LorACADEMIC STAFF AND THEIR RESEARCH AREASProfessor Vladimir I Braginsky PHD DLIT(MOSCOW)Postgraduate TutorMalay and Indonesian classical and modern literatureand culture; Islam in the Malay-Indonesian worldMs Vantana Cornwell BA (THAMMASAT)MA(CENTRAL MICHIGAN)Lector in ThaiDr Rachel Harrison BA PHD(LONDON)Head of DepartmentModern literary, cultural, film and gender studies withreference to Thailand; literary criticism and South EastAsian Literatures in a comparative context; Westerncinema set in South East AsiaDr Dana Healy PHD(PRAGUE)Admissions TutorVietnamese language and literature, language teaching;folk literature, modern poetry, theatre, artProfessor E Ulrich Kratz DR PHIL(FRANKFURT)Traditional Malay philology, the contemporaryliteratures, cultures and societies of the MalayspeakingworldDr Ben Murtagh BA MA(LONDON) PHD (LONDON)Traditional Malay and modern Indonesian literature;history of Indonesia; film in Indonesia and Malaysia;gender and sexuality in IndonesiaMr Sallehuddin Bin Abdullah Sani BA(LONDON)Lector in IndonesianDr David A Smyth BA PHD(LONDON)The Thai novel; Thai literary historiography; Thailanguage; modern Thai history; language teachingDr Justin Watkins BA(LEEDS) MA PHD(LONDON)Burmese language and literature; Khmer language;Mon-khmer and Tibeto-Burman languages; phonetics;computer lexicography.