News & Updates
Contemplating Violence in Indonesia - Herb Feith Memorial Lecture
by Ruth McVey, 30 November 2006
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Dr McVey is Emeritus Reader in Southeast Asian Politics at the
University of London. She received her PhD in Government at Cornell
University and subsequently held positions at Yale University, the
Center for International Studies at MIT, Cornell University and the
School of Oriental & African Studies at the University of London
Her early work concentrated on the history of the Indonesian Communist
movement and the general relationship between ideology and social change
in Indonesia. Later she studied social and ideological transformation in
rural southern Thailand and the rise of the Southeast Asian
business-political elite.
Among her principal publications are "The Rise of Indonesian Communism" (1965), "Southeast Asian Transitions"
(1978), "Southeast Asian Capitalists" (1992) and "Money and Power in
Provincial Thailand" (2000). In October 2005 Professor McVey was
awarded the Asian Pacific Forum, Awaji Conference Japan, 4th Iue Asia
Pacific Culture Prize.
View the e-flyer
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Books with Herb Feith Connections Launched
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Sidney Jones (Southeast Asia Project Director for the International Crisis Group) recently launched two books with Herb Feith connections. One is Anti-Chinese Violence in Indonesia, 1996-1999 by Jemma Purdey, who is currently writing a biography of Herb as CSEAS writer-in-residence at Monash University;
the other is Violent Conflicts in Indonesia: Analysis, representation, resolution, edited by Board member Charles Coppel, which is dedicated to Herb’s memory.
Herb himself was strongly opposed to racial discrimination against the ethnic Chinese and deeply concerned with the resolution of violent conflict in Indonesia. Herb (and Board member Jamie Mackie) supervised Charles’s PhD thesis at Monash University (later published as Indonesian Chinese in Crisis),
and Charles supervised Jemma’s PhD thesis at the University of Melbourne which led to her recently launched book.
Herb was also a supervisor of Board member Djin Siauw’s PhD thesis at Monash University which was published in Indonesian as
Siauw Giok Tjhan: riwayat perjuangan seorang patriot membangun nasion Indonesia dan masyarakat Bhineka Tunggal Ika.
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Greg Barton Appointed to Herb Feith Chair
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Dr Greg Barton has accepted appointment as the first occupant of the Herb Feith Chair for the Study of Indonesia at Monash University
and will take up this professorial position in January 2007. An Australian who studied Indonesia at Monash at undergraduate and postgraduate level,
Greg’s research interests in Indonesia are bound up with the study of religion, modernity, politics and civil society in general, and with progressive Islamic thought in particular.
In the decade since his Monash PhD, he has continued to research and publish extensively on Islamic social movements and the influence of Islamic and Islamist thought in Indonesia,
its contribution to the development of civil society and politics, and the emergence of Jihadi terrorism. He also has an active interest in interreligious dialogue. His publications include Abdurrahman Wahid, Muslim Democrat,
Indonesian President: a view from the inside, University of Hawai’i Press and UNSW Press, 2002) and Indonesia’s Struggle: Jemaah Islamiyah and the Soul of Islam (UNSW Press, 2004).
He is well-known as a commentator in print and electronic media in Australia and Indonesia, especially on Islam and Muslim society and politics. His current position (since January 2006) is as an Associate Professor at the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies (APCSS) in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Before he joined APCSS he was an Associate Professor at Deakin University where he had worked and taught on Indonesian matters since 1993.
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Herb Feith Scholars in Conflict Resolution at Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta
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The first two scholarship holders—Memet Nahumarury from Maluku (2002) and Sahlan Hanafiah from Aceh (2003)—have already graduated and returned to work with the NGOs in Maluku and Aceh. Ade Suharso from Kalimantan (2004) is completing his second year and Rizawati from Pontianak (2006) reports that she is enjoying her first year in the program.
The first three scholars were funded by the Australia-Indonesia Institute (AII) with the Herb Feith Foundation assuming responsibility for funding in 2006.
Read more details
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Dr Jemma Purdey: Seminar and research grant
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Jemma Purdey, who is writing the first major biographical study of Herb Feith, is giving a seminar on 19 October 2006 for the Monash University Centre of Southeast Asian Studies on ‘Herb Feith: Knowing Indonesia inside and out’.
She has just been awarded a three year ARC Discovery Grant and postdoctoral award commencing in 2007 to work on ‘A study of the scholarship on Indonesia in Australia and its implications for foreign policy’. This grant will enable Jemma to complete her biography of Herb and to set Herb’s engagement with Indonesia in a comparative frame along with other Australian scholars. She plans to hold a conference on Australian scholarly engagement with Indonesia which will lead to a collected volume that she will edit. This will enrich the biography and be valuable in its own right.
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