News and Updates
Herb Feith Biography launched
Jemma Purdey's biography of Herb Feith, From Vienna to Yogyakarta: The life of Herb Feith (UNSW Press: Sydney, June 2011) was launched by Pat Walsh in Dili, Timor Leste on 30 June and by Andrew Leigh MP in Canberra at Parliament House on 6 July. In Melbourne on 2 August, H.E. Kirsty Sword Gusmao launched the book before a crowd of around 230 people. Kirsty also delivered the 2011 Herb Feith Memorial Lecture.
Reviews of the biography have been published in The Weekend Australian and Australian Book Review (ABR). Jemma Purdey was interviewed on Radio National program, Late Night Live, together with Herb Feith Foundation Board Member and Executive Manager of International Services at Australian Volunteers International, Peter Britton. Jemma was also interviewed on Radio Australia's Connect Asia program
Australian Volunteers International Celebrates 60th Anniversary
On 15 June 2011, AVI held a special event in Melbourne to mark its 60th anniversary. The date to mark this occasion is that of Herb Feith's inaugural trip to Indonesia where he became the first volunteer representing what was then an informal organisation known as the Volunteer Graduate Scheme. 60 years later, Australian volunteers work in 45 countries around the world. At the event, Herb Feith's biographer Jemma Purdey spoke of the genesis of the idea to go to Indonesia to assist in its nation-building project in 1951 and his impressions and experiences in the years that followed. Read a transcription of Jemma's talk (PDF)
Books with Herb Feith Connections Launched
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.
