Visiting Scholars, 1999-2000

Winter Quarter 2000

Hendrik Maier
Hendrik Maier acquired his Ph.D. at Leiden University, Netherlands, in 1985. His dissertation was on "Fragments of Reading--the Malay Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa." He was a visiting professor at Cornell University before he was appointed to the Chair of Indonesian and Malay Language and Literature, Leiden University, in 1987. Professor Maier has published widely on Malay and Indonesian literature and translated a number of Malaysian and Indonesian novels and short stories. He was a visiting fellow at the Center of Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University (1996).

Thaveeporn Vasavakul
Thaveeporn Vasavakul has served as Resident Director of the Council on International Educational Exchange’s Study Center at the Vietnam National University in Hanoi since August 1998, but is temporarily teaching at the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles, during the Winter 2000 Quarter. Formerly, she taught Southeast Asian politics at the Department of Political Science, University of Michigan, and at the Faculty of Asian Studies at the Australian National University and was also a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Political and Social Change, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University. Focusing on Southeast Asia, her research interests include transition from authoritarianism and socialism, politics of institution building, and nationalism and identity politics. Some of her most recent publications are: "Rethinking the Philosophy of Central-Local Relations in Post-Central Planning Vietnam”; "Viet Nam: Sectors, Classes, and the Transformation of a Leninist State"; "Managing the Young Anarchists: Kindergartens and National Culture in Post-Colonial Vietnam"; and "Election in Thailand 1996: What Is Missing?" (with Craig Reynolds).

Spring Quarter 2000

Tom Boellstorff
Tom Boellstorff is a young scholar just completing his Ph.D. in Anthropology at Stanford University. He studied Indonesian at the Advanced Indonesian Institute in Ujung Pandang, Indonesia in 1993. He is the recipient of many awards and grants during his graduate work, including a joint Stanford/MacArthur Center for International Security and Cooperation Dissertation Fellowship, an International Field Research Fellowship from the Social Science Research Council, and a Natioanl Science Foundation Doctoral Disseration Improvement Grant. He is the author of "The Perfect Path: Gay Men, Marriage, Indonesia" (GLQ: A Journal of Gay and Lesbian Studies 5 [4] 1999) and"The Gay Archipelago: Queer Postcoloniality in Indonesia" (American Ethnologist [under revision]).

Usopay H. Cadar
Usopay H. Cadar holds a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the University of Washington, Seattle (1980). He is the Project Director and Master Performer of the Mindanao Kulintang Ensemble. He has taught on the music of Southeast Asia at the University of Washington, the University of Pittsburgh, Queen's University of Belfast, and Mindanao State University. Born in Taraka, Lanao del Sur, Philippines, Cadar is a talented performer who has pioneered the introduction of Fililpino traditional gong music to both the academic and the community environs of the West and has directed and performed the music in various concert settings. He has published many articles on Maranao music, including "Kolintang's Uniquely American Success" (forthcoming as part of a volume by the National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka, Japan), "The Maranao Kolintang Music and Its Journey in America" (Asian Music 27 [2] 1996: 131-48), and "The Role of Kolintang Music in Maranao Society" (in Selected Reports in Ethnomusicology, Institute of Ethnomusicology, UCLA, 2 (2) 1975: 49-65.

Nenita Pambid Domingo
Nenita Pambid Domingo holds a Ph.D. in Philippine Studies from the University of the Philippines, Quezon City (1996). She has taught Tagalog at Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, at the University of Southern California, and at Peking University, Beijing. She has taught Filipino Language, Literature, and Culture at California State University, Long Beach. She has led many acting workshops at colleges and community organizations in the Philippines and in San Francisco, California. She has been active as a writer, director, and performer in many Filipino theatre, film, and video productions in both the Philippines and in Southern California. She has also organized several exhibits of Philippine art. She received the Best Director for Theater, Virgo Awards, Los Angeles, 1997, for "Gabi ng mga Bayani" (Night of the Heroes) 1996, and for "Grandma's Diary" performed at California State University, Dominguez Hills. Her short film IANFU received a Special Jury Award at the 37th San Francisco International Film Festival in 1994. It also won awards in the Philippines and was a finalist in the 42nd Melbourne International Film Festival in 1993. She has published numerous essays in Philippine-language magazines and journals.

Nha Trang Pensinger
Nha Trang Pensinger (nee Cong Huyen Ton Nu Nha Trang) received her Ph.D. in Asian Studies from UC Berkeley in 1973. She is a long-time authority on Vietnamese literature, and speaks and reads Vietnamese, English, French, and Japanese. She has taught at the University of Pedagogy, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; University of Hawaii at Manoa; Friends World College, Kyoto, Japan; and the Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia. She worked as a Research Associate at the Women's Studies Center, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand (1994-96) and has held research fellowships from the Rockefeller Fellowship in the Humanities (1988-89) and the Social Sciences Research Council (1984-85). Her books include The Moon of Hoa Binh (with William L. Pensinger, Bangkok: Foundation Autopoy, 1994), Folk Narratives from Vietnam (Singapore: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd., 1985), and Favourite Stories from Vietnam (Hongkong: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd., 1978 and 1979).  She has also published poetry since 1958 under the pen name Thanh Nhung.

John K. Whitmore
John K. Whitmore received his Ph.D. in Southeast Asian History from Cornell University in 1968. He is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of History, University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Professor Whitmore is a distinguished authority on the precolonial history of Vietnam. He has done field work in Vietnam (1966, 1973), Japan (1966), and France (1965, 1968, 1970). He has been awarded fellowships by the Social Science Research Council, Yale University, the Ford Foundation, the Luce Foundation, and the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services. His books include Essays Into Vietnamese Pasts (coeditor with K. W. Taylor) (Cornell University, 1991); Vietnam, Ho Quy Ly, and the Ming, 1371-1421 (Yale University, 1985); and An Introduction to Indochinese History, Culture, Language, and Life (editor) (Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan, 1976).