Robert Acker
Visiting Professor, Department of Geography, Spring 2001

Robert Acker is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Geography, University of California at Berkeley.  He holds advanced degrees from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, the University of Michigan Law School, and the University of California at San Diego.  His publications include "New Geographical Tests of the Hydraulic Thesis at Angkor," (1998).  

Eva-Lotta E. Hedman
Research Associate, CSEAS, Winter 2001

Eva-Lotta E. Hedman is a Research Fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.  Previously she was a Lecturer in the School of Politics at the University of Nottingham.  Dr Hedman’s current research on the topic ‘Collective Memory and Historical Amnesia in Metropolitan Manila’ is supported by the British Academy and the Economic and Social Research Council, U.K. Her recent publications include ‘Contesting State and Civil Society: South East Asian Trajectories’ Modern Asian Studies 35:1 (February 2001) and, with John Sidel, Philippine Politics and Society in the Twentieth Century: Colonial Legacies, Post-Colonial Trajectories (Routledge, 2001).  

Charles F. Keyes
Visiting Professor, Anthropology, Winter 2001

Professor Charles F. Keyes is the Henry M. Jackson Professor of International Studies and Professor of Anthropology of the University of Washington where he teaches courses on the anthropological study of religion; Theravada Buddhism and society; ethnicity; ethnographic field methods; and anthropological theory.  His area focus is Southeast Asia (Thailand), Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Burma. His distinguished career includes many awards and publications.  Professor Keyes is the 2000-2001 president-elect of the Association for Asian Studies.   He will be resident at UCLA during winter quarter 2001 to teach ANTH197L: Cultures of Mainland Southeast Asia.  

Hendrik Maier
Visiting Professor, South and Southeast Asian Languages and Cultures Program, Winter and Spring quarters, 2001

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) and Visiting Professor at UCLA in Winter 2000.  We feel fortunate that he is able to return in 2001.

Resil Mojares
Visiting Professor, Southeast Asian Languages and Cultures, Spring 2001

Resil Mojares holds a Ph.D. in Literature from the University of the Philippines. Currently he is a professor at the University of San Carlos in Cebu City, Philippines and editor of the university imprint San Carlos Publications. He has been a recipient of six
Philippine National Book Awards, and his recent books include The War Against the Americans: Resistance and Collaboration in Cebu Province; Aboitiz: Family & Firm in the Philippines; and House of Memory: Essays. In Spring 2001, Dr. Mojares will teach two courses: “The Philippine Novel”, organized around selected novels from the late 19th century to present, and “Topics in Philippine Cultural History”, reading such diverse texts as a travel account, a book of conduct, a Tagalog legend, and a Cebuano love poem. These texts will serve as windows on varied facets of Philippine cultural history from the 16th to the 20th centuries.

John Sidel
Visiting Professor, Political Science, Winter 2001

Dr. John Sidel is a specialist in Southeast Asian politics and has published widely on topics of economic and political transition in the Philippines and Indonesia, including the 1999 Stanford University Press publication Capita, Coercion and Crime: Bossism in the Philippines, and "Take the Money and Run?: 'Personality' Politics in the Post-Marcos Philippines," Public Policy, Volume II, Number 2 (July-September 1998).  Dr. Sidel is currently a lecturer in the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) of London University and will be resident at UCLA winter quarter 2001 to teach two courses in Southeast Asian politics:

Michael Tenzer
Visiting Professor, Ethnomusicology, Spring 2001

Michael Tenzer has focused his research on Balinese music, especially the gamelan. He studied instrumental and compositional techniques and music theory in Bali a total of four years. In addition to teaching music theory and composition, he has directed and performed in a variety of gamelan orchestras. His recording "Three Island Duets" will be released this year. Recent publications include a volume in the Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology Series, "Gamelan Gong Kebyar: The Art of Twentieth Century Balinese Music". Professor Tenzer earned his Ph.D. in Music Composition from UC Berkeley, and has taught at Yale University and the University of British Columbia.

Eric C. Thompson
Postdoctoral Researcher, CSEAS, 2000-2001, and Visiting Professor, Anthropology, Spring 2001

Eric Thompson recently completed his Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Washington, entitled: "In K.L.-and-Kampung: Urbanism in Rural Malaysia." He is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies during 2000-2001, doing a project entitled Building Scholarly Communities in the Information Age on a grant from the Ford Foundation..  He will teach Society and Culture in Island SE Asia in the Anthropology Department in Spring 2001.  He can be reached at ecthomp@international.ucla.edu.

John K. Whitmore
Visiting Professor, Department of History, Spring 2001

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).

Mary S. Zurbuchen 
Visting Professor, SSEALC/ Academic Coordinator, CSEAS, 2000-2002

Dr. Zurbuchen joins UCLA with a two-year appointment as Academic Coordinator in the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, and as Visiting Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures.  She recently completed an 8-year assignment as Ford Foundation Representative for Indonesia based in Jakarta, and worked for the Foundation in South and Southeast Asia for 15 years. With a doctorate in Linguistics (1981) from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, her research interests include language and social change, cultural policy, and truth-seeking in transitional societies.  Her publications include "The Language of Balinese Shadow Theater," and she has offered courses in both Indonesian language and Southeast Asian cultures at Michigan and at the University of California, Berkeley. While at UCLA Dr. Zurbuchen will offer courses analyzing contemporary events in Indonesia, and will direct a research project and organize conferences on the comparative study of historical memory in Southeast Asia.