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Alexander von Rospatt , Department Chair
Aftab Ahmad Aftab Ahmad teaches Urdu language and literature at department of South and Southeast Asian Studies. He did his Ph.D on the humorous and satirical writings of MushtaqueAhmad Yusufi. As a co-translator he has published The Shroud - a translation of Premchand's short story Kafan in the Annual of Urdu Studies (AUS), 2003, vol. 19. Also as a co-translator, he has worked on a collection of 12 short stories by Sadat Hasan Manto and 6 humorous essays by Ahmad Shah Patras Bukhari. From 2001-06, he directed the American Institute of Indian Studies Urdu Language Program in Lucknow where he taught Urdu language also. (510) 642-9528
Joi Barrios-LeBlanc Joi Barrios-Leblanc serves as a Lecturer teaching Filipino (Tagalog) and Philippine Literature at UC Berkeley while on leave as an Associate Professor at the University of the Philippines Diliman (UPD). Her research focuses on Philippine literature, language, and theater, and their engagement with history, feminist politics, and social movements in the Philippiines. She is the author of five books, among them, the poetry collection To Be a Woman is to Live at a Time of War and her research, From the Theater Wings: Grounding and Flight of Filipino Women Playwrights. She is currently working on her textbook Filipino for Beginners to be published by Tuttle Publishing in 2010. She has won literary awards and for her contributions to literature, was among the 100 women chosen as Weavers of History for the Philippine Centennial Celebration in 1998. (510) 642-4180
Lawrence Cohen Lawrence Cohen is an Associate Professor in Anthropology and South and Southeast Asian Studies and the co-director of the Medical Anthropology Program. His research in South Asia has included the following: aging, postcoloniality, and rhetorics of family decline; Ayurveda and its contemporary transformations; the popular folklore of Ganesh; and AIDS prevention and the emergence of kothi identities. His award-winning book No Aging in India: Alzheimers, the Bad Family, and Other Modern Things, appeared in 1998. He is currently writing a book on homosexuality, politics, and commodity aesthetics, and on renal transplantation, the Indian market in organs, and the relation of the operation to modernity and development more generally. (510) 642-2288
Vasudha Dalmia Vasudha Dalmia is a Professor of Hindi and Modern South Asian Studies. She is on the Advisory Committee of the Group in Religious Studies, of which she has also been Director, and she is a member of the core faculty of the PhD Program in Performance Studies. The body of her work may be described as the study of cultural formations, grouped around four broad thematic clusters: the politics of religious discourse, transitional cultural phenomena of the 17th, 18th and 19 centuries, the politics of the literature of the new nation-state, particularly of modern Indian theatre,and studies of the position of women in these transitions. Her monograph, The Nationalization of Hindu Traditions: Bharatendu Harischandra and Nineteenth Century Benaras (1997), studies the life and writings of a major Hindi writer of the nineteenth century as the focal point for an examination of the intricate links between politics, language, culture, religion and nationality. Her work on drama, Poetics, Plays and Performances: The Politics of Modern Indian Theatre (2006), tracing the genealogies of theatre in modern at the appropriation of 'folk' theatre as it sought to constitute itself anew after independence. Of her edited works, The Oxford India Hinduism Reader (2007) appeared most recently.
(510) 642-3582
Jacob Dalton
Jacob Dalton holds a joint appointment in South and Southeast Asian Studies and East Asian Languages and Cultures. He teaches Tibetan Buddhism. After working for three years (2002-05) as a researcher with the International Dunhuang Project at the British Library, he taught at Yale University (2005-2008) before moving to Berkeley. He works on Nyingma religious history, tantric ritual, paleography, and the Dunhuang manuscripts. He is the author of a forthcoming study on violence and the formation of Tibetan Buddhism, and co-author of Tibetan Tantric Manuscripts from Dunhuang: A Descriptive Catalogue of the Stein Collection at the British Library (Brill, 2006). He is currently working on a history of Tibetan Buddhism, as seen through the eyes of the “Sütra Empowerment” (Mdo dbang) tradition of the Nyingma school, and future plans include a study of tantric ritual in the Dunhuang manuscripts. (510) 643-5030
Penny Edwards Assistant Professor Penny Edwards specialises in
the modern cultural and political history of Cambodia and Burma, with a
focus on textual, material and visual narratives of national,
religious, gender and racial identity. (510) 642-1926
Munis D. Faruqui Munis Faruqui teaches courses on Islam and the Muslim experience in South Asia. He is currently working on a monograph that focuses on the figure of the Mughal Prince to explore questions of state formation, imperial power, and dynastic decline in 16th and 17th Century South Asia. Recent and forthcoming publications include an examination of the creation of the Mughal Empire under Emperor Akbar; an investigation into the founding decades of the princely state of Hyderabad; and a study of the mystic and Mughal prince, Dara Shikoh. His other research interests include Islam's interaction with non-Muslim religious traditions, prosopographical approaches to studying Mughal history, and the development of Persianate cultural traditions in South Asia.
(510) 643-9188
Robert Goldman is Professor of Sanskrit. His areas of scholarly interest include Sanskrit literature and literary theory, Indian Epic Studies, and psychoanalytically oriented cultural studies. He has published widely in these areas, authoring several books and dozens of scholarly articles. He is perhaps best known for his work as the Director, General Editor, and a principal translator of a massive and fully annotated translation of the critical edition of the Valmiki Ramayana. His work has been recognized by several awards and fellowships including election as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. (510) 642-4089
Sally J. Sutherland Goldman Sally Goldman teaches Sanskrit at all levels as well as Buddhist Sanskrit, Pali, and Prakrit at the University of California at Berkeley. She is co-author of The Devavanipravesika: An Introduction to Sanskrit Language. She is Associate Editor of the Valmiki Ramayana Translation Project, Annotator of the first book of the epic, The Balakanda, and co-author of the fifth book, The Sundarakanda. She is currently working on the sixth and seventh books of the epic. She is the editor of Bridging Worlds: Studies on South Asian Women and the co-editor of a new volume, Themes in Indian History: The Sanskrit Epics [forthcoming]. Her areas of interest are women's studies, epic and classical Sanskrit literature, vyakarana or Sanskrit grammar, and Veda.
(510) 642-2409
Jeffrey Hadler Jeffrey Hadler teaches about the history and culture of Southeast Asia with a focus on Indonesia. His book, Muslims and Matriarchs: Cultural Resilience in Indonesia through Jihad and Colonialism (Cornell University Press 2008), is an ethnographic history of a Sumatran community in the 19th and early 20th centuries that examines the resilience of matrifocal custom and matrilineal inheritance in the face of attacks from neo-Wahhabi jihad, Dutch colonialism, and “modernity.” Recent publications include “A Historiography of Violence and the Secular State in Indonesia: Tuanku Imam Bondjol and the Uses of History,” Journal of Asian Studies, 67.3, August 2008; “Translations of Antisemitism: Jews, the Chinese, and Violence in Colonial and Postcolonial Indonesia,” Indonesia and the Malay World 32.94, November 2004; and editorship of the book Indonesia in the Soeharto Years (Lontar 2005; 2nd ed. KITLV and NUS Presses 2007). He has published on ideas of fatherhood and succession in Indonesia, and representations of African-American voice in America. Current research projects include a further analysis of the definition of Minangkabau culture in modern Indonesia, and a reading of the “Night Letters” of the philosopher and abstract painter Nashar.
(510) 642-8538
George L. Hart (Professor Emeritus) George Hart has taught all areas of Tamil literature as well as courses on Indian Civilization, Indian literature, and Indian religion. His latest publication (with Hank Heifetz) is an annotated translation of the great Tamil classic, The 400 Poems of Wisdom and War (The Purananuru). He has written extensively on premodern Tamil, its relationship to classical Sanskrit, and South Indian religion and culture. He has also translated several important works from Tamil, and his work was nominated for The American Book Award.
(510) 642-8169
Kausalya Hart Kausalya Hart has prepared voluminous materials for learning Tamil and has written Tamil for Beginners, which is used at many universities and has been translated into several languages. She has also written several Tamil plays, which have been performed by Berkeley students, and has translated from premodern Tamil. In addition to all levels of Tamil, her teaching includes South Indian music and dance and culture. She has written papers on various aspects of Tamil literature, including the Tamil Ramayana and early Christian literature.
(510) 642-4418 Lila Huettemann Specializes in Foreign Language Teaching. Taught German at the University of Heidelberg and at Banaras Hindu University, as well as English at Adult Education Centers in Germany before focussing on teaching Hindi at the universities of Heidelberg and Bamberg. Currently working on a textbook in German for teaching Hindi. (510) 642-2255
Usha Jain Mrs. Usha Jain teaches all levels of Hindi and was nominated one of "The Top 28 Professors" in a survey done by the Associated Students of the University of California Primer (1976). She is also the recipient of the UC Berkeley Distinguished Teaching Award for 2001-2002. Mrs. Jain is the author of Introduction to Hindi Grammar (1995), Intermediate Hindi Reader (1999), and Intermediate Hindi Multimedia Reader, an interactive computer courseware CD-ROM (2000). She is also the author of The Gujaratis of San Francisco (1989) and co-author, with K. Schomer and G. Reinhard, of Basic Vocabulary for Hindi and Urdu (1983). She is currently working on two new textbooks, Advanced Hindi Grammar and Advanced Hindi Reader.
(510) 642-2255
Ninik Lunde Ninik Lunde taught Indonesian language at UW Madison for five years and has been teaching beginning and intermediate Indonesian since 1993 at UC Berkeley. She has created audio-visual materials for her classes. Her academic interests include linguistics and comparative literature. In addition to language teaching, she also has been performing Javanese, Balinese and Sumatranese dances on campus, in the Bay Area and at dance festivals.
(510) 642-1926
Aihwa Ong Aihwa Ong is Head of the Socio-cultural House, Department of
Anthropology, at the University of California, Berkeley. Her
interests focus on the interrelationships between governing,
technology, and culture, and the ensuing environments shape human
values and practices in Southeast Asia, and more broadly the Pacific
rim, including China and North America.
(510) 642-8077
Raka Ray Professor Raka Ray holds a joint appointment in Sociology and SSEAS. Her areas of interest include gender and feminist theory, social movements, and relations between dominant and subaltern groups in India. Her current project explores changes in the meanings and relations of servitude in India. Her most recent publication is Fields of Protest: Women? Movements in India. Professor Ray is an editor of Feminist Studies.
(510) 642-9565
Frank Smith Frank Smith received his B.A. in Sociology (honors) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his MLS from Simmons College. He has been speaking, reading and writing Khmer for 21 years. Frank has taught Khmer at the Southeast Asian Studies Summer Institute (SEASSI) numerous times (1990, 1993, 1996-97, 2000-2008). He has written textbooks and other teaching materials for Beginning and Intermediate/Advanced Khmer as well as Beginning and Intermediate/Advanced Lao language. In addition to Central (standard) Khmer, Frank speaks Lao, Thai and Northern (Surin) Khmer and reads and writes Lao and Thai. In addition to his experience teaching Khmer language, Frank has taught English as a Second Language, trained teachers of Khmer and other Southeast Asian languages, and conducted ethnographic research on topics such as Khmer peasant interpretations of the Khmer Rouge and the in-group culture of Thai sex workers. Frank also produces a monthly video podcast in Khmer, Extreme Khmer. Frank teaches Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced Khmer.
Hephzibah (Hepsi) Sunkari Hepsi Sunkari has authored book titled “Telugu Bible anuvaadaalu – oka pariseelana” (Telugu Bible Translations – an observation). She has taught Telugu to graduate students in the University of Madras, India. She has translated books and articles from English to Telugu and presented several research papers on various topics like Buddhism, religious tolerance and Living Translations in National conferences in India. Her special interests include Onamastics, cultural and linguistic problems of translations and south Indian music. (510) 642-4180
Sylvia Tiwon Sylvia Tiwon teaches literature, gender, oral and cultural studies of Southeast Asia with a focus on Indonesia. Her areas of interest include national and pre-national literatures, oral discourse and mythologies, as well as socio-cultural formations at the national and sub-national levels. She has undertaken fieldwork in a number of cultural regions in the Indonesian archipelago. Her work includes the book, Breaking the Spell: Colonialism and Literary Renaissance in Indonesia (1999), and articles on literature and poetry, on women and the national imaginary, development, post-colonialism and cultural resistance in English and Indonesian. She is on the advisory board of the Encyclopedia of Women & Islamic Cultures, and on the editorial board of the journal Critical Asian Studies. She has contributed to the formation and development of a web-based educational forum for community-based organizations and NGOs throughout Indonesia (www.prakarsa-rakyat.org). She is a member of the Board of Education of the Indonesian Society for Social Transformation (INSIST), and is a regular contributor to the blogspot IndoProgress. She is currently completing a book on women in the production of discourse in Indonesia and launching new research on poetry and resistance in Indonesia.
(510) 642-2791
Bac Hoai Tran Bac Hoai Tran is the author of the textbooks Conversational Vietnamese (1996, 1999, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2008) and Anh Ngu Bao Chi (Newspaper English) (1993), and is a coauthor of Living with English (2001). He is a co-translator of the collection of short stories titled The Stars, The Earth, The River (1997), as well as several other short stories in the anthologies The Other Side of Heaven (1995), Vietnam: A Traveler’s Literary Companion (1996), Night, Again (1996), Virtual Lotus: Modern Fiction of Southeast Asia (2002), and Crossing the River (2003). He also coauthors the Vietnamese Dictionary & Phrasebook, which was published in 2004 and went into its fifth printing in 2008. He has been the Vietnamese Language Coordinator at the Southeast Asian Studies Summer Institute (SEASSI) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison since 2000. A coauthor of the Vietnamese Language Learning Framework, which was published in the Journal of Southeast Asian Language Teaching (JSEALT & E-JSEALT) of the Council of Teachers of Southeast Asian Languages (COTSEAL), he was elected President of COTSEAL in 2005 and has recently been re-elected for another three-year term. He is also currently the Vietnamese Advanced Summer Institute (VASI) Project Director at the Center for Southeast Asia Studies at UC Berkeley. He has presented many papers at conferences that include Current Trends in Vietnamese Literature and Translation (2009); How to Enjoy Contemporary Vietnamese Poetry: An Experimental Approach (2009); Translating Vietnamese Proverbs: A Lost Art or a Tall Order? (2008); Vietnamese Orthography: A Tough Nut to Crack (2005); Enhancement of Sensitivity to Language through Translation: Something Lost, Something Gained (2004); The Pitfalls of Translating Vietnamese Poetry: A Look at a Couple of Vietnamese Poems and Their English Translations (2003); Classifiers: Some of Their Functions in Vietnamese (2000); Codeswitching by English-Speaking Learners of Vietnamese: A Language Production Model (1999); Expressives in Vietnamese (1999); and The Interference of English as L1 in the Acquisition of Vietnamese as L2 (1998). In May 2000 he was recognized for Extraordinary Service to the Group in Asian Studies at UC Berkeley.
(510) 642-4180 Hanh Tran Born and grew up in Hanoi, Vietnam, Hanh Tran graduated from the University of Hanoi in 1992 and became a language lecturer at the same University in the same year. To expand his background beyond liguistic, Hanh pursued a graduate program at the National University of Social Sciences and Humanities, and became a research associate at the Historical Archaeology Department of the National Institute of Archaeology of Vietnam in 1999. Hanh joined the Department of South and Southeast Asia Studies in 2005, with the aspiration to impart the students not only language skills but also a broader knowledge of Vietnamese culture and history in addition to the language skills. Hanh has a number of publications and translations to his credit, including “Ceramic Kiln discovered at Chu Dau (Nam Sach)” New Archaeological Discoveries in 1998, Hanoi, 1999; Royal wares from Thang Long Citadel, Viet Mercury News, California, 2004 and Forum: Memories of Land Reform, Journal of Vietnamese Studies, California 2007. (510) 642-4180
Upkar K. Ubhi Upkar Ubhi, who teaches Punjabi, has developed and led the "Punjabi Artists in Shropshire Schools" project in the U.K. As an advisory teacher in curriculum developments, she managed an education center, SMDS. Her interests include architecture and marketing trends, and she holds a diploma in Building Arts and Architecture from the Prince of Wales' Institute of Architecture.
(510) 642-4418
Alexander von Rospatt Alexander von Rospatt is Professor for Buddhist Studies. He specializes in the doctrinal history of Indian Buddhism, and in Newar Buddhism, the only Indic Mahayana tradition that continues to persist in its original South Asian setting (in the Kathmandu Valley) right to the present. His first book (Stuttgart, 1995) sets forth the development and early history of the Buddhist doctrine of momentariness. His new forthcoming book deals with the periodic renovations of the Svayambhu Stupa of Kathmandu. Based on Newar manuscripts and several years of fieldwork in Nepal, he reconstructs the ritual history of these renovations and their social contexts. His current research project is on life cycle rituals of old age among the Newars. On the basis of texts and fieldwork he examines how these rites evolved differently in a Buddhist and Hindu Shaiva context.
(510) 642-1610
Joanna Williams Professor Williams holds a joint appointment in History of Art and South and Southeast Asian Studies and is a member of the Group in Buddhist Studies. After childhood in the Middle West and education on the East Coast, she came to Berkeley in 1967 and would like to think of herself as a Native Californian. In 1984-86, on leave from Berkeley, she worked as Program Officer for Education & Culture, Ford Foundation, New Delhi Her research interests include both South Asian and Southeast Asian art. She wrote first on Indian sculpture and architecture in the 4-5th century (The Art of Gupta India, Empire and Province. Princeton: 1982) and then on the pictorial arts of Orissa (The Two-Headed Deer; Illustrations of the Ramayana in Orissa, Berkeley, 1996), and most recently on the court and rural paintings of Rajasthan (Kingdom of the Sun: the Arts of Mewar. San Francisco, 2007). She has written several articles on art in Indonesia, an area to which her next project will turn. Her lecture courses cover ancient Indian art, the Hindu temple, Indian miniature painting, and the arts of Southeast Asia.
(510) 642-4353
Peter Zinoman Peter Zinoman is a member of both the Department of South and
Southeast Asian Studies as well as the History Department. He is
currently serving as Director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies
and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Vietnamese Studies.
He teaches introductory survey courses on early and recent Southeast
Asian history and on modern Vietnam and graduate seminars on the
comparative history of Southeast Asian colonialism, nationalism and
communism.
(510) 642-2234
Padmanabh S. Jaini,(Professor Emeritus) - (510) 642-9528 Padmanabh S. Jaini is Professor emeritus of Buddhist Studies
and co-founder of the Group in Buddhist Studies. Before joining UC
Berkeley in 1972, he taught at the School of Oriental and African
Studies, London and at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. James A. Matisoff, (Professor Emeritus) Ph.D. University of California (Linguistics) 1967. James Matisoff, Professor of Linguistics and SSEAS, is a leading authority on Southeast Asian linguistics, especially on the diverse group of languages comprising the Tibeto-Burman family and has been on the Berkeley Linguistics faculty since 1970. He is the author of many books, monographs, and articles on Southeast Asian and general linguistics. He co-founded the annual International Conferences on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics in 1968. He is editor of the journal Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. He has been Principal Investigator of the Sino-Tibetan Etymological Dictionary and Thesaurus project (STEDT) since 1987. (510) 643-7617
Frits Staal (Professor Emeritus)
Frits Staal's Website
Amin Sweeney (Professor Emeritus)
Bruce R. Pray (Professor Emeritus) |
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