SUSAN RODGERS
CURRICULUM VITAE
April, 2006

Professor, Anthropology
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
College of the Holy Cross
Worcester , MA 01610 USA
508 793-3067; srodgers@holycross.edu

Education:

LANGUAGE TRAINING : four years high school French with four semester college courses in that language (m.a. fieldwork in Martinique ).   Written Dutch (2 semester course, Cornell, 1973-74); spoken Dutch course, 3 mos., Amsterdam , 1985.   Fluent in written and oral Indonesian (ISSI summer 1973; Cornell 2 nd yr Indonesian courses, 1973-74; approximately 6 years of fieldwork in Indonesia since 1974).   Fluent in written and oral Angkola Batak (field study, 1974 to present). Six months elementary Minangkabau tutorial lessons, Bukittinggi, W. Sumatra, 1995-96. Translation of Sumatran literatures, see below.

ACADEMIC SERVICE:

9/78 to 6/84: Assistant Professor, Anthropology, Dept.of Sociology and Anthropology, Ohio U, Athens , O.
3/84 to 6/89: Associate Professor, Anthropology, Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology, Ohio U, Athens , O.
9/89 to 4/95: Associate Professor, Anthropology, Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology, Holy Cross.
9/95 to present: Professor, Anthropology, Dept. of Sociology and Anthropology, Holy Cross.
9/92 to 6/94: International Studies Director, Holy Cross.
7/97 to 7/2000: Chair, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Holy Cross.
2001-2002: Member, School of Social Science , Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton , NJ .
Fall, 2003-Spring, 2005, Asian Studies Director, Holy Cross.

Selected Committee Service : At Ohio U: University Curriculum Committee, 1985-88; Chair, English Composition Advisory Committee for the university; Coordinator, Anthropology program (5 faculty, anthropology major and minor), 1979-81, 1987-88; College of Arts and Sciences Staffing Advisory Committee, 1987-88, 1988-89; Dean’s Evaluation committee, 1988, 1989; various Promotion and Tenure Committees, staring in 1985.

At Holy Cross: International Studies Committee while IS Director and Asian Studies Coordinator, 1990-1991; Graduate Studies Committee, 1991-93; Research and Publications Committee, 1990-92; Educational Policy Committee, 1992-94; member, Women’s Studies, Asian Studies, 1989 to present.   College Committee on Tenure and Promotion, fall, 1998-Spring, 2000. Advisory Committee, Cantor Gallery, 1998-99. Asian Studies Director, 2003-2005. Various CISS committees, as Asian Studies director. Study Abroad Curricular Review committee, 2003-present (coordinator of this review committee, 2004-6).

Grant review service: Occasional reviewer for Wenner-Gren, various grant competitions at other colleges, universities.   1997 through 1999-2000: Member, grant review committee for recommending the senior scholar Fulbright awards for research and teaching for all Southeast Asian countries, Council for the International Exchange of Scholars.   Chair of this committee, 1999-2000.   2000, 2006: Member, review panel for NEH fellowships for University Professors and College faculty, Anthropology/Folklore section. 2002, 2003: NEH Summer Fellowships review committee, Anthropology/Folklore.   Jan. 2004, outside reviewer for fellowships, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton , NJ .    Member, IIE National Review Committee for the post-baccalaureate student Fulbrights for Southeast Asia , Dec., 2004; Dec. 2005.                                    

Teaching Interests : Intro to Cultural Anthropology; Postcolonialism and the Anthro of Literature, Literacy, and Textualities; Anthropology of Religion; The Imagined Body; Tribal Art in the International Imaginary; Art and Power in Asia; Cultures of Southeast Asia; anthropological theory; Ethnographic Methods (with a fieldwork in Worcester focus); Genders and Sexualities in Cross-cultural Perspective; Anthro of Food; Psychological Anthropology.

Research Interests : Politics and aesthetics of indigenous literatures and literacies (newspapers, novels, autobiographies), Indonesia ; culture of colonialism, Indonesia ; anthropology of art, anthropology of museums, island Southeast Asia ; religion, ritual and gender; ethnic identity construction in states.   Translation of Indonesian, Batak print literatures in light of postcolonial theory.

Museum Exhibitions Guest Curated:

     “Power and Gold: Jewelry from Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines,” 1985, for the Musee Barbier-Mueller and the Asia Society Gallery, NYC (sponsored by SITES, the Smithsonian Institution Travelling Exhibition Service, under whose auspices “Power and Gold” visited some seven major U.S. museums including the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, the L.A. County Museum of Art. Later “Power and Gold” traveled to museums in Rotterdam , Gotesborg, Edinburgh , and in 2002, to the Mona Bismarck Foundation Museum in Paris .   Now permanently at the Musee du Quay Branly).

    “Weaving Life, Weaving Wealth: Sumatran Textiles in Transition,”1995, Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Gallery, College of the Holy Cross (in cooperation with Ann and John Summerfield).

   “Keris/Cloth: Sacred Metal and Textiles Arts of Indonesia,” 2003, Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Gallery, with loans from the Fowler Museum of Cultural History, UCLA. 

   Forthcoming, Spring, 2007: “Gold Cloths of Sumatra : Indonesia ’s Songkets from Ceremony toCommodity” exhibition for Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery, Holy Cross.   

Conference organization:

     1983, co-director with Rita S. Kipp, “Indonesian Religions in Transition,” Ohio U, SEASSI Institute, Indonesian Studies Conference.

      Oct. 18-21, 2002, co-director with Joanna Ziegler, Bruce Morrill, S.J., “Practicing Catholic: Ritual, Body, and Contestation in Catholic Faith.” Center for Religion, Ethics, and Culture, Holy Cross (conference of anthropologists, medievalist art historians, and theologians on performativity in Catholic ritual life, worldwide).

Honors: Holy Cross O’Leary Faculty Fellow, 2002-2004.

               Holy Cross Marfuggi Faculty Scholarship Award, 2004.

Selected Research Grants : Various tuition, stipend awards, University of Chicago ; South Asia Committee, U. of Chicago grant to attend Cornell U, 1973-74, for Indonesian language/SE Asia area studies work.   Social Science Research Council (SSRC) dissertation research grant, for 1974-77 fieldwork in Sumatra .   US Dept. of Health and Human Services Admin.on Aging grant, 1980 (with R. Shelly and D. Sutherland); various Ohio U research grants for Indonesian fieldwork; Musee Barbier-Mueller fieldwork grant, 1983, for Power and Gold exhibition catalogue. NEH Summer stipend, #FT-27787, 1986.   SSRC post-doc grant, 1986.   Fulbright senior scholar research grant, Indonesia , Jan-August, 1992, for Sitti Djaoerah translation and book. Various Holy Cross Research and Publications grants, 1990-present; SEAC Small Grant from the Assoc. for Asian Studies, 1993.   Holy Cross Summer Faculty Fellowships, 1999, 2005. Faculty Fellowship (additional, out of sequence sabbatical), Holy Cross,. 2000-2001. National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, 2000-2001, for “Turi-turian: Chants in Print in Colonial and Postcolonial Sumatra.” 2001-2002, Fellowship while a member, School of Social Science , Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton , NJ . O’Leary Faculty Award, Holy Cross, 2002-2004. Hewlett-Mellon course development grant, 2003-2004, for new course, “Art and Power in Asia .”

Selected Publications:

Books :

  1985  Power and Gold: Jewelry from Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Geneva, Musee Barbier-Mueller, (reprinted 3 times, Prestel. Also available in French. New French edition, 2002).

  1987 Indonesian Religions in Transition, Rita S. Kipp and Susan Rodgers, editors. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.

  1995  Telling Lives, Telling History: Autobiography and Historical Imagination in Modern Indonesia .   Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

  1997  Sitti Djaoerah: A Novel of Colonial Indonesia. 1997. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Center for Southeast Asian Studies, monograph No. 15.

   2005  Print, Poetics, and Politics: A Batak Literary Epic in the Indies and New Order Indonesia.
KITLV Press, Leiden, the Netherlands.

  2006 Practicing Catholic: Ritual, Body, and Contestation in Catholic Faith, Bruce Morrill, S.J., Joanna E. Ziegler, Susan Rodgers, editors. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan.

Monographs, College Gallery Catalogues :

1981  Adat, Islam, and Christianity in a Batak Homeland. Ohio U Monographs in SE Asian Studies, no. 57.
1995 Weaving Life, Weaving Wealth: Sumatran Textiles in Transition. Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery, Holy Cross (a gallery exhibition from the Anne and John Summerfield collection that I guest curated).
2003 Keris/Cloth: Sacred Metal and Textile Arts of Indonesia . Worcester , MA : Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Gallery.

Selected articles and book chapters:

1979 “Advice to the Newlyweds: Sipirok Batak Wedding Speeches – Adat or Art?” In Edward Bruner and J. Becker, eds., Art, Ritual, and Society in Indonesia. Athens, O: Ohio U SE Asian Studies Monographs, no. 53, pp. 30-61.
1979 “A Modern Batak Horja: Innovation in Sipirok Adat Ritual,”  Indonesia , Cornell, April, 1979, pp. 103-128.
1981 “Blessing Shawls: The Social Meaning of Sipirok Batak Ulos.” In M. Gittinger, ed., Indonesian Textiles. Washington , DC : Textile Museum .
1981 “A Batak Literature of Modernization.” Indonesia , no. 31: 137-161.
1983 “Political Oratory in a Modernizing Southern Batak Homeland.” In Rita S. Kipp and R. Kipp, eds., Beyond Samosir: Recent Studies of the Batak Peoples of Sumatra . Ohio U SE Asian Studies Monographs, no. 62, pp. 21-52.
1984 “Orality, Literacy, and Batak Concepts of Marriage Alliance .”   Journal of Anthropological Research, 40 (3): 433-450.
1985 “Symbolic Patterning in Angkola Batak Adat Ritual.”   Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 44, no. 4, pp. 765-778.
1985 “Interpretive Approaches to Southeast Asian Languages and Cultures – A Symposium,” with R. McGinn, Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 44, no. 4, pp. 735-742.
1986“Batak Tape Cassette Kinship: Constructing Kinship through the Indonesian National Mass Media.” American Ethnologist, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 23-42.
1988 “Me and Toba: A Childhood World in a Batak Memoir.”   Indonesia . Cornell, vol. 45, pp. 63-84.
1990 “A Sumatran Antiquarian Writes his Culture.”   Steward Journal of Anthropology, 17, nos. 1-2, 1987-88. Republished in R. Benson, ed., Anthropology and Literature, 1992. U of Illinois Press.
1990 “The Symbolic Representation of Women in a Changing Batak Culture.” In Jane Atkinson and Shelly Errington, eds., Power and Difference. Palo Alto: Stanford U Press.
1991 “The Ethnic Culture Page in Medan Journalism.”   Indonesia , Cornell. April, 1991.
1991 “Imagining Tradition, Imagining Modernity: A Southern Batak Novel from the 1920s.” Bijdragen totde Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde, deel 147, nos. 2-3. Pp. 273-297.
1993. “Batak Heritage and Indonesian State: Print Literacy and the Construction of Ethnic Cultures in Indonesia.”   In Judith Toland, ed., Ethnicity and the State.   New Brunswick, NJ: Transactions Press.
1995 . “Beyond Shields: Exploring an Indonesian Aesthetic of the Protective Arts.” 1995. Boston College Gallery. In A. Tavarelli, ed., Protection, Power, and Display: Shields of Island Southeast Asia and Melanesia .
1997 . “Power and Gold Revisited: Museum Display Aesthetics and Countering the Colonial Gaze.” 1997. Tribal Art. Geneva : Musee Barbier-Mueller. Pp. 49-62.
1999.“Elisabeth of Spaalbeck’s Trance Dance of Faith: A Performance Theory Interpretation from Anthropological and Art Historical Perspectives,” with Joanna Ziegler. In Johanna Ziegler and Mary Suydam, eds., Performance and Transformation: New Approaches to Late Medieval Spirituality. New York: St. Martin’s Press, pp. 299- 356.
2002.“Le Pouvoir and L’Or: Quelque Reflexions, Dix-Sept Ans Apres,” new Introduction to the new French edition of Power and Gold. April, 2002, L’Or des Isles. Paris: Somogy Ed. D’Art, pp. Xxi-xxiii.
2002 “Compromise and Contestation in Colonial Sumatra: An 1873 Mandailing Schoolbook on the ‘Wonders of the West’.” 2003. Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 158 (3): 479-512.
2003a “Folklore with a Vengeance: A Sumatran Literature of Resistance in the Colonial Indies and New Order Indonesia.” Journal of American Folklore 116, no. 460: 129-159.
2003b “Reading an Ideology of Time Anthropologically: An Example from Colonial Indonesian Literature,” Interfaces Image Texte Lange, Paris. Nos. 19/20, vol. II, pp. 93-138.
2005 “A Nederlander Woman’s Recollections of Colonial and Wartime Sumatra: From Sawahlunto to Bangkinang Internment Camp.” Indonesia, Cornell Modern Indonesia Project, April, 2005. Pp. 93-129.
2006a “Introduction: Performance, Liturgy, and Ritual Practice,” Bruce Morrill, S.J., Susan Rodgers, and Joanna Ziegler, in Morrill, Ziegler, and Rodgers, Practicing Catholic: Ritual, Body andContestation in Catholic Faith. Pp. 3-24. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
2006b Susan Rodgers. “The Sacramental Body of Audrey Santo: A Holy Mystic Girl in Ritual and Media Spaces in Worcester, Massachusetts, and Beyond.” Chapter 13 in Morrill, Ziegler, and Rodgers, eds., Practicing Catholic: Ritual, Body and Contestation in Catholic Faith. Pp. 203-222.   New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
In press, forthcoming, Nov. 2006 “Antic Histories: Narrating the Past in Chamoiseau’s Texaco and Mangaradja Onggang Parlindungan’s Tuanku Rao.   Anthropological Forum, special issue, ‘East Indies/West Indies.’

Various encyclopedia pieces including one on Batak religion in “Religion and Ritual” volume, ed. James J. Fox, Indonesian Heritage encyclopedia, Didier-Miller, 1998.

Selected book and film reviews:

1992 Review of Joel C. Kuipers, Power in Performance: the Creation of Textual Authority in Weyewa Ritual Speech. American Anthropologist, June 1992, vol. 94, no. 2, p. 492, 2 p.

1993 Review of video, Patsy Asch, Linda Connor, and Tim Asch, “Releasing the Spirits: A Village Cremation in Bali.” American Anthropologist, March 1993. Vol. 95, no. 1, p. 255, 2 p.

1993    Review of John R. Bowen, Muslims through Discourse: Religion and Ritual in Gayo Society. Journal of Asian Studies, Nov. 1993. Vol. 52, no. 4, p. 1073, 3 p.

1995 Review of C.W. Watson, Kinship, Property, and Inheritance in Kerinci, Central Sumatra. Journal of Asian Studies, May 1995, Vol. 54, no. 2, p. 640, 2 p.

1996 Review of Jean-Paul Dumont, Visayan Vignettes: Ethnographic Traces of a Philippine Island. American Anthropologist, March 1996, Vol. 98, no. 1, p. 199, 2 p.

1996 Review of Simon Rae, Breath Becomes Wind: Old and New in Karo Religion. Journal of Asian Studies, Aug. 1996, Vol. 55, no. 3, p. 788, 3 p.

1996 Review of Margaret Wiener, Visible and Invisible Realms: Power, Magic, and Colonial Conquest in Bali. Journal of Asian History, 1996, vol. 30, no. 2, p. 206, 2p.

1998 Review of Akifumi Iwabuchi, The People of the Alas Valley: A Study of an Ethnic Group of Northern Sumatra. American Ethnologist, August 1998, Vol. 25, no. 3, p. 522, 2p.

1999 Review of P. Lim Pui Huen et al, Oral History in Southeast Asia, Theory and Methods. Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Sept. 1999, Vol. 30, no. 2, p. 356, 3p.

1999 Review of Joel C. Kuipers, Language, Identity and Marginality in Indonesia: The Changing Nature of Ritual Speech on the Island of Sumba. Journal of Asian Studies, Nov. 1999. Vol. 58 No. 4, p. 1199, 2p.

2001 Essay review on books by Janet Hoskins and Kenneth George, “Southeast Asian Headhunting in the Anthropological Imagination.” Reviews in Anthropology, Vol. 30, No. 1, p. 31, 24 pages.

2001 Essay review of C.W. Watson, Autobiography and the Representation of Modern Indonesia. Biography, An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, Summer 2001, Vol. 24, no. 3, p. 620, 6p.

2001 Review of Jill Forshee, Between the Folds: Stories of Cloth, Lives and Travels in Sumba. Journal of Asian Studies, August 2001, Vol. 60, no. 3, p. 918, 3 p.

2002 Review of Rudolf Smend, ed., Batik: Javanese and Sumatran Batiks from Courts and Palaces: Rudolf Smend Collection. Journal of Asian Studies, August 2002, Vol. 61, no. 3, p. 1131, 3p.

2002 Review of Peter Just, Dou Donggo Justice: Conflict and Morality in an Indonesian Society. Journal of Asian Studies, Feb. 2002, Vol. 61, no. 1, p 325, 3p.

2003 Review of William A. Collins, The Guritan of Radin Suane: A Study of the Besemah Oral Epic from South Sumatra. Journal of Asian Studies, August 2003, Vol. 62, no. 3, p 1003, 2p.

2005 Review of Gerry van Klinken, Minorities, Modernity, and the Emerging Nation: Christians in Indonesia. Sojourn, Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia. Singapore, ISEAS. Vol. 20, Number 1, April 2005, pp.105-109.

2005 Review of Abdur-Razzaq Lubis and Khoo Salma Nasution, Raja Bilah and the Mandailings in Perak, 1875-1911. Indonesia, Cornell Modern Indonesia Project. October, 2005. Pp. 217-219.             
 

   Numerous conference presentations (American Anthropological Association, Association for Asian Studies, International Conference of Asianists, Singapore) and museum lectures (e.g., L. A. County Museum of Art, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Singapore’s Asian Civilizations Museum, some in connection with the “Power and Gold” exhibition, some in connection with my 3 Holy Cross exhibitions). Lecturer, various outreach programs on Southeast Asia for public school teachers, at Ohio U, and at Holy Cross. Various lectures, Universitas Sanata Dharma, Yogyakarta; Universitas Andalas, Padang, West Sumatra.