Professor Susan Rodgers Honored With Mary Louise Marfuggi Faculty Award

Susan Rodgers, of the Sociology and Anthropology Department, was recently named the 2003-2004 recipient of the Mary Louise Marfuggi Faculty Award. Made possible by a generous gift from Richard A. Marfuggi, M.D., ’72, in honor of his mother, the award recognizes faculty with an exemplary record of scholarship and outstanding achievement in the creation of an original work in the arts and sciences.

A cultural anthropologist, Rodgers was honored for her exhibition, Keris/Cloth: Sacred Metal and Textile Arts of Indonesia, and the accompanying exhibition catalogue of the same name. Presented at the College’s Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Art Gallery during the 2003 spring semester, Keris/Cloth provided a rare contrapuntal presentation of Sumatran textiles and weaponry as a ritual pair.

Rodgers notes, "Since the 1985 Power and Gold exhibition that I guest curated for the Asia Society Gallery in New York and for SITES (Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition Service), I’ve tried to pursue work on the anthropology of Indonesian material art as a sort of fun sideline, as an adjunct to my ‘real’ work on the politics of Indonesian print culture and print literatures.

"This Keris/Cloth show was done in full collaboration with textile scholars Anne and John Summerfield, the Fowler Museum of Cultural History at UCLA, Cantor Art Gallery Director Roger Hankins, and with museum exhibition preparator Timothy Johnson. Without them, Keris/Cloth would not have been the truly beautiful show that it was. It’s a treat to be recognized for a part of my scholarship that I consider a creative and enjoyable auxiliary research interest."

Rodgers earned her Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Chicago in 1978, after conducting two and a half years of fieldwork in Sumatra. Focusing then on the politics and aesthetics of indigenous literatures and the ritual oratory of the Angkola Batak people, Rodgers returned to Indonesia numerous times to explore issues of state power and resistance arts.

Joining the Holy Cross faculty in 1989, after 11 years at Ohio University, Rodgers was instrumental in developing the College’s anthropology program. A former department chair, she has also been involved in the Women’s Studies program and in Asian Studies, which she currently directs.

A 2001-2002 Member of the Institute for Advanced Study, Rodgers is the author of numerous articles in scholarly journals and five books on Indonesia, including the forthcoming Print, Poetics, and Politics: A Batak Literary Epic in the Indies and New Order Indonesia (KITLV Press, Leiden).

The recipient of several research grants, including a 1992 Fulbright for a translation of a Batak-language 1927 love story novel, Rodgers received a 2002 Arthur J. O’Leary Faculty Recognition Award in acknowledgement of her teaching, scholarship and service to the College.