BA, PhD (Monash), FAHA.
Professor in History
Office: Forgan Smith E334
Phone: (+61 7) 3365 6369
Email: r.elson@uq.edu.au
Teaching
The modern and contemporary history of Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia; Indonesian political history; international relations in East Asia
Research interests
The modern and contemporary history of Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia; maritime territoriality in the Indonesian seas after 1850; the history of secularism in modern Indonesia; Indonesian political thinking, leadership in Indonesia; changing identity in Indonesia; the social and economic history of Southeast Asia; social and economic change in nineteenth and twentieth century Java; colonialism and its impact in Southeast Asia, especially in Indonesia; the economic history of peasant production in Southeast Asia, 1800-1990.
Current research projects
The origins and trajectory of secularism in modern Indonesian politics; the history of maritime territoriality in the Indonesian archipelago since 1850.
Selected recent publications
2009 “Disunity, distance, disregard: the political failure of Islamism in late colonial Indonesia”, Studia Islamika 16, 1.
2008 The idea of Indonesia: sejarah pemikiran dan gagasan (Jakarta: Serambi)(Indonesian translation of The idea of Indonesia, below)
2008 The idea of Indonesia: a history (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
2008 Suharto: a political biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) (paperback edition)
2008 “Sartono Kartodirdjo: serious, profound, masterly”, in M. Nursam, Baskara T. Wardaya S.J., Asvi Warman Adam (eds), Sejarah yang memihak: mengenang Sartono Kartodirdjo (Yogyakarta: Ombak).
2008 “Reinventing a region: Southeast Asia and the colonial experience”, in Mark Beeson (ed.), Contemporary Southeast Asia: regional dynamics, national differences (Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan), pp. 15-29. (2nd edition).
2007 “Islam, Islamism, the nation, and the early Indonesian nationalist movement”, Journal of Indonesian Islam 1, 2, pp. 231-66.
2007 “Time, timing, and the ‘historical moment’ in Soeharto’s politics”, in Hadi Soesastro and Clara Joewono (eds), The inclusive regionalist: a festschrift dedicated to Jusuf Wanandi (Jakarta: Center for Strategic and International Studies).
2007 “Clifford Geertz, 1926-2006: meaning, method, and Indonesian economic history”, Bulletin of Indonesian Economic Studies 43, 2, pp. 251-63.
2007 “Marginality, morality, and the nationalist impulse: Papua, the Netherlands and Indonesia: a review article”, Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden (The Low Countries Historical Review), 122, 1, pp. 65-71.
2006 “Indonesia and the West: an ambivalent, misunderstood engagement”, Australian Journal of Politics and History 52, 2, pp. 261-71.
2005 “Constructing the nation: ethnicity, race, modernity, and citizenship in early Indonesian thought”, Asian Ethnicity 6, 3, pp. 145-59.
Other activities and service
Member, Editorial Board, Asian Studies Reviewl; member, Editorial Board, Southeast Asia Publications Series, Asian Studies Association of Australia; Director Of Research, School of HPRC; member, Academic Commission (Wetenschapscommissie), Netherlands Institute for War Documentation; Inrternational Reader, Australian Research Council.