SPRING 1999 BULLETIN . ' . SEAP ARCHIVE COPY DO NOT REMOVE ---------- -- ---- \ CORNELL UN I VERS I TY Letter from the Director Dear Friends, American Studies. This spring I hope that you are surprised, and delighted, to receive our semester, our graduate students Spring Bulletin. We are now publishing two bulletins in place will hold a symposium entitled of a single annual edition. This way, you will be able to keep "Making up Southeast Asia" to be pace with the important events and activities that are taking held on April 2-3, and we will co­ place in SEAP. We want you to feel the immediacy of the ob­ sponsor the International Studies jects of our excitement and not wait a year to learn about in Planning Spring Seminar. them. For example, I can report to you-gleefully- that the On the home front, our faculty infamous Ithaca winter has been unusually tardy this year. We members have been busy review­ have had the pleasantest November and December in ing programs and policies that will memory. Ithaca has been blessed with warm weather and continue to strengthen SEAP. This sunshine at year's end. In fact, this December, the cherry trees fall, they agreed that to emphasize our commitment to the fu­ along the side of Olin Library facing Sage Chapel were in ture of the Echols Collection, SEAP will match the university's bloom, and students were even playing Frisbee on the Arts annual percentage increase for library acquisitions. This figure quad in shorts and tee shirts after the last day of classes! has been running at about 3 to 5 percent. A curriculum commit­ This publication has How time flies when one is having fun! Fall '98 has come tee will be constituted this spring to review our present course been made possible to an end, and I can report to you that we have been indeed offerings and to plan for the future. The work of this committee · by the generosity of busy. will help guide SEAP further along the path of improving course Cornell faculty members are known not only for research, offerings, expanding and rationalizing the undergraduate curricu­ Ruth Polson and the but for their teaching as well. Every year, more than two hun­ lum, and planning ahead for substitute and new courses to fill in late Robert A. Polson, dred new courses are reviewed and approved by the College when faculty members take leaves. To keep in closer touch with professor emeritus of of Arts and Sciences alone. Several of these new courses are our students, I have instituted a once-a-semester meeting with rural sociology. taught by members of SEAP. For example, in the spring, Pro­ them so we can discuss issues of common concern. The fall se­ fessor Kaja McGowan is teaching a graduate seminar on "Wa­ mester Saturday breakfast meeting held at the Kahin Center was ter: Art and Politics in Southeast Asia:' This course is well-attended, congenial, and productive. Finally, the SEAP cross-listed in three departments-art history, religious stud­ Executive Committee voted to set aside funds for our junior fac­ ies, and Asian studies. Professor Keith Taylor offered a much­ ulty to help support their research and publication as they work needed undergraduate course on the Vietnam War during the toward tenure review. winter session; and Professor David Wyatt taught an under­ This past fall, both faculty members and students were kept graduate seminar on his specialty, "The History of Siam and busy attending the lectures given by visiting candidates for posi­ Thailand," this past fall. We are also very fortunate to be able tions in the government and history departments. Not only were to offer courses taught by Visiting Professor lwan Azis for we excited by their talks, but we also benefited from the dinners upper-level and graduate students in Arts and Sciences, the and lunches that our program hosted for them. I can report that Johnson School, and the Department of City and Regional the searches gave us not just the opportunity to gain some un­ Planning. Two other courses that are of interest to our stu­ needed weight, but the chance to come together-students and dents this academic year are "Islam in China and Southeast faculty and staff members-as members of SEAP. The searches Asia," and ''The Role of Women in Muslim Societies: Past, allowed faculty members and students to engage in meaningful Present, and Future," taught by Visiting Instructor Jacqueline conversations about the future of the program. Talking to each Front cover: Armijo-Hussein of the Department of Near Eastern Studies. other, not just about food, but also ab,9ut what each candidate left, Temben Mask Even though the "course" is not listed in Cornell's course would bring to Cornell, helped all members of SEAP to come to right, Pentoel Clown Mask catalogue, Kaja McGowan's "Balinese Dance" attracted sev­ grips with our strengths, weaknesses, and needs. Whether these Painted wood eral aspiring performers. I was tempted to try out until I searches are successful or not, we as a program have already Herbert F. Johnson dropped in one day to learn that it took several lessons just benefited from our collegial participation in the process. I, for Museum of Art tom aster how to "walk" correctly. For someone who finds one, have learned how much my colleagues care about the fu­ Gifts of Benedict R. 0. Anderson walking up and down Libe Slope already awkward and physi­ ture of Southeast Asian Studies, and I have come to appreciate Photograph by cally exhausting, I decided to forgo the class and stick to my and respect the equal concern that our students have expressed. Tony De Camillo status as a common pedestrian. As you can tell, the challenging task of leading SEAP into the Another fact of life in academia is the variety and richness future is less daunting now that I have been touched by the sup­ o\extracurricular events that stretch one's intellect-the cor­ port and the care expressed by colleagues, students, and staff nucopia of talks, symposia, conferences, and seminars. Aside Inside front cover: members. Even though the Ithaca winter will inevitably engulf Detail from Highland from SEAP's regular Thursday Brown Bag lectures at the us, I am quite optimistic that spring will not be that far behind. Woman with a Child, Kahin Center, we participated in several events on campus. With best wishes for 1999 and Sawasdee, 1961 This past fall, we cosponsored a conference commemorating Vietnamese the Democracy movement in Burma, a conference on ''The Mai Long (1912-) Politics of Globalization," a student-organized conference on Watercolor on paper ~ ~ ~ Image courtesy of ''The Financial Crisis in Southeast Asia," a public lecture on Thak Chaloemtiarana Nora Taylor Timor, and a graduate student symposium on Asian- Nora Taylor and Jennifer Foley A Sharp Eye: The Ruth B. Sharp* Collection of Southeast Asian Ceramics at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University It has been said that a collection reflects the personality of them, seeking them out, or hunting them down. In those the collector. If Ruth B. Sharp's collection of Southeast Asian days, farmers were still digging them out of the fields by acci­ ceramics is any indication of her personality, then we may be dent. She knew where to look for them and at one time hired sure that it is not only graceful, bright, at times whimsical and children to find them for her. Each one of her "pots" carries a eccentric, but also comprehensive, detailed, and a reflection story with it: where it was found, how it was retrieved, or of a keen mind and eye. Her "pots," as she often refers to from whom it was purchased. them, are not just a random selection of odd souvenirs found Over the course of the years, Ruth Sharp's collection grew during her numerous stays in Thailand and Singapore; rather to include hundreds of examples of Thai Sawankhalok ware they reflect her careful study of ceramics and her passionate celadons, Thai Sukhothai figurines, Vietnamese blue-and­ vision of the not-so-mundane art of the Southeast Asian pot­ white boxes and plates, Cambodian Khmer lime pots, and ter. The choices that she made and the pieces that she chose nineteenth-century Bangkok-commissioned, Chinese-made to build up her collection reflect her Bencharong ware. But she also has numerous examples of love for and intimate knowledge of Chinese trade wares: Sung celadons, Ming blue-and-whites, Southeast Asia and her relationship to and Swatow wares. When I asked her what her favorite the region over the course of nearly fifty pieces were, she modestly pointed to her Vietnamese frog years. and a pair of twin Sawankhalok ware ducks. Both are water­ Ruth Sharp began collecting ceramics droppers dating from the fourteenth century that would have in 1949, after returning from her first been used by scholars to add water to their inkwells. Both trip to Thailand in 1948. At that time, are perfectly shaped, small wonders made of clay. But both there was virtually no market for South­ are also amusing and delightful to look at. These pieces are east Asian ceramics in America. Aficio­ elegant and sparkly, but they are also friendly and erudite nados of Japanese ceramics had pieces that make you smile, as Ruth herself does. collected Southeast Asian wares for centuries to add an element of exoti­ INDIVIDUAL PIECES cism to their tea ceremonies. Vietnam­ The Sawankhalok ware figurine shown in Figure l is typical of ese blue-and-white wares were also such objects commonly found in northern Thailand and illus­ popular in the Philippines and Borneo trates the whimsical nature of potters.