Aceh: History, Politics and Culture

The Contributors

THE CONTRIBUTORS Agussabti was born in Alue Lhok (Eastern Aceh) in 1968 and received his Sarjana-1 degree (equivalent to B.A.) at the Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Social-Economic Agriculture, University Syiah Kuala in 1991 where he was appointed as lecturer in 1993. In 1997 he graduated from a Magister (= Master) programme in Development Studies at the Institute of Agriculture Bogor (IPB) where in 2002 he completed a Ph.D. programme in the same field. In addition to his activities as a lecturer, he also frequently conducts research with a number of off-campus institutions. One of these research products is “Leuser in the perception of the local population” that was published by the Unit Manajemen Leuser, Medan. In 2005, due to his research contribution to the state-funded project “A study of Seuneubok as system of regional management on the basis of Adat” he was honoured as the best Indonesian researcher in the social and economic fields. Currently, he is also working with DAI/USAID on a project on “Community Based Recovery-Initiative”. Hasan Basri studied at the Muhammadiyah University in Surabaya, East Java (graduating in 1987), at the State Islamic Institute IAIN Ar-Raniry Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam (B.A. degree in 1990), and in a Master programme at the University of Leiden (graduated in 1997). He visited several European countries (the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany and Switzerland) as well as Saudi Arabia. Currently, he is Professor of Qur’anic Exegesis and Islamic Thought, Faculty of Islamic Education, at the State Islamic Institute IAIN Ar-Raniry Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, working at the same time on a Ph.D. dissertation at the State Islamic University (UIN) Jakarta and the State University Jakarta. His numerous publications on Qur’anic Exegesis include topics such as Islam and politics, mysticism (Sufism), Islamic approaches to science, and inter-religious studies. Bethany J. Collier is Assistant Professor in the Department of Music at Bucknell University (Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, USA). She holds her Ph.D. in Musicology from Cornell University (2007), where she was awarded the Donald Grout Memorial Prize for her dissertation “The ‘Chinese’ in Contemporary Balinese Performing Arts: Stories, Objects, and Representations”. In addition to her scholarly activities, she directs the Bucknell Gamelan Ensemble and is an active performing member of the New York City-based Gamelan Dharma Swara. Kenneth M. George (Ph.D. Michigan, 1989) is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and past editor of the Journal of Asian Studies (2005–08). Ken’s early ethnographic work in South Sulawesi, Indonesia (1982–92) culminated in his first book, Showing Signs of Violence: The Cultural Politics of a Twentieth Century Headhunting Ritual (California 1996), which was awarded the 1998 Harry J. Benda Prize in Southeast Asian Studies. Since 1994, he has been collaborating with Indonesian painter A. D. Pirous and other artists in exploring the predicaments and possibilities for Islamic visual culture in national and transnational art publics, a project detailed in his most recent book, Picturing Islam (2010). Arndt Graf (Ph.D. Hamburg, 1998; habilitation Hamburg, 2004) has been a Professor of Southeast Asian Studies at the Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany, since October 2009. Previously, he served as Associate Professor (January 2007–July 2009) and Professor (August–September 2009) of Malay and Comparative Literature at the School of Humanities, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang (Malaysia) and as Assistant Professor (1999–2005) and Adjunct Professor (2004–06) of Southeast Asian Studies and Austronesian Languages and Cultures at the University of Hamburg. His teaching experience includes visiting lectureship at Cornell University, USA (1998–99), and visiting professorships at the State Islamic University Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta, Indonesia (2004), and the Université de La Rochelle, France (2005–06). Arndt Graf’s publications mostly cover aspects of rhetoric, media, and political communication in insular Southeast Asia. Sher Banu A. L. Khan obtained her Ph.D. from Queen Mary, University of London and is now a Visiting Fellow at the Department of Malay Studies, xiv The Contributors National University of Singapore. Her thesis is on the Sultanahs of Aceh in the second half of the seventeenth century. Her other research interests are female leadership in the Malay world, the world of Aceh in the seventeenth century and the general history of Southeast Asia in the pre-modern era. As a TANAP researcher she also focuses on VOC interaction and activities in Aceh and West Coast Sumatra during this period. Her other interests are...