Benedict Anderson, Comparatively Speaking: On Area Studies, Theory, and "Gentlemanly" Polemics

Benedict Richard O'Gorman Anderson, the Aaron L. Binenkorb Professor Emeritus of International Studies, Government, and Asian Studies at Cornell University and a member of the International Editorial Advisory Board of Philippine Studies, is one of the world's most influential thinkers. Born in Kunming, China, on 26 August 1936, Anderson's father was an official in the Imperial Maritime Customs in China and a Sinophile. An Irish citizen, Anderson grew up in California and Ireland before attending Cambridge University, where he graduated with a First Class degree in Classics in 1957. In Cambridge his interest in Asian politics was stirred. He moved to Cornell University in 1958 to pursue doctoral studies under the supervision of George Kahin.

In response to the 1965 coup in Indonesia, and contrary to the official version of events, Anderson cowrote with fellow graduate students Ruth T. McVey and Frederick P. Bunnell an analysis that identified "discontented army officers," rather than communists, as responsible for the "failed" coup. The military regime tried to talk Anderson into seeing his errors, but it did not succeed. Then known as the "Cornell Paper," A Preliminary Analysis of the October 1, 1965 Coup in Indonesia was published in 1971. It undermined Suharto's claim to legitimacy and, for close to three decades, Anderson was barred from entering Indonesia until Suharto's fall from power in May 1998.

In 1967 Anderson completed his PhD thesis entitled "The Pemuda Revolution: Indonesian Politics, 1945-1946," subsequently published in 1972 as Java in a Time of Revolution: Occupation and Resistance, 1944-1946. He taught in the Department of Government at Cornell University until retirement in 2002. He was director of Cornell's Southeast Asian Program from 1983 to 1989. His celebrated Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism appeared in 1983, and was revised and expanded in 1991. Translations in about thirty languages now exist. Anvil published a Philippine edition in 2003.

At Cornell many students from the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries had the great opportunity to have Ben Anderson (BA) as teacher, adviser, and friend. After he very kindly agreed to this journal's invitation to an interview via email, some of his former students—Filomeno Aguilar Jr. (FA), Caroline Sy Hau (CH), Vicente Rafael (VR), and Teresa Encarnacion Tadem (TT)—put together a set of questions that was sent to him on 23 November 2010. His replies came back on 20 December 2010.

Professor Anderson emphasizes that some of the points discussed here were taken from his previous publications: the introduction to In the Mirror: Literature and Politics in Siam in the American Era (Bangkok: Editions Duang Kamol, 1985); the autobiographical material at the start of The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia, and the World (London: Verso, 1998); and the Japanese-language intellectual autobiography Yashigara-wan no Sotohe (Out from Under the Coconut Half-shell) (Tokyo: NTT Publishing, 2009).

Area Studies, Single-Country Cases

FA:

Is it correct to say that "area studies" has fallen out of fashion in the United States? What are the conditions that will allow area studies to flourish anew in the United States? To what extent have the fortunes of area studies in the U.S. affected area studies in Asia? Is there a continuing value to area studies such that universities in Asia should not abandon it?

BA:

I think it hard to generalize for two reasons. The first is the problem of audiences. On the one hand there is the audience of professionals in the same disciplines in English-speaking universities; on the other is the audience of bureaucrats, journalists, intelligent common readers. In the first, prestige is assigned to "theory," disciplinary theory, while in the second readability, minimum jargon and theory, and good basic research are primary. So far as I know U.S. national state support for area studies hasn't markedly declined. The bureaucrats know that today's theory is gone in four years' time, and they can't be bothered with impenetrable prose, mathematical calculations, and the like. The second reason...