Kenneth M. George

Position title: Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at UW-Madison, and Professor of Anthropology in the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University

Email: kmgeorge@wisc.edu

Photograph of Ken George

Links

Kenneth M. George Curriculum Vitae

Research

Ken George is a specialist on the cultural politics of religion, art, and language in Southeast Asia. He is currently Professor of Anthropology in the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University, having served previously at UW-Madison (1999-2013), Harvard University (1990-1996), and as Editor of the Journal of Asian Studies (2005-2008). He has also held teaching positions at the University of Oregon, Tulane, and the University of South Carolina. His ethnographic and art historical research in Southeast Asia has been supported by fellowships from the Social Science Research Council, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. His books include the prize-winning Showing Signs of Violence: The Cultural Politics of a Twentieth Century Headhunting Ritual (1996); Spirited Politics: Religion and Public Life in Contemporary Southeast Asia (2005, co-edited with Andrew Willford); and Picturing Islam: Art and Ethics in a Muslim Lifeworld (2010). His current research (with Kirin Narayan) explores the intermingling of religion, artisanship, and infrastructure in South and Southeast Asia. Together they hold a multi-year Australian Research Council Discovery Award for their fieldwork in India.

Recent Publications

2016     “No Ethics without Things.” Journal of Religious Ethics 44(1):51-67 (Special issue on “Visual Ethics”)

2014     “Ethics, Iconoclasm, and Qur’anic Art  in Indonesia.” In Cultural Anthropology: Curated Collection 19 – Everyday Islam, edited by Kathryn Zyskowski. http://www.culanth.org/curated_collections/19-everyday-islam

2014     “Interview with Kenneth George about ‘Ethics, Iconoclasm, and Qur’anic Art  in Indonesia.’” In Cultural Anthropology: Curated Collection 19 – Everyday Islam, edited by Kathryn Zyskowski. http://www.culanth.org/curated_collections/19-everyday-islam

2014     “Putting the Quirks and Murk to Work: Disciplinary Reflections on ‘The State of Indonesian Studies.’”  In Producing Indonesia: The State of the Field of Indonesian Studies, edited by Eric Tagliacozzo, pp. 33-46 (Ithaca: Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2014).

2012     “Lifewriting and the Making of Companionable Objects: Reflections on Sunaryo’s Titik Nadir.” In Locating Life Stories: Beyond East-West Binaries in (Auto)Biographical Studies, edited by Maureen Perkins, pp. 35-54.  Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.

2012     “The Cultural Politics of Modern and Contemporary Islamic Art in Southeast Asia.” In Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Art: An Anthology, edited by Nora A. Taylor and Boreth Ly, pp. 53-68. SEAP, Cornell.

2010     Picturing Islam: Art and Ethics in a Muslim Lifeworld.  Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.