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Biography: Florida's work is particularly engaged with the self-conscious worldliness of Indonesian texts (lived, spoken, inscribed, remembered); that is the ways in which specific Indonesian subjects have produced texts over time as a means to effect changes in their various worlds. She is especially attracted to those texts and lives that had been overlooked in earlier, now "classic" studies on Javanese culture -- and she privileges readings that disturb or dis-orient the conventional picture of "Java" that the classic (that is colonial) canon has delineated. Florida's publications include three books and a number of articles. Her monograph Writing the Past, Inscribing the Future: History as Prophecy in Colonial Java (Duke University Press, 1995) comprises a literary translation and analysis of a remarkable historical prophecy composed in classical poetic meters by a nineteenth-century Javanese exile. The book, forming a critical study of the production, dissemination, and reception (as well as suppression) of writing in colonial and postcolonial Java. was awarded the Association of Asian Studies 1997 Harry J. Benda Prize for the best new book in the field of Southeast Asian studies. She is also producing a multi-volume descriptive study of Javanese manuscript literature in the old royal city of Surakarta. Her Javanese Literature in Surakarta Manuscripts. Vol. 1, Introduction and Manuscripts of the Karaton Surakarta (Cornell University SEAP, 1993) details some 1,450 titles in the 700 manuscript volumes of the senior Surakarta Sunanate. Volume 2 of the series (Cornell SEAP 2000) describes in detail some 2,750 titles in the 950 manuscript volumes of the Mangkunagaran Principality. Her current projects include a study of a satirical text composed in the nineteenth century by the poet laureate of the Surakarta court to critique his contemporary society, a study of memory and history among women and subaltern subjects associated with the Surakarta palaces, and the third volume of the manuscript series. Back to top Florida received her Ph.D. in Southeast Asian History from Cornell University in 1990, where she was also awarded the Lauriston Sharp Prize for her dissertation. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Social Science Research Council, Fulbright-Hays, Ford Foundation, Henry Luce Foundation, Jacob Javits Program, UM Institute for the Humanities and the UM Michigan Humanities Award. She was granted the royal title Kangjeng Mas Ayu Tumenggung Budayaningtyas (Her Ladyship the Golden High Minister in whose Heart Dwells Culture) by H.R.H. Sri Susuhunan Pakoeboewono XII, Ruler of the Karaton Surakarta, Surakarta, Central Java, Indonesia in 1999 and received the royal decoration of Sri Kabadyo III from the same palace in 1983. She has also received awards from the Mangkunagaran Palace and from Central Institute of Javanese Culture, both in Surakarta. She has directed a National Endowment of the Humanities Summer Institute of Southeast Asian Literatures in Translation (1992), served as Chair of the Southeast Asia Council of the Association of Asian Studies (1999-2000) and on the Executive Committee of Rackham Graduate School (1997-2000). She is currently co-directing a collaborative Historical Memories workshop in which the CSEAS and a group of Indonesian scholars have joined to build a network of socially-conscious scholars (inside and outside Indonesia) working together on forgotten, ignored, or erased Indonesian pasts. The center is committed to promoting a broader and deeper understanding of Southeast Asia and its peoples, cultures, and historiesby providing resources for faculty, students and the community to learn and disseminate knowledge about the region.
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