MA STUDENTS: 2005 - 2006

Incoming MAs

Adam Mele is a Connecticut native and is a recent graduate of the University of Toronto, where he received a BA in Anthropology with a minor in Classics. His undergraduate study focused on issues of identity in Southeast Asia, and his written work included research essays on relations between lowland and highland groups in Sarawak, and on P.T. Barnum as an impresario of orientalist spectacle, both through the shows he organized and on the residence (“Iranistan”) he built. Adam’s primary area of interest in pursuing his MA will be on issues of ethnicity, nationalism and other forms of social identity in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. He spent this past summer getting a head start on his Indonesian at SEASSI. Coming from Toronto, he’ll be one of our few students to move to Ann Arbor for its warm climate.

Jack Merchant will come to U-M to study rural development in Vietnam, and how it has been shaped by culture and politics. After completing a B.A. in International Relations and Development at the University of Washington in Seattle, Jack taught elementary and middle school Spanish for two years before heading off to Vietnam for three years. While there, he held two positions at An Giang University, as a researcher in the Social Science and Humanities Research Center, and as a lecturer in American Studies and English. In particular, he taught English at the university and then carried out research on educational methods and levels across An Giang province in Southern Vietnam.

Hoang Ngo was born in Ho Chi Minh City and grew up there until the age of 15 when his family emigrated to Sacramento, California. After failing his first English class in an American high school, Hoang realized that understanding both language and culture was a critical skill to success, like Hemingway said, "Language is the tip of the iceberg; culture is the rest of it submerged in the water." Since then, he's developed a complete fluency, both linguistic and cultural in American English, allowing him to study both the tip and the submerged mass in the United States and Vietnam. After completing an engineering degree at UC Davis, Hoang returned to Vietnam to teach English at a branch of Vietnam National College of Education in Ho Chi Minh City, where he set about re-connecting, and at times clashing, with his young students as he sought to understand their interests and worldview. He combined this with serious readings in Vietnamese literature, which will form the center of his course of study, examining modern Vietnam: culturally, historically and politically.

Kate Skillman has spent the last three years on and off in Central Java. Traveling to Yogyakarta on a Shansi Memorial Scholarship from Oberlin College, her alma mater, Kate spent two years having her program cancelled and re-instated with each wave of bombings in Indonesia. Eventually, showing the grit she must have developed as President of Oberlin’s Rugby Football Club, she chucked the scholarship and stayed at Gadjah Mada University on her own, teaching as a lecturer in several departments, and serving as a translator. Kate is interested in Indonesian colonial and post-colonial history, and particularly also in language. (Besides her fluent Indonesian, she’s been studying Javanese and Arabic, to add to her Spanish, Italian and French.) She hopes to use her studies to work in public diplomacy and in fostering better understanding between Indonesia, Southeast Asia and the United States.

Mira Yusef will pursue two degrees at Michigan, an MA in Southeast Asian Studies and a Masters of Social Work. Born in Pampanga Province in Luzon in the Philippines, Mira is a Filipina-American, a Muslim, a women’s rights and domestic violence activist, a wife, mother and step-mother, and a graduate of Drake University. Already a native speaker of Tagalog and Pampango, Mira will study Indonesian at Michigan, as part of her plans to expand her research on Southeast Asian Muslim women employed as domestic workers in the Middle East, a project she began looking at Filipina Muslim women in this situation last year on a Fulbright scholarship in the Philippines.

Returning MAs

Saul Allen was born in Missouri, and since leaving is yet to return. After a peripatetic childhood, Saul took his undergraduate degree in the burgeoning field of "Interdisciplinary Studies." During that period he experienced a renewed interest in Southeast Asia, especially Indonesia, where he had spent a few years along with his family. At present he seeks to enhance his understanding and appreciation of the country through, among other avenues, the study of its contemporary literatures. Ideally he will continue on to PhD studies in Comparative Literature. Saul is not known for being as witty as Mya.

Shawn Callanan spent part of the summer in Yogyakarta, studying Javanese and gamelan, and trying not to insult people by speaking to them in an inappropriate language level. He is interested in, among other things, Indonesian literature, especially pre-Independence literature and oral literature. He is looking forward to continuing his participation in the University of Michigan gamelan, and is hoping for a better result at the upcoming annual performance than he obtained last year when, through trickery, his Kurawas lost the great Bharatayuda war and he was, unfortunately, disemboweled. [I’m sure we have a picture of him being disemboweled!]

Mya Gosling is a faculty brat. She has, however, come to terms with this particular debilitating handicap and is attempting to carve out her own niche in the crowded field of Southeast Asian Studies. A sucker for tales of action and adventure, she is currently studying the popularization of the Ramayana in contemporary Southeast Asia, an absolutely fascinating topic that allows her to read comic books as part of her "research". When not embroiled in frivolous academic pursuits, she can be found studying Thai language, playing the kethuk in the University of Michigan gamelan ensemble, and indulging her inner geek with various pop-culture acronyms such as LOTR, HP, and SW. However, she has been in school for almost twenty years straight, and is looking forward to taking a long break before she even begins contemplating the terrifying acronym PhD.

Brendan Kavaney, a native of Minnesota, found his way to Thailand in 1997 as an exchange student. He enjoyed the experience so much that he decided to stay until 2004. As his interest and understanding of the region grew he thought it was to time to supplement this life experience with a three year academic hiatus in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In addition to his Master’s degree Brendan is also studying for his MBA. He hopes the MA/MBA combination will allow him to return to Southeast Asia following graduation as a well-rounded, well-educated, culturally sensitive and, most importantly, highly employable Michigan graduate.

Shad Kidd is entering his final year of a joint JD/MA program and plans on writing his thesis on how governmental legitimacy is affected by the rights governments claim to enforce and their ability to do so. Most of Shad's free time is spent with his remarkable wife, Heather, and their two children, Justice and Felicity. He spent two years in Thailand as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and speaks, reads, and writes Thai.

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