Deborah Cole

Debbie Cole learned Bahasa Indonesia from children in her neighborhood in Jakarta between 1976-1984. From her many Australian classmates in elementary school, she learned how to speak some ‘Strine’ and enjoy vegemite and butter sandwiches. As a graduate student, she studied public performances of Indonesian poetry in Jogjakarta, Central Java during Indonesia’s Reformasi period in 2001-2002. Some of what she learned about attitudes towards difference and diversity through that research appeared in an article ‘Enregistering diversity: Adequation in Indonesian poetry performance’ in the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology in 2010. Currently, she is an associate professor of linguistics in the Department of English at the University of Texas-Pan American (situated along the border between Mexico and the United States) where she occasionally serves on thesis committees for poetry students in a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program. Along with John McGlynn and Dorothea Rosa Herliany, she is a member of the editorial team for the Lontar Anthology of Indonesian Poetry.