Hendrik Maier

Hendrik Maier is a professor specializing in the Literature of Southeast Asia and Indonesia, with a Ph.D. in Indonesian from Leiden University (1985).

He received traditional training in philology and textual criticism of the languages of Indonesia at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, where he held the chair of Malay and Indonesian Language and Literature before moving to UC Riverside in 2003. His major interests remain the same: the languages, literatures, and Indonesian literature within broader socio-political and cultural interactions in Southeast Asia. He has published widely on Malay writing/literature and history and combines his scholarly pursuits with translating modern and older Malay texts. His secondary interests include so-called “colonial literature” and the history of printed materials in Southeast Asia.

Professor Maier is the Director of SEATRiP, the interdisciplinary Southeast Asian Studies Program at UCR, which focuses on Text, Ritual, and Performance to develop new forms of engagement with Southeast Asia and its diasporas. He is currently working on a book about the emergence of the concept of literature in Southeast Asia, with particular attention to Indonesian literature.

Some of his major publications include In the Center of Authority – the Malay Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa (Cornell UP, 1988) and We are Playing Relatives – a Survey of Malay Writing (Leiden, 2004). He has also published numerous articles in leading journals such as Indonesia and Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde.¹

1. UC, Riverside ↩