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Adrian Vickers

Portrait of Adrian   Vickers

Adrian Vickers is an Australian author, historian and professor of Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Sydney specializing in Indonesian language and cultural history, in particular Gambuh dance traditions, Panji stories, Balinese art, as well as historiography, colonialism studies and contemporary Australian-Indonesian relations. 

As director of the Southeast Asian Studies program at Sydney University, Prof. Vickers conducts research on the cultural history of Southeast Asia — including transcultural written and oral traditions like the Panji tales, covered by a UNESCO transnational program since 2013 -, sources in Balinese, Kawi (Old and Middle Javanese) and Dutch languages, and specific topics such as the Cold War impact on the region or labour and industry in Southeast Asia. He has supervised more than 30 PhD theses to completion.

In 2020, he launched an online resource, The Virtual Museum of Balinese Painting, documenting the works of Balinese from the 19th century to present times, complete with an exhaustive bibliography.

Publications

  1. “A Balinese illustrated manuscript of the Siwaratrikalpa”, Bijdragen tot de Taal‑, Land- en Volkenkunde 138 (4), 1982: 443 – 469.
  2. “Ritual and representation in nineteenth-century Bali”, RIMA 18(1), 1984 : 1 – 35.
  3. “Commoner temple, commoner painters; The village temple and traditional Balinese painting”, in: J. Masselos (ed.), Popular art in Asia; The people as patrons, Sydney: Centre for Asian Studies, 1985, pp. 1 – 21. 
  4. The Desiring Prince; A Study of the Kidung Malat as Text (PhD thesis, 2 vol.). University of Sydney, 1986.
  5. Bali: A Paradise Created, Ringwood (Victoria): Penguin/​Singapore: Periplus, 1989. ISBN 978−1−4629−0008−4; repr. 2012.
  6. ‘Balinese Texts and Historiography’, History and Theory 29 – 2, 1990: 158 – 78.
  7. “Sights of Klungkung; Bali’s most illustrious kingdom”. In Eric Oey (ed.), Bali, Island of the Gods, Singapore: Periplus, 1990: 166 – 167.
  8. “Ritual written: The song of the ligya, or the killing of the rhinoceros”, in: H. Geertz (ed.), State and society in Bali; Historical, textual and anthropological approaches, KITLV, Verhandelingen 146, 1991, pp. 85 – 136. 
  9. Journeys of Desire: A Study of the Kidung Malat as text. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2005. ISBN 9789067181372.
  10. [with Arif B. Prasetyo & Slamat Trisila] Peradaban Pesisir: Menuju Sejarah Budaya Asia Tenggara [Coastal Civilisation: Towards a Cultural History of Southeast Asia], Denpasar: Pustaka Larasan/​Udayana University Press, 2009. ISBN 978−979−3790−35−0.
  11. A History of Modern Indonesia, Cambridge University Press, 2013. ISBN 978−1−139−44761−4.
  12. Balinese Art: Paintings and Drawings of Bali 1800 — 2010, Tokyo: Tuttle Pub, 2012. ISBN 978−1−4629−0998−8.
  13. [with Julia Martínez] The Pearl Frontier: Indonesian Labour and Indigenous Encounters in Australia’s Northern Trading Network, University of Hawaii Press, 2015. ISBN 978−0−8248−4002−0.
  14. ‘Majapahit and Panji Stories’, in Catrini Kubontubuh & Peter Carey (eds), Majapahit: Inspiration for the world, Jakarta: Arsari, 2014, pp. 47 – 66. ISBN: 978−602−70039−3−4.
  15. ‘Reconstructing the history of Panji performances in Southeast Asia’, Wacana 21 – 2, 2020: 268 – 284.
  16. “Visual Methods and the Study of Balinese Art Collections.” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 51 – 3, 2020: 321 – 42.