From: "Andrew Field" <shanghaidrew@GMAIL.COM>
To: <H-ASIA@H-NET.MSU.EDU>
Sent: Monday, February 07, 2011 7:08 AM
Subject: H-ASIA: Prof. Paul Willem Johan van der Veur (August 28, 1921 –
January 20, 2011)
H-ASIA
Feb 7 2011
Prof. Paul Willem Johan van der Veur (August 28, 1921 – January 20,
2011)
************************************
From: KOH KENG WE <lindgeist@yahoo.co.uk>
We are very sad to announce the passing of Prof. Paul W. J. van
der Veur in
Canton, Ohio, on January 20, 2011. He was 89. Prof. van der Veur was
one of
the key figures in the establishment and expansion of the Center for
Southeast
Asian Studies at Ohio University and the Southeast Asia Collection in
the Ohio
University Libraries. He also played an important role in the
development of the
Center as an important node in academic publishing on Southeast
Asia. His
early life was closely intertwined with the colonial history of
Indonesia and
the Second World War in Southeast Asia. One of the first cohorts in
the famous
Southeast Asia program in Cornell University, his teaching and
research career
took him across the world, from the United States, to Europe, and
Australia, in
addition to Southeast Asia. His work spanned political and social
science and
history. Some of his former colleagues and friends have drafted a short
biographical sketch below. These include Kent Mulliner, Lian The-
Mulliner,
Prof. Norman Parmer, Prof. Drew McDaniel, Prof. Ronald Burr, and Keng
We Koh.
Short Description of his career
Born in Medan, Sumatra, in the then Dutch East Indies, Prof. van
der Veur
moved with his family to Surabaya, Java, at a very young age. He grew
up there
and retained fond memories of the city. He received his early
education in the
Indies and the Netherlands, returning to the Indies just before the
Second World
War. He was transported to Japan and did forced labor in factories
there during
the War. After the War, he came to study in the United States. He
received his
bachelor's degree from Swarthmore, his master's from Minnesota, and
his PhD in
Political Science and Southeast Asia Studies from Cornell. His
dissertation was
on the Indonesian Eurasians. He taught in Yale, University of Hawaii
at Manoa,
Northern Illinois University, and finally, Ohio University, from which
he
retired. In-between, he took up a research fellowship with the
Australian
National University, where he researched and published on Irian Jaya and
Papua-New Guinea, including an edited volume (with David G. Bettison
and Colin
A. Hughes) on the 1964 Papua-New Guinea elections. His research on
Soetomo, a
prominent Indonesian nationalist, also took him to Airlangga
University in
Surabaya, Indonesia, in 1980 on a Fulbright fellowship. His research
and
teaching career spanned the United States, Europe, Australasia, and
Southeast
Asia.
Career at Ohio University
Prof. Paul van der Veur was the founder and first director of the
Southeast
Asian Studies program, in 1967. He served as Director of Southeast
Asian
Studies over several periods: 1967-1973, 1976-77, 1983-4, and 1988-90
and
directed the growth of the Center into a major resource center for
Southeast
Asian Studies in the United States by the mid-1970s (See Ileto 2003).
Together with Prof. J. Norman Parmer, the first Director of
International
Studies at Ohio University, Prof. John F. Cady and other faculty,
Prof. van der
Veur played an important role in building the Southeast Asian Studies
and
International Studies programs. They were crucial in expanding the
masters
program in the formative years of the Center. Many of these students
later went
on to establish academic careers in different parts of the world.
They also
increased the number of faculty in the different University
departments working
on Southeast Asia. No less importantly, Prof. van der Veur inaugurated
and
promoted the research monograph/paper series by the Center of
International
Studies/Southeast Asian Studies in the late 1960s, which significantly
raised
the profile of the Center within the United States, and
internationally, and
laid the foundations for the Center's development as a major
publishing center
in Southeast Asian Studies.
Prof. van der Veur and Lian The-Mulliner, the first Southeast
Asian Studies
Librarian in the Ohio University Libraries and later the first Curator
of
International Collections, were instrumental in building the Southeast
Asia
collection, almost from scratch. He remembered, how, when they
started work
in the University, an inventory check revealed that there were very
few books on
Southeast Asia in the library, and perhaps only six reputable journals
on Asia,
most of which were incomplete. As the first Director of the Center for
Southeast Asian Studies, he made the expansion of the collection an
important
component of the Center's own development, and worked to raise funds
for the
expansion of the collection.
By the time of his retirement from the University, and with the
contribution of other faculty and librarians, the Southeast Asia
Collection in
Ohio University Library had become one of major collections in the
country.
Prof. van der Veur has remained an important supporter of the library
after his
retirement, donating his collection of books and materials on
Southeast Asia,
which cover a wide range of topics on the region, over the years since
his
tenure at Ohio University. In 2008, he donated his papers and research
materials to the Ohio University Library, and these are now housed in
the
University Library Archives.
Nationally, he participated in the formation of the Southeast
Asian Council
(SEAC) and its predecessors within the Association for Asian Studies.
Reflecting his commitment to increasing awareness of research and
writings in
languages beyond English, he was instrumental in establishing the
Translations
Project Group of the Southeast Asia Council and arranged for the
publication of
the early fruits of its sponsorship.
Research and Publications
Prof. van der Veur published on a wide range of topics from
Eurasians in
Indonesia, the Freemasons in the Dutch East Indies, issues surrounding
Irian
Jaya and Papua-New Guinea in the 1960s, Dutch colonialism, Indonesian
nationalism, Education and Social Change, Race and Ethnic Studies, among
others. He was also rather unique in his many publications of
research and
bibliographical guides, in collaboration with Lian The-Mulliner.
These included
a pioneering bibliography of dissertations on Southeast Asia submitted
in the
United States through mid-1968 (Treasures and Trivia) and an annotated
inventory
of the articles in the Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap
(VBG)
1779-1950, the earliest Dutch journal on the Netherlands East Indies.
He was
co-author of the Area Handbook on Indonesia. He gave special
attention to
translating primary materials (such as the autobiography of early
nationalist,
Dr. Soetomo) and significant scholarship from Dutch into English.
Prof. van der Veur has continued to publish after his retirement,
completing a biography of E. F. E. Douwes Dekker, a prominent Eurasian
and
Indonesian nationalist from the Dutch East Indies, in 2006. At the
time of his
passing, he was working with Lian The-Mulliner on a translation of
L.W.C. van
den Berg's De Inlandsche Rangen en Titels op Java en Madoera. In 2007,
he
published "Van den Berg's Essay on Muslim Clergy and Ecclesiastical
Goods in
Java and Madura: A Translation" in Indonesia, 84:127-159. He continued
to visit
Ohio University Library in search of materials and references for
these later
publications, demonstrating how the partnerships and collections he
had built
during his academic career, continued to inspire and support his
research and
writing after his retirement.
In Memoriam
Prof. van der Veur's career epitomized the symbiotic
relationships between
librarians and faculty and between research, collection development,
and library
services that have been instrumental in the development of Southeast
Asian
Studies in the United States. He also played an important role in
bridging
different language traditions of scholarship on Southeast Asia between
Indonesian, Dutch, and English, just as his own research transcended
disciplinary boundaries. In many ways, his work and approach embodied
the
cross-cultural, inter-disciplinary, and inter-professional enterprise
that is
Southeast Asian Studies. His life and career also reflected the
experiences of
the first generation of students and scholars in Southeast Asian
Studies, and
the struggles in the early development of the field in the United
States.
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