JOHNSON, IRVING

Current Duties:

Deputy Head
Chair, Alumni Relations
Advisor, Student Society

Specialisations:

Borderland identities and histories
Buddhism and popular religion in Thailand and Malaysia
Movement and Mobility along the Malaysian- Thai frontier
Southeast Asian material and performing arts (Bali, Thailand and Malaysia)

Irving Johnson has had a long standing interest in Southeast Asia, particularly in the areas of art, traditional performance and borderland identities. Growing up listening to stories of corpse chin oil, violent deaths and magic from his Kelantanese Thai mother and grandfather, Irving decided to explore the role of dance and magic in a small Thai village in Kelantan as part of his undergraduate (Honours) research at the Southeast Asian Studies Programme, NUS. Returning to Kelantan annually to visit family and friends, Irving's interest in the small Buddhist community soon developed from one of that revolved around things that go bump in the night, to issues of cultural identity. Irving received his PhD in Social Anthropology from Harvard University in 2004 where he worked on issues of marginality, borders, movements and history in Kelantan's northern frontier. Irving has continued to pursue his passion in traditional art and theatre in the region, in particularly, Kelantan, Thailand and Bali. He has studies Balinese masked dance (topeng), classical Thai dance and is an accomplished Thai mural painter. When he is not teaching classes or eating dried fish, Irving enjoys painting old-school (Rama III) type Thai pictures and performing southern Thai shadow puppetry.

Brief Introduction Teaching Areas Current Research Research Interests Publications

Brief Introduction

I am a social anthropologist having graduated from Harvard University in 2004. I had completed my undergraduate education at the then Southeast Asian Studies Programme (SEASP)(prior to it becoming a Department) in 1996. My years at the SEASP were amazing and it culminated with me writing an Honour's Thesis on the Kelantanese Thai Nuuraa - a love magician extraordinaire and his cultural identity in Malaysia. My interest in Kelantan's Thai community saw me through graduate school where I focused on anthropological concerns with borders, encountering and multiple histories in the forging of Thai ethnicity in Malaysia. When not teaching or doing research, I enjoy painting traditional Thai murals and doing Balinese masked dance.

Teaching Areas

Current Research

My first book, The Buddha on Mecca's Verandah was published in 2012. I continue my research on the cultural identity and fascinating history of Kelantan's Thai population. My most recent stirrings have been on looking at Thai artists in the state and how they learn and interpret their art. This is a new way of thinking about art and anthropology. I am particularly interested in researching how anthropologists who are also artists conceptualize their work. This stems from my own dual social identity as academic but also temple painter. Linked to this is my interest on thinking about cultural pedadogy in Bali. How do Balinese 'teach' dance and how does this shape the way their imagine their cultural worlds. Fascinating stuff. my most recent (2019) project is a study of masks in Bali through focussing on the narratives Balinese tell of their masks.

Research Interests

Publications