Professor James J. Fox was educated at Harvard (AB '62) and Oxford (B Litt. '65, DPhil. '68) where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He has taught at various American Universities: Harvard, Cornell, Duke and Chicago and at various European Universities: Leiden, Bielefeld and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. He is a Foreign Fellow of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia.

Professor Fox's area of primary interest is Indonesia, with special focus on Java and eastern Indonesia. He has carried out considerable research in Timor, most recently in East Timor. More generally, his interests are in comparative issues affecting the whole of the Asia Pacific region.

Research interests/expertise

History and anthropology of Indonesia and East Timor; rural development and resource management; study of social organisation and symbolic systems; linguistic anthropology; comparative Austronesian ethnology.

Key publications

• Harvest of the Palm: Ecological Change in Eastern Indonesia, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1977.
• The Flow of Life: Essays on Eastern Indonesia, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1980.
• To Speak in Pairs: Essays on the Ritual Languages of Eastern Indonesia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1988.
• The Poetic Power of Place: Comparative Perspectives on Austronesian Ideas of Locality, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Canberra, 1997.
• Religion and Ritual, Indonesian Heritage Encyclopedia, Vol.9, Archipelago Press, Singapore, 1988.
• (ed. with Dionisio Babo Soares) Out of the Ashes: Destruction and Reconstruction of East Timor, Crawford House, Australia, and C.Hurst & Co. (Publishers), UK, 2000. New Edition: (ANU E-Press), 2003
• (ed with H. da Costa, C. Piggin and C. J. da Cruz) Agriculture: New Directions for a New Nation, East Timor (Timor Leste). Canberra: ACIAR, 2003

Career highlights

• Professorial Fellow/Professor, Australian National University (1975-present)
• Jensen Memorial Lecturer, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt (2007)
• Visiting Professor, Australian Chair, Harvard University (2006-07)
• Distinguished Visiting Professor, National University of Singapore (2001)
• Director, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, ANU (1998-2006)
• Distinguished Visiting Professor, National University of Singapore (2001)
• Senior Visiting Fellow, International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden (1996)
• Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore (1993)
• Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, Wassenaar (1977-78)
• Fellow, Centre for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford (1971-72)
• École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (1986); Chicago (1986-87); Leiden (1988)
• Visiting Professor, Nusa Cendana, Kupang (1972-73); Duke (1968-69); Cornell (1969); Bielefeld (1981)
• Assistant/Associate Professor, Harvard University (1969-75)
  

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