Geoffrey Robinson
Professor Emeritus
Robinson earned his BA at McGill and his PhD at Cornell, where he was a student of Benedict Anderson and George Kahin. Before coming to UCLA, he worked for six years at Amnesty International’s Research Department in London, and in 1999 he served as a Political Affairs Officer with the United Nations in East Timor. His major works include: The Dark Side of Paradise: Political Violence in Bali (Cornell, 1995); East Timor 1999: Crimes against Humanity (Elsham & Hak, 2006); “If You Leave Us Here, We Will Die”: How Genocide Was Stopped in East Timor (Princeton, 2010); and most recently, The Killing Season: A History of the Indonesian Massacres, 1965-66 (Princeton, 2018). His current projects include a co-authored visual history of the mass violence of 1965-66 in Indonesia, and a study of the “Swedish Connection” to that violence.
Degrees
Ph.D Cornell University, 1992
MA. University of British Columbia, 1982
BA. McGill University, 1978
Awards
Society for Militarty HIstory, Distinguished Book Award 2020
Raphael Lemkin Book Award, the Institute for the Study of Genocide 2019
Isaac Manasseh Meyer Fellowship Award, National University of Singapore 2018
UC Pacific Rim Research Program, Faculty Initiative Grant 2013-15
British Library Endangered Archives Programme, Major Research Award 2005-08
ACLS/NEH/SSRC, International Area Studies Fellowship 2002-03
UCLA Senate Research Grant 1998-99, 1999-2000, 2001-02, 2002-03, 2007-08
Isaak Walton Killam Postdoctoral Fellowship 1995-96
SSHRC Canada Doctoral Fellowship Award 1983-87
Allan Oliver Gold Medal for Economics and Political Science, McGill University 1978
MacKenzie Award for Canadian History and Politics, McGill University 1977
Grants
Isaac Manasseh Meyer Fellowship Award, National University of Singapore 2018
UC Pacific Rim Research Program, Faculty Initiative Grant 2013-15
British Library Endangered Archives Programme, Major Research Award 2005-08
ACLS/NEH/SSRC, International Area Studies Fellowship 2002-03
UCLA Senate Research Grant 1998-99, 1999-2000, 2001-02, 2002-03, 2007-08
Selected Publications
Books & Monographs
The Killing Season: A History of the Indonesian Massacres, 1965-66 (Princeton, 2018)
Musim Menjagal: Sejarah Pembunuhan Massal di Indonesia, 1965-66. (Jakarta: Komunitas Bambu, 2018).
1965 Today: Living with the Indonesian Massacres, eds. Martijn Eickhoff, Gerry van Klinken and Geoffrey Robinson, Special Issue, Journal of Genocide Research, Vol 19, 3 (2017).
'If You Leave Us Here, We Will Die': How Genocide Was Stopped in East Timor. (Princeton, 2009).
East Timor 1999: Crimes Against Humanity. Report commissioned by the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. (Jakarta & Dili: HAK Association & Institute for Policy Research and Advocacy, 2006).
Timor Timur 1999: Kejahatan Terhadap Umat Manusia. Sebuak laporan yang dibuat berdasarkan permintaan Kantor Komisaris Tinggi Hak Asasi Manusia Perserikatan Bangsa-Bangsa. (Jakarta & Dili: Perkumpulan HAK & Lembaga Studi dan Advokasi Masyarakat (ELSAM), 2006).
Kudeta Angkatan Darat: Peran Amerika Membangun Rejim Suharto [The Army Coup: America’s Role in Creating the Suharto Regime]. (Jakarta: Teplok Press, 2000).
The Dark Side of Paradise: Political Violence in Bali. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995).
Indonesia and East Timor: Power and Impunity - Human Rights Under the New Order. (London: Amnesty International, 1994).
Philippines: The Killing Goes On. (London: Amnesty International,1992).
Selected Articles & Reports
“Half a Century of Genocide and Extermination: Indonesia, 1965-66, East Timor, 1975-99, and West Papua, 1963-2020,” in Ben Kiernan, Wendy Lower, Norman Naimark, and Scott Straus, eds. The Cambridge World History of Genocide. Volume III, Genocide in the Contemporary Era, 1914-2020. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (forthcoming, 2020).
“A Time to Kill: The Anti-Communist Violence in Indonesia, 1965-66,” in Eve Zucker and Benjamin Kiernan, eds. Mass Violence in Southeast Asia Since 1945. New Haven: Yale University Southeast Asia Monograph Series (forthcoming, 2020).
“Fake News: Psy-war and Propaganda in the Indonesian Genocide of 1965-66.” The Historian, No. 142, Special Issue on Hidden Histories (Summer, 2019) pp. 18-23.
“Debate – The Killing Season: A History of the Indonesian Massacres, 1965-66.” Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde, Vol. 175 (2019), pp. 341-356.
“Derailing Justice: The Logic of Serial Human Rights Investigations in East Timor.” In Jens Meierhenrich, ed. Intervention by Other Means: The Law and Practices of International Commissions of Inquiry. Oxford: Oxford University Press, (forthcoming, 2019).
“‘Down to the Very Roots’ – The Indonesian Army’s Role in the Mass Killings of 1965-66.” In 1965 Today: Living with the Indonesian Massacres, eds. Martijn Eickhoff, Gerry van Klinken and Geoffrey Robinson, eds. Special Issue, Journal of Genocide Research, Vol 19, 3 (2017).
“Introduction,” 1965 Today: Living with the Indonesian Massacres, eds. Martijn Eickhoff, Gerry van Klinken and Geoffrey Robinson, eds. Special Issue, Journal of Genocide Research, Vol 19, 3 (2017).
“East Timor: Legacies of Violence.” In David Webster, ed., Flowers in the Wall: Truth & Reconciliation in Timor-Leste, Indonesia and Melanesia, Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 2017.
Review of Anja Jetschke. Human Rights and State Security: Indonesia and the Philippines. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011. In South East Asia Research, 23, 3 (Fall 2015).
“Break the Rules, Save the Records: Human Rights Archives and the Search for Justice in East Timor.” Archival Science, Special Issue, The Antonym of Forgetting, Vol. 14, No. 2 (August 2014) pp. 323-343.
“Human Rights History from the Ground Up: The Case of East Timor.” In Steve J. Stern and Scott Straus, eds. The Human Rights Paradox: Universality and Its Discontents. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2014, pp. 31-60.
“East Timor Ten Years On: Legacies of Violence.” Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 70, No.4 (November 2011), pp. 1-15.
“East Timor: Legacies of Occupation and Violence.” Canadian Council on Southeast Asian Studies’ Newsletter, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Fall 2010), pp. 11-14.
“Mass Violence in Southeast Asia.” In Itty Abraham, Meredith Weiss, and Edward Newman, eds. Political Violence in South and Southeast Asia. Tokyo and New York: United Nations University Press & International Peace Academy, 2010, pp. 69-90.
“State-Sponsored Violence and Secessionist Rebellions in Asia.” In Donald Bloxham and A. Dirk Moses eds. The Oxford Handbook of Genocide Studies. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, pp. 466-88.
“People Power: A Comparative History of Forced Displacement in East Timor,” in Eva Lotta Hedman, ed. Conflict, Violence and Displacement in Indonesia: Dynamics, Patterns, and Experience. Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2008, pp. 87-118.
“Colonial Militias in East Timor,” in Karl Hack and Rettig Tobias, eds. Colonial Armies in Southeast Asia: The Armed Leviathan. London: Routledge, 2006, pp. 269-301.
“If You Leave Us Here, We Will Die,” in Mills and Brunner, eds. The New Killing Fields: Massacre and the Politics of Intervention. New York: Perseus Books, 2002, pp. 159-184.
“The Fruitless Search for a Smoking Gun: Tracing the Origins of Violence in East Timor,” in Freek Colombijn and Thomas Lindblad, eds. Roots of Violence in Indonesia: Contemporary Violence in Historical Perspective. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2002, pp. 243-276.
“People’s War: Militias in East Timor and Indonesia.” South East Asia Research, School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. 9, No. 3 (November 2001), pp. 271-318
“Rawan is as Rawan Does: The Origins of Disorder in New Order Aceh.” In Benedict Anderson, ed. Violence and the State in Suharto’s Indonesia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2001, pp. 213-242.
“Indonesia– On a New Course?” In Muthiah Alagappa, ed. Coercion and Governance: The
Declining Political Role of the Military in Asia. Stanford University Press,
2001, pp.226-256.
“Violence in an Era of Reform.” Indonesia, 70 (October 2000).
“With UNAMET in East Timor – An Historian’s Personal View.” Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, Special Issue on East Timor, February, 2000.
“Learning the Art of Dying: The Origins and Limits of Non-Violence in Burma and East Timor.” In Katrin Goldstein Kyaga, ed. Non-Violence in Asia. Stockholm: Center for Pacific Asia Studies, 1999.
"Human Rights in Southeast Asia: Rhetoric and Reality." In David Wurfel and Bruce Burton, eds. Southeast Asia in the New World Order. London: St. Martin's Press, 1996.
"The Post-Coup Massacre in Bali." In Daniel S. Lev and Ruth McVey, eds., Making Indonesia: Essays on Modern Indonesia. Ithaca: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 1996.
“Shock Therapy: Restoring Order in Aceh, 1989-1993.” London: Amnesty International, 1993.
"Philippines: ‘Disappearances’ in the Context of Counterinsurgency." London: Amnesty International, 1991.
Graduate Students
Graduated Placement
Nhung Tuyet Tran (History)* Associate Professor, University of Toronto
Jessica Elkind (History)* Associate Professor, San Francisco State University
Christina Firpo (History)* Associate Professor, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
Awet Weldemichael (History)* Associate Professor, Queen’s University, Canada
Laura Gifford (History) Scholar in Residence, George Fox University
Robert Sierakowski (History) Assistant Professor, University of the West Indies-Mona
Rajashree Mazumder (History) Assistant Professor, Union College, Schenectady, NY
Terenjit Sevea (History) Assistant Professor, University of Pennsylvania
Christopher Bray (History) Visiting Professor, Pitzer College
Steve Rodriguez (History) Lecturer, Pasadena City College
Melvin Lebe (History)* Ph.D awarded 2012 (retired)
Dahlia Setiyawan (History)* Teacher/Head of History, Windward School, Los Angeles
Pearlie Baluyut (Art History) Assistant Professor, Cal State San Bernardino
Lene Pederson (Anthropology, USC) Associate Professor, Central Washington University
Jennifer Esperanza (Anthropology) Associate Professor, Beloit College
Brent Luvaas (Anthropology) Assistant Professor, Drexel University
Brian Bernards (Asian Lang. and Cultures) Assistant Professor, University of Southern California
Rebekah Park (Anthropology) Applied Anthropologist, ReD Associates, New York
Kimberly Clair (Women’s Studies) Lecturer, UCLA and UC Riverside
Marie Berry (Sociology) Assistant Professor, University of Denver
Julie Romain (Art History) Assistant Curator for South Asia, LACMA (deceased)
Gustav Brown (Sociology) Postdoctoral Fellow, National University of Singapore
Nicole Iturriaga (Sociology) Postdoctoral Fellow, Max Planck Institute, Germany
Saskia Nauenberg (Sociology) Humanities Research Program Manager, UC Santa Cruz
Amy Rothschild (Anthropology, UCSD) Assistant Professor, Ithaca College, NY
Current Progress to Degree
Caty Husbands (History)* ABD/Teaching Fellow, Noel Community Arts School
Otto Stuparitz (Ethnomusicology) ABD
*Chair or Co-chair of Doctoral Committee
Previous Courses by Term
History of Southeast Asia: Southeast Asia since 1815
Variable Topics Historiography Proseminar: Southeast Asia
Introduction to Historical Practice: Variable Topics in Southeast Asian History
History of Southeast Asia to 1815
History of Southeast Asia: Southeast Asia since 1815
Capstone Seminar: History--Southeast Asia
Introduction to Historical Practice: Variable Topics in Southeast Asian History
History of Southeast Asia to 1815
History of Southeast Asia: Southeast Asia since 1815
Capstone Seminar: History -- Southeast Asia
Topics in History: Southeast Asia
Capstone Seminar: History -- Southeast Asia
History of Southeast Asia: Early History of Southeast Asia
History of Southeast Asia: Southeast Asia since 1815
Capstone Seminar: History -- Southeast Asia
Topics in History: Southeast Asia
Capstone Seminar: History -- Southeast Asia
Topics in History: Southeast Asia
History of Southeast Asia: Southeast Asia since 1815
Topics in History: Southeast Asia
History of Southeast Asia: Early History of Southeast Asia
History of Southeast Asia: Southeast Asia since 1815
Topics in History: Southeast Asia
Critical Perspectives on Trauma, Gender, and Power
Topics in History: Southeast Asia
History of Southeast Asia: Early History of Southeast Asia
History of Southeast Asia: Southeast Asia since 1815
Topics in History: Southeast Asia
Topics in History: Southeast Asia
History of Southeast Asia: Southeast Asia since 1815
History of Southeast Asia: Early History of Southeast Asia
History of Southeast Asia: Southeast Asia since 1815
Topics in History: Southeast Asia
History of Southeast Asia: Early History of Southeast Asia
Topics in History: Southeast Asia
Undergraduate Variable Topics Seminars: Southeast Asia
History of Southeast Asia: Southeast Asia since 1815
History of Southeast Asia: Early History of Southeast Asia
Undergraduate Seminar: Southeast Asia
Topics in History: Southeast Asia
History of Southeast Asia: Southeast Asia since 1815
History of Southeast Asia: Southeast Asia since 1815
History of Southeast Asia: Early History of Southeast Asia
Undergraduate Seminar
Perspectives on September 11
History of Southeast Asia: Southeast Asia since 1815
History of Southeast Asia: Early History of Southeast Asia
History of Southeast Asia: Southeast Asia since 1815
Undergraduate Seminar
History of Southeast Asia: Early History of Southeast Asia
Undergraduate Seminar
Undergraduate Seminar
History of Southeast Asia: Southeast Asia since 1815
Previous Courses by Course
History of Southeast Asia: Southeast Asia since 1815
2019 Spring Quarter
2018 Spring Quarter
2017 Spring Quarter
2016 Spring Quarter
2013 Spring Quarter
2012 Spring Quarter
2010 Spring Quarter
2009 Winter Quarter
2007 Spring Quarter
2005 Winter Quarter
Variable Topics Historiography Proseminar: Southeast Asia
2019 Spring Quarter
Introduction to Historical Practice: Variable Topics in Southeast Asian History
2019 Winter Quarter
2018 Winter Quarter
History of Southeast Asia to 1815
2019 Winter Quarter
2018 Winter Quarter
Capstone Seminar: History--Southeast Asia
2018 Spring Quarter
Capstone Seminar: History -- Southeast Asia
2017 Spring Quarter
2017 Winter Quarter
2016 Spring Quarter
2014 Fall Quarter
Topics in History: Southeast Asia
2017 Spring Quarter
2016 Spring Quarter
2014 Fall Quarter
2013 Spring Quarter
2012 Winter Quarter
2011 Spring Quarter
2010 Spring Quarter
2009 Spring Quarter
2007 Spring Quarter
2005 Fall Quarter
2004 Spring Quarter
History of Southeast Asia: Early History of Southeast Asia
2016 Fall Quarter
2013 Winter Quarter
2011 Winter Quarter
2008 Winter Quarter
2007 Winter Quarter
2004 Fall Quarter
Critical Perspectives on Trauma, Gender, and Power
2012 Winter Quarter
Undergraduate Variable Topics Seminars: Southeast Asia
2005 Spring Quarter
Undergraduate Seminar: Southeast Asia
2004 Spring Quarter
History of Southeast Asia: Southeast Asia since 1815
2004 Winter Quarter
2002 Spring Quarter
2001 Spring Quarter
2000 Spring Quarter
1999 Winter Quarter
History of Southeast Asia: Early History of Southeast Asia
Undergraduate Seminar
2002 Winter Quarter
Perspectives on September 11
2001 Fall Quarter
Undergraduate Seminar
2000 Spring Quarter
1999 Spring Quarter
Undergraduate Seminar
2000 Winter Quarter
Undergraduate Seminar