Rate My Professor Jane Ferguson

Jane Ferguson is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Southeast Asian History in the School of Culture, History, and Language at The Australian National University's College of Asia and the Pacific. She earned her BA from Antioch College, MA from Cornell University, and PhD from Cornell University. Her research centers on Mainland Southeast Asia, with a particular emphasis on Burma/Myanmar, Thailand, and the Shan borderlands. Key areas of interest include borderlands, insurgency, ethnic politics, popular culture, digital media, and musical genres. Ferguson's ethnographic work explores the intersections of ethnicity, nationalism, and cultural production in upland Southeast Asia, contributing to understandings of political subjectivities and social histories in contested regions.

Ferguson's academic career includes prior appointments such as at the University of Sydney, before joining ANU as a lecturer and advancing to associate professor. She is affiliated with the ANU Myanmar Research Centre and has served in editorial capacities, including as an editor for The Journal of Burma Studies. Her major monograph, Repossessing Shanland: Myanmar, Thailand, and a Nation-State Deferred (University of Wisconsin Press, 2021), examines Shan ethnicity, rock n roll nostalgia, and nation-state dynamics across the Thai-Myanmar border. Other significant publications include 'Rock Your Religion: Shan Buddhist Ritual and Stage-Show Revelry in a Contested Zone at the Thai-Burma Border,' 'Ethno-nationalism and Participation in Myanmar: Views from Shan State and Beyond,' 'Hijacking Area Studies: Ethnographic Approaches to Southeast Asian Airlines' (2016), and 'Is the Pen Mightier than the AK-47? Tracking Shan Women's Political Subjectivities' (2013). She has also authored 'Silver Screens and Golden Dreams: A Social History of Burmese Cinema' and contributed reviews such as on Exploring Ethnic Diversity in Burma. With an h-index of 7 and over 260 citations, her scholarship has influenced studies on Myanmar and Southeast Asian anthropology. Ferguson delivers public lectures, including on Burmese cinema, and holds trusteeships such as at the Center for Burma Studies.