Rate My Professor W. Rutkowski

Dr. Marek W. Rutkowski serves as Lecturer in Global Studies within the School of Arts and Social Sciences at Monash University Malaysia, a position he has held since February 2018. He obtained his PhD in History from the National University of Singapore in 2017, with a dissertation entitled “Getting in the Ring with the Big Powers: India, Canada, Poland and the International Control Commission in Vietnam (1954-1964).” His earlier degree is an MA in International Relations from Nicolaus Copernicus University, awarded in 2009. Previously, Rutkowski was a Graduate Teaching Assistant at the National University of Singapore’s Department of History (2012–2017), a Teaching Assistant at James Cook University Singapore (2017), and a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in New Delhi (2015). At Monash, he teaches courses such as Introduction to World Politics and History and Transformation from Above: Globalisation and the State, incorporating interactive pedagogies drawn from his research.

Rutkowski’s research focuses on international history, particularly Cold War dynamics in Asia—including diplomacy in Indochina, the 1954 Geneva Accords, Soviet Bloc-Asia interactions, and the interplay of Cold War and decolonization in Southeast Asia—blending history, international relations, and development studies. His empirical, archive-driven scholarship examines diplomacy, peacekeeping, development models, and nation-building. Key publications include the co-edited book The Malayan Emergency in Film, Literature and Art: Cultural Memory as Historical Other (Bloomsbury Academic, 2025), the article “Teaching the International Political Economy (IPE) of everyday life through global groupwork” (Review of International Political Economy, 2025), chapters “Expanding the area of peace: India and the Geneva Conference of 1954” (2022) and “Reassuring Comrades and Courting the Nonaligned: Poland, the 1957 Goodwill Tour in Asia, and the Post-October Diplomacy” (2018). Awards encompass the NUS Fellow (Southeast Asia, 2023), Png Poh Seng Prize for Best Graduate Student in History (2012), and Visiting Fellowship at IDSA (2015). He has presented public lectures, such as “Vietnam War (1945-1965): The Communist Perspective” (2023), organized workshops, peer-reviewed publications, and provided media commentary. His contributions support UN SDG 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions, and he accepts PhD supervision.