The Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore has a public lecture this weekend on a Russian anthropologist’s ethnographies of 19th century Malaya.

A Russian in Malaya: Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay’s Malaya Expeditions (November 1874 – October 1875) and the Early Anthropology of Orang Asli by Dr Sandra Khor Manickam
Date: 08 Oct 2011
Time: 18:00 – 19:30
Venue: ARI Seminar Room, Tower Block Level 10, 469A Bukit Timah Road, National University of Singapore @ BTC

The abstract, from the ARI website:

Russian ethnographer N. Miklouho-Maclay is well-known to historians of anthropology for his ethnographies of Papuans and for immersing himself in the field for prolonged periods of time. Though his interests centred mostly on New Guinea and areas east of that island, he also undertook two anthropological trips to the Malay Peninsula between November 1874 and October 1875 in order to study the Orang Utan as indigenous peoples then were sometimes named. Drawing on a newly available translation of his diaries from his first expedition, and Miklouho-Maclay’s own drawings and publications from his trip, this talk will explore the writings and representations of one of the first professional anthropologists to study indigenous peoples of Malaya and the uncertainties of racial identification in the late nineteenth century.

Registration is required, and more details can be found here.