Southeast Asia Archives

The Southeast Asia Archives document the Australian National University’s formidable legacy in Southeast Asian Studies. From the 1960s until recent times, ANU has had an exceptional concentration of specialists in the history, culture, language, politics and economics of the region, and helped to define the new international field of Southeast Asian Studies.

The Archives holds research papers of Professors David Marr, Anthony Reid, Harold Crouch, Dr Margaret George and Dr Emily Sadka. The following material is already accessible in the University’s Open Research repository:

• Photograph of ANU Southeast Asian scholars visiting China in 1980;

• Professor David Marr’s unique collection of posters and other graphic material related to Vietnam and the Indochina conflict. Collected throughout his career, the series contains prints and originals from the 1930s to the 1990s. The works largely focus on the Vietnam War and present perspectives from both North and South Vietnam as well as Australia, Europe and the United States. The series also contains a range of Vietnamese art on calendars and with some original prints. The digitisation work was undertaken by ANU Museum Studies student Ben Houghton and the images are accessible on the Open Research website. A full description and listing is on the ANU Archives database website.

• Material from the September 1967 South Vietnamese election from David Marr’s papers is on Open Research.

• Recording of the King of Thailand’s visit to ANU in 1962, the announcement of the Asian Fellowship by Pro Chancellor HC Coombs and His Majesty’s response;

• Oral history interview with Professor Tony Johns.

• Recordings of the ‘Asia behind the News’ radio program from the late 1970s to 1980s.

Digitisation projects currently underway:

• Basham collection of Southeast Asian and South Asian slides.