Team
Dr Mulaika Hijjas
Principal Investigator
mh86@soas.ac.uk
Mulaika is Reader in South East Asian Studies at SOAS University of London, where she specialises in the Malay manuscript tradition but also teaches the literature and cultural studies of the region. She has a BA in Literature from Harvard College; an MPhil in Islamic History from Oxford; and a PhD in Malay literature from SOAS. From 2009-2014, she held a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship. Her publications include numerous articles, a monograph (Victorious Wives: The Disguised Heroine in Nineteenth-Century Malay Syair, NUS Press, 2010), and a community-sourced edition of a rediscovered work of classical Malay literature, Syair Jaran Tamasa (Buku Fixi, 2024).
Dr Alan Darmawan
Postdoctoral Researcher
ad100@soas.ac.uk
Alan obtained a PhD in Languages and Cultures of Southeast Asia from Hamburg University, with a research grant from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). Alan was also involved as a researcher in the ERC-funded project, Competing Regional Integration in Southeast Asia (CRISEA). His research interests include heritage formation, Malay manuscript and performance traditions, as well as the revival of Islam and kingdoms in Indonesia and the Malay world.
Dr Aglaia Iankovskaia
Postdoctoral Researcher
ai30@soas.ac.uk
Aglaia did her undergraduate studies in history and cultural anthropology in St. Petersburg State University and received a master’s degree in medieval studies from the Central European University in Budapest. In 2016, she defended a doctoral thesis at the Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg. In 2017–2021 Aglaia worked in the museum as a junior research fellow, and between 2021 and 2024 held a postdoctoral position in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as part of the ERC project Textual Microcosms: A New Approach in Translation Studies.
Dr Jessica Rahardjo
Postdoctoral Researcher
jr76@soas.ac.uk
Jessica completed her DPhil in History at the University of Oxford. She began her training as an art historian during her undergraduate studies at SOAS University of London and University College London, before pursuing an MPhil in Islamic Art and Archaeology at Oxford. Jessica was a recipient of the Indian Ocean Exchanges fellowship (2021–23), supported by the Getty Foundation’s Connecting Art Histories initiative. She has also contributed to several cultural heritage projects, including the Maldives Heritage Survey.
Fauzan Arif Roslee
PhD Student
704720@soas.ac.uk
Fauzan is a PhD candidate in South East Asian Studies at SOAS, University of London, researching Minangkabau manuscript cultures. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Islamic Studies from the International Islamic University Malaysia and a master’s degree in Southeast Asian Studies from the National University of Singapore. He has undertaken research stints at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute and the Middle East Institute-NUS, focussing on the socio-religious and intellectual traditions of South East Asia.
Dr Zacky Umam
Postdoctoral Researcher (2022–23)
Zacky completed his doctorate in history and Islamic studies at Freie Universitaet Berlin in the end 2021 and is currently a lecturer at Universitas Islam Internasional Indonesia. His current research interests include the Islamic intellectual/manuscript tradition in Islamic Southeast Asia, 1600-1800.
Dr Adrienne Johnson
Project Administrator
aj33@soas.ac.uk
