Michael G. Peletz, Professor of Anthropology at Emory University, received his B.A. from the University of California at Berkeley (1973) and his M.A. (1975) and Ph.D. (1983) from the University of Michigan. His teaching and research interests focus on social and cultural theory, gender, sexuality, kinship, law, religion (especially Islam), and modernity, particularly in Malaysia, Indonesia, and other parts of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Rim. Professor Peletz has done extensive fieldwork in Malaysia and has undertaken archival research in Malaysia and England; his research and teaching interests have also involved travel to Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Burma, and Vietnam. Among Dr. Peletz’s many publications are the following books: Gender, Sexuality, and Body Politics in Modern Asia (2007); Islamic Modern: Religious Courts and Cultural Politics in Malaysia (2002); Reason and Passion: Representations of Gender in a Malay Society
(1996); and A Share of the Harvest: Kinship, Property, and Social History Among the Malays of Rembau (1988). He is also the editor, with Aihwa Ong, of Bewitching Women, Pious Men: Gender and Body Politics in Southeast Asia (1995). Dr. Peletz spent the 2005–06 academic year at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where he pursued research on a book project titled Gender Pluralism: Southeast Asia Since Early Modern Times.