Thinking Comparatively: Celebrating Benedict Anderson’s Scholarship
An Exhibition
February 19 through April 29, 2016
120 Doe Library
Benedict Anderson (1936-2015) was born to Anglo-Irish parents in Kunming, Yunnan, China. He was raised in China, California, and Ireland. He received his bachelor’s degree in classics from Cambridge University in 1957 and his doctorate in government from Cornell University in 1967. He was the Aaron L. Binenkorb Professor of International Studies Emeritus and taught at Cornell from 1967 until his retirement in 2002.
Throughout his life, Anderson was an accomplished scholar who produced a few dozen major scholarly works on language and politics. Among these, his most influential publication, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, has been translated into two dozen languages. He was the editor of the seminal journal Indonesiapublished by the Cornell Modern Indonesia Project. His linguistic skills were extraordinary. Anderson was fluent in Dutch, French, German, Indonesian, Javanese, Russian, Spanish, Tagalog, and Thai.
Professor Anderson was recognized as a giant in Southeast Asian studies. He inspired and trained several generations of students and shared his intellectual originality and innovation with the world.
A small collection of his most insightful and enduring works has been assembled for this exhibit in honor of his widely admired scholarship.
A library guide to Anderson’s works is available at: