James T. Collins

PhD, University of Chicago, Linguistics, 1980
MA, University of Chicago, Linguistics, 1975
BA, St. Mary of the Lake, Philosophy, 1968

When I had finished my BA in Philosophy at St. Mary of the Lake (Illinois), I was accepted for Peace Corps training and posted to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in October, 1968. I returned to the US in 1971 and studied Indonesian and English as a Second Language at the University of Wisconsin. In 1972, I taught for two years at universities in eastern Indonesia.

In 1975 I began studying Linguistics at the University of Chicago. After extensive fieldwork in Indonesia (1977-1979), in 1980 I completed my PhD (Linguistics) at the University of Chicago with a dissertation entitled, “The Historical Relationships of the Languages of Central Maluku, Indonesia.”

Since then I have worked at Malaysia’s National University (1980-1983, 1995-2008), the University of Hawaii (1984-1995), where I served as the director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, and most recently as the director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at Northern Illinois University (2008-Present). From 1984-1988 I also worked as co-editor of the Echols and Shadily Indonesian, English Dictionary (Third edition, Cornell University Press, 1989). Although I remain an historical linguist, my interests include lexicography, Malay dialectology and the social changes that are impacting minority languages in Southeast Asia.

E-mail James T. Collins
Zulauf Hall 1011
(815) 566-7253