I live in Graz, Austria where I study and write about the literatures and histories of Southeast Asian from early times to the contemporary moment in a comparative, world framework. Currently I'm working on a collection of translations and interpretations of the early 19th c.Javanese Sufi narrative poem Sĕrat Cĕnthini with Nancy Florida. My publications include: Fluid Iron: State Formation in Southeast Asia (University of Hawai’i Press, 2002), “Polycentric cosmopolitans; Writing world literature in Indonesia and Vietnam, 1920s to 1950s and beyond,” in Amelia M. Glaser and Steven S. Lee (eds.), Comintern Aesthetics (University of Toronto Press, 2020) and “Cold War violence, nationalism and structures of feeling in the literatures of Southeast Asia,” in Andrew Hammond (ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Cold War Literature (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).

On his visit from May 19 to 30, 2025, Dr. Tony Day gave a seminar on his research on the Serat Centhini, met with project members to discuss their work and participated in our annual workshop.