Nicholas Tapp
Bradley C. Davis bcampdavis at gmail.com
Wed Oct 14 10:47:16 PDT 2015
Very sad news from Shanghai.
Bradley Camp Davis
Eastern Connecticut State University
Begin forwarded message:
> From: Magnus Fiskesjo <magnus.fiskesjo at cornell.edu>
> Date: October 14, 2015 at 1:17:34 PM EDT
> To: Magnus Fiskesjo <magnus.fiskesjo at cornell.edu>
> Subject: FW: Nicholas Tapp, renowned anthropologist, dies at 63
>
> In great sadness, remembering a goodhearted man, a great friend, and a profound and true scholar, who leaves such a great legacy, for anthropology, for Hmong studies, for Asian studies, and far, far beyond. All the many good conversations that I had with Nick, this last year in Shanghai! It was much too soon, for him to leave us now. I find myself crying.
>
> Below, please find the Chinese and English versions of the official message from Nick's anthropological institute in Shanghai, just received, the worst news.
>
> --Yours,
> Magnus Fiskesjö, PhD
> Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, Cornell University
> McGraw Hall, Room 204. Ithaca, NY 14853, USA
> E-mail: magnus.fiskesjo at cornell.edu, or: nf42 at cornell.edu
>
> ________________________________________
> From: 华东师范大学人类学研究所ECNU [ecnuanthropology at 163.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 12:48 PM
> To:
> Subject: 讣告 王富文教授逝世 Nicholas Charles Theodore Tapp, renowned anthropologist, dies at 63
>
> [cid:5873e6d8$1$1506740f7e2$Coremail$ecnuanthropology$163.com]
>
> 讣告
>
> 国际知名社会人类学家、著名苗学研究专家，华东师范大学特聘教授，华东师范大学人类学研究所所长王富文（Nicholas Tapp）教授因病医治无效，于2015年10月10日在上海华山医院逝世，终年63岁。
>
> 王富文教授追思会定于2015年10月28日下午1点在华东师范大学闵行校区法商北楼五层举行，敬请诸位师友赴会，纪念我们的良师益友。
>
> 华东师范大学社会发展学院
> 人类学研究所
>
> 2015年10月14日
>
> 王富文教授生平简介：
>
> 1952年11月5日出生于英国。1972-1975年就读英国剑桥大学，获英语文学学士学位，1978-1979年在英国伦敦大学攻读，获东南亚研究硕士学位，1979-1985年在英国伦敦大学研习社会人类学，获博士学位。
>
> 1986.6-1992.6，香港中文大学，人类学系讲师。1992.10-1996.9，英国爱丁堡大学，人类学系讲师。1997.12-1999.11，英国社会发展部门，林业项目组长。2000.2-2010.6，澳大利亚国立大学，人类学系高级研究员，教授。2010.9-2013.8，华东师范大学人类学研究所所长，社会学系系主任，教授。2013.9后担任华东师范大学人类学研究所所长，教授。
>
> Obituary Notice
>
> Nicholas Tapp, internationally renowned anthropologist, specialist in the study of the Hmong, distinguished Professor and Director of the Research Institute of Anthropology, East China Normal University, has passed away due to illness on October 10, 2015, at the Shanghai Huashan Hospital. He was 63 years old.
>
> A memorial service is scheduled on October 28, 2015, at 1pm, at the 5th floor of the north Fashang Building (North Law and Business building), Minhang campus,East China Normal University.We kindly invite you to attend and join us to commemorate our good friend and honorable mentor.
>
> From 1986 to 1992, Nicholas Tapp was Lecturer in Anthropology at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. From 1992 to 1996, he was Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh. From 1997 to 1999, he worked at the U.K. Overseas Development Administration as Forestry Project Team Leader. From 2000 to 2010,he was Senior Fellow in Anthropology at the Australian National University.Nicholas Tapp joined the East China Normal University in 2010, acting as Professor, Chair of the Sociology Department and Director of the Research Institute of Anthropology.
>
> Born in England on November 5, 1952, Nicholas Charles Theodore Tapp, earned a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature from the Cambridge University in 1975.He then studied at the University of London, where he obtained a Master’s degree in Southeast Asian Studies in 1979 and a doctoral degree in Social Anthropology in 1985.
>
> --
> 华东师范大学社会发展学院人类学研究所
> Institute of Anthropology,East China Normal University
> 上海市闵行区东川路500号
Margaret Suzanne Barnhill Bodemer mbodemer at calpoly.edu
Wed Oct 14 11:47:28 PDT 2015
Thanks for forwarding this Brad. I didn't know Dr. Tapp personally but of course every anthropologist and scholar interested in VN & SEA knows his work. It is indeed sad news.
Best,
Maggie
Margaret B. Bodemer, Ph.D.
http://socialsciences.calpoly.edu/faculty/maggie-bodemer
http://history.calpoly.edu/faculty/margaret-bodemer
http://ethnicstudies.calpoly.edu/faculty-staff/margaret-bodemer
https://calpoly.academia.edu/MargaretBarnhillBodemer
San Luis Obispo, CA
Philip Taylor philip.taylor at anu.edu.au
Wed Oct 14 16:47:12 PDT 2015
Dear List,
Thank you to those who conveyed this sad news and the moving tribute by Magnus Fiskesjo to our late good friend, teacher and colleague Nicholas Tapp.
About two months ago I heard from an ANU colleague that Nick had been laid low with a serious illness. I thought about contacting Nick with an upbeat note but decided against it thinking that he may be too ill to receive it. I regret not doing so.
As the obituary notice issued by the Institute of Anthropology, East China Normal University states, Nicholas Tapp was appointed as Senior Fellow in Anthropology at the ANU in 2010. He was my colleague of many years, based in the Department of Anthropology, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the ANU. In the mid 2000s he became Professor of Anthropology in the department and when he moved to take up his position in Shanghai he remained affiliated to the ANU department as Professor and continued to be actively involved in the supervision of its PhD students.
My main impression of Nick is as a fundamentally kind scholar. He was a voracious reader and open-minded intellectual who late into his career continued contributing fresh and provocative theoretical analyses to the fields of anthropology and Hmong studies based on his wide reading and research.
Most of all he was generous. I was amazed at the detail and length of his commentaries to postgraduate students - even those with whom he had no formal supervisory relationship. His meticulous comments on PhD thesis chapters invariably were many pages long and came late at night, usually only hours after Nick had been sent the work for review. It is no wonder that past and present students in my department speak of him with awe and gratitude.
Nick earned similar renown for his generous support of new research and new scholars in the field of Hmong studies, that field in which he made such towering contributions. He headed the ANU Thai-Yunnan Project for many years, building relationships with a network of Asian universities and fostering the highly acclaimed research on Southwest China and the China-Southeast Asia borderlands conducted by ANU scholars and graduate students. He was also a tireless and reliable editorial advisor to the departmental journal the Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology.
As a much-loved colleague Nick was indispensible, engaged and courteous. He contributed greatly to the quality of scholarship in the anthropology of Asia undertaken at the ANU over the last fifteen years.
Two PhD scholars in my department presently are working on the Hmong, following in Nick's footsteps and building upon the foundations he laid. The rest of us can take inspiration from his exemplary collegiality and fine qualities as a scholar.
Philip Taylor
Department of Anthropology
ANU College of Asia and the Pacific
Nguyen Van Suu nvsuu at yahoo.com
Wed Oct 14 18:26:32 PDT 2015
Dear list,
This is really shock to me as he passed away at his 63 years old. Nick was my first supervisor. He came to the ANU just a few months after me. A very gentle and brilliant man. I learnt so much from him and really enjoyed my time under his supervision. I remember before I left ANU for fieldwork, I showed him a dinner with Phở and one year later when I returned to the ANU from fieldwok, he asked for his turn to show me one dinner with Phở to celebrate my completion of field work.
He was still in my mind and heart together with the ANU.
Nguyen Van Suu
VNU Hanoi Anthropology
Benedict Kerkvliet ben.kerkvliet at anu.edu.au
Wed Oct 14 23:26:37 PDT 2015
15 Oct 2015, Metro Manila
Dear VSG members,
Nick Tapp - generous colleague, fine scholar, diligent graduate student advisor.
I wish I had known he was seriously ill so that I could have written the above words directly to him.
Ben Kerkvliet
Emeritus Professor
Australian National University
Canberra
Affiliate Graduate Faculty
University of Hawai'i
Honolulu
Thompson, C. M. thompsonc2 at southernct.edu
Thu Oct 15 07:12:09 PDT 2015
Dear Philip,
Thanks very much to you and other members of VSG who posted personal notes about Professor Tapp. I only knew him through his work but your postings give me a much greater appreciation of his impact on the field as a whole beyond his own publications.
Sincere Regards
Michele
Michele Thompson
Professor of Southeast Asian History
Dept. of History
Southern Connecticut State Univ.
Sebastian Rumsby 210972 at alumni.soas.ac.uk
Thu Oct 15 07:27:14 PDT 2015
This is tragic news. I will remember Nick as a generous, humble and
friendly man, despite having never met him in person. As a lowly master's
student with no right to expect help from an academic of another
institution, I am deeply indebted to Nick's advice and support in my MA
dissertation about the history of millenarian movements in South East Asia.
After sending me several helpful articles which I wouldn't have found on my
own, Nick was the only person to actually read my dissertation apart from
my examiners (so far)! I am very grateful for his encouragement for me to
continue my studies to PhD level, and Nick was the selfless sort of
academic that I now aspire to.
Seb Rumsby
Warwick University
https://warwick.academia.edu/SebRumsby
Oscar Salemink o.salemink at anthro.ku.dk
Thu Oct 15 11:35:40 PDT 2015
Dear list,
This is such sad news about Nick. I can only echo what others have said, that he was not only a monument in the study of Hmong cultures and societies (and upland groups in mainland Southeast Asia and Southwest China in general), but that he was very modest, generous and immensely friendly. I did not know him that well, but the last time we met – briefly in December last year, perhaps twenty years after the first time – we attended simultaneous yet different conferences at ANU, but found out that our papers addressed very similar topics (heritage) and had very similar theoretical inspirations (Debord), resulting in uncannily similar analyses (based on different ethnographic material). We corresponded a bit about that afterwards, but I wish that I had followed up more. And I wish I had known that he was ill so I could have written to him to express my deep appreciation for his legacy and my indebtedness to his inspiration – also on behalf of the Vietnamese scholars working on Hmong groups whom I supervised during their PhDs.
Oscar Salemink
Professor in the Anthropology of Asia
Catherine Churchman Catherine.Churchman at vuw.ac.nz
Thu Oct 15 17:04:04 PDT 2015
Dear List,
I am very saddened to hear the news about the death of Nick Tapp. I had mentioned him to my students just five days ago in a lecture. The first two things that came to my mind were his deep erudition and his great kindness to others, especially to nervous beginning PhD student such as I was. I was lucky enough to have Nick as a member of my PhD supervisory panel, I and would particularly like to mention my enjoyment of the conversations I had with him over the course of my studies, as well as the value of the long and detailed commentaries on my draft chapters to which he gave so much attention. These were instrumental in the development of my own thinking about ethnicity and ethnic relations in premodern China, and I see from others’ comments that his influence and kindness spread far and wide.
I was looking forward to being able to track him down once I got on the academic circuit again.
He will be greatly missed.
Catherine Churchman
Victoria University of Wellington
Carina Hoang carinahoang at gmail.com
Thu Oct 15 17:28:39 PDT 2015
Dear List,
I did not have the privilege to know Professor Tapp, but I do share the
feeling of a great loss of a dedicated and well respected scholar.
I wish to join your prayers for his loved ones.
Carina Hoang
Curtin University – Western Australia
Jean Michaud michaudjean at yahoo.com
Tue Oct 20 08:25:51 PDT 2015
Dear VSGers,For those interested to read more about Nick Tapp, I have posted on New Mandala a short tribute from the point of view of Hmong studies.http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2015/10/20/a-tribute-to-nicholas-tapp/Regards,
Jean MichaudAnthropologyUniversité Laval