Dr George Quinn

Dr George Quinn.

Dr George Quinn (born Te Kuiti, New Zealand, 1943) first visited Indonesia in 1966 during the turmoil surrounding the fall of President Soekarno and the rise to power of General Soeharto. Between 1967 and 1970 he taught English at Satya Wacana Christian University in Salatiga, Central Java, and in 1971 he enrolled as an undergraduate student at Gadjah Mada University in Jogjakarta, completing a Bachelor of Arts (Sarjana Muda) degree in Indonesian language and literature at the end of 1973.

Dr Quinn was the first Australian or New Zealander to gain a degree from an Indonesian university. The degree included a component of studies in modern Javanese and old Javanese. Javanese language, literature and society became his abiding interest. In 1984 he completed a PhD in Javanese literature at the University of Sydney.

Between 1974 and 1990 Dr Quinn taught Indonesian at the University of Sydney, moving to Charles Darwin University in 1991, then to the Australian National University in 1995. He made several innovative contributions to the teaching of Indonesian to foreign learners. His tuition manual The Indonesian Way (adapted for online use by Professor Ulrich Kozok) is currently widely used across the world for tertiary-level study of elementary Indonesian. His Learner’s Dictionary of Today’s Indonesian remains in print twenty years after its publication in 2001. Dr Quinn also promoted in-country study as the quickest, most authentic and most cost-effective way to study Indonesian. He initiated in-country study programs for Australians in Java, Timor and Ambon. Dr Quinn also taught Javanese at the Australian National University. His (still unpublished) Javanese tuition manual Sri Ngilang became famous when an exercise from the course, performed in Javanese by Australian students, went viral in Indonesia in 2014.

Since his retirement in 2008, Dr Quinn has continued to promote the study of Indonesian. He was the founding chair of the Balai Bahasa Indonesia ACT, a community-based organisation dedicated to helping teachers of Indonesian in Canberra schools. He continues to research Javanese literature and religious practices. His most recent study, Bandit Saints of Java (2019), examines pilgrimage practices and their stories among the Muslims of Java. It has become a modest best-seller in Indonesia and is currently being translated into Indonesian.