Biography
Tomáš Petrů is a Senior Research Fellow at the Oriental Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences, where he has been based since 2014. His research focuses on the modern history and politics of Indonesia, with particular emphasis on the country’s long-term oscillation between democracy and authoritarianism. He is the editor of the collective volume Graffiti, Converts and Vigilantes: Islam Outside the Mainstream in Maritime Southeast Asia (2018) and co-author of Dějiny Indonésie (History of Indonesia, 2005).
Since 2013, he has also served as Assistant Professor of Indonesian and Southeast Asian Studies at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University. Between 2008 and 2014, he was a faculty member at Metropolitan University Prague, where he helped establish the Asian Studies and International Relations programme and served for five years as Head of the Department of Asian Studies.
He is the editor of the website www.newmonsoon.eu, which disseminates knowledge on Southeast Asia to a wider audience. He regularly comments events in the region in Czech media. He also serves as a sworn interpreter and translator for the Indonesian language.