Mike Hurley

I do ethnographic research in Southeast Asia, primarily Thailand, with an emphasis on memory and landscape. I studied and taught anthropology at UC Irvine (PhD 2015), during which time I often escaped to the coast by bicycle. Since then, my activities have included research, book indexing, and running, as well as several years as a teacher in Japan. Born in California and afflicted with a passion for languages, I also speak Thai, Indonesian, and Japanese. Here you can find examples of my artwork, photographs, short pieces of writing, translation, and music.

Work: I went back to teaching in 2022. See below. I like to hear from past clients, but I’m currently too overwhelmed to take new indexing projects.

Here & There

I’ve been working in Japan as a high-school teacher for nearly two years, which has been a big change after years of wandering and scraping by as a freelancer. In other news, my manuscript Waterways of Bangkok received strong reviews and is now approaching publication by National University of Singapore Press.

Site Updates

Exhibit: Earth Forms

Hayao: Synthesis

FMS: Wayang Ethics

Lastly, a recording of my seven-string: