----- Original Message -----
From: "Ryan Dunch" <
ryan.dunch@UALBERTA.CA>
To: <
H-ASIA@H-NET.MSU.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, December 30, 2010 1:31 AM
Subject: H-ASIA: Obituary for Marjorie Topley
> H-ASIA
> December 29, 2010
>
> Obituary for Marjorie Topley
> ************************************************************************
> From: Jean DeBernardi <jean.debernardi@ualberta.ca>
>
> Dr. Marjorie Topley (b. 1927) passed away on December 16, 2010, at her
> home in Battle, East Sussex, England. Topley had the distinction of
> being the first undergraduate student to study anthropology at the
> London School of Economics. She met her husband, Kenneth Wallis
> Joseph Topley, at the LSE, where he was studying government. He joined
> the colonial service, and in 1951 they went to Singapore after
> studying Chinese in London.
>
> In Singapore, Marjorie took a post as curator of anthropology at the
> Raffles Museum. Because the Malayan Emergency made travel in the
> Malay Peninsula unsafe, she undertook research on Cantonese immigrant
> women's vegetarian halls and Chinese popular religion in Singapore.
> This research formed the basis of her 1958 doctoral thesis (entitled
> The Organisation and Social Function of Chinese Women's Chai T'ang in
> Singapore), which she completed as an external student with informal
> supervision from Maurice Freedman. Regrettably, the thesis was never
> published as a book.
>
> In 1955, the Topleys moved to Hong Kong, where Kenneth Topley
> continued his career in colonial administration, including serving as
> Director of Education. Although she did not take up a fulltime
> teaching position, Marjorie maintained an active program of
> anthropological research, participating in invited international
> conferences and publishing her work in major scholarly journals and
> edited volumes. She also played a major role in the revival of the
> Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, serving as the group's
> Vice-President from 1966 to 1972, and as its President from 1972 until
> her return to England in 1983.
>
> With support from the Royal Asiatic Society, Hong Kong University
> Press and NUS Press have collaborated to publish a complete collection
> of her papers, _Cantonese Society in Hong Kong and Singapore: Gender,
> Religion, Medicine and Money: Essays by Marjorie Topley_, edited and
> introduced by Jean DeBernardi. The book is forthcoming in January
> 2011 (ISBN 978-988-8028-14-6).
>
> Jean DeBernardi
> jean.debernardi@ualberta.ca
> http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/~jdeberna
>
> Anthropology Department
> The University of Alberta
>
>
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