He was also visiting academic at several European colleges and universities including Sciences-Po Paris and the Institute for the Study of Muslim Society (Ecole des haute études en sciences sociale), Paris.
He recently served as a professor at the Department of History, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Malaya.
[2] His main area of research has been Southeast Asia in the 19th century, focusing on the discursive aspects of colonial rule and the production of Orientalist writings on the region.
Over the past ten years he has also been researching the phenomenon of transnational religio-political movements, as well as the development of religio-politics in South and Southeast Asia, looking at the rise of Muslim, Christian and Hindu political-religious revivalism in particular (see "Islam" in Richter & Mar 2004).
His other interests include antiques and material history, and he has written about the plastic arts of Southeast Asia, focusing on things such as the Indonesian-Malaysian keris to the development of woodcarving and architecture.