The Weatherhead East Asian Institute mourns the death of Jayne Werner, who served as a WEAI Research Scholar from 2010 through 2015. A Professor Emerita of Political Science at Long Island University, Dr. Werner was a leading expert on the contemporary politics of Vietnam. She also served as a past Co-Chair of the University Seminar on Southeast Asia in World Affairs at Columbia University.
“Jayne Werner was an important colleague and friend,” said Kristy E. Kelly, WEAI Associate Research Scholar. “Her research on shifting gender relations in socialist and post-socialist Vietnam inspired the work of many younger scholars such as myself. Her work exemplified the depth of sociological analysis, methodological rigor, and attention to detailed story-telling that we all strive for. I am grateful for her open-armed welcome when I arrived at WEAI as a post-doc in 2010. She will be missed.”
As a graduate student in the Department of Government at Cornell in the 1960s, Dr. Werner was part of the inaugural generation of Vietnam scholars trained at the university. After receiving her PhD in 1976, she became a pioneering scholar of the political, social, and cultural changes in twentieth-century Vietnam. Her many publications included Peasant Politics and Religious Sectarianism: Peasant and Priest in the Cao Dài in Viêt Nam (Yale University Southeast Asia Monograph Series, 1981), Gender, Household and State in Post-Revolutionary Vietnam (Routledge, 2009), and Sources of Vietnamese Tradition (Columbia University Press, 2012), which she co-edited with John Whitmore and George Dutton.
Dr. Werner’s memorial service will be held at Joseph Duffy Funeral Home on Saturday, February 3rd at 10:00 AM. The funeral home is located at 255 Ninth Street in Brooklyn. The funeral will be held shortly thereafter at Greenwood Cemetery at 500 25th Street in Brooklyn.
Please visit the Legacy.com obituary site here.
