The invited speaker who graced the weekly Wednesday Forum held for students, professors, academicians and other interested individuals on November 25, 2009 was Ms. Kelli A Swazey, a Ph.D candidate from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Hawaii in Manoa.

During the forum, Ms. Swazey explained the ethnicity of being a Christian Minahasan. Like in other areas in Indonesia that were reached by Christian missionaries during the early colonial period, the region of North Sulawesi known as Minahasa is strongly associated with Christian heritage. The perceived link between Minahasa and Christianity is not only defined by population but through a sense that Minahasan culture and Christianity are so intertwined that to be a Minahasan, one must be a Christian by birth. As a result, non-Christian inhabitants in the region have been historically marked as ethnically different.

Dear CRCS & ICRS students, faculty and guests, We kindly invite you to participate in the CRCS & ICRS Wednesday Forum of this week. Wednesday forum will have KELLI A. SWAZEY as the speaker who will talk about “The Differences that Make Us the Same: Ethnicity as a Framework for a Multi-religious Minahasan Cultural Identity”. Some information about this forum can be read as follows.

Date: Wednesday, 25 November 2009
Time: 12.30 pm – 2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue: Room 306, UGM Graduate School Teknika Utara, Pogung
Speaker: Kelli A. Swazey

Endy Saputro MA, a staff from CRCS, presented a discussion about tayub in Wednesday Forum in Nov 11, 2009. Endy discussed his small research on a traditional art performance in the Eastern part of Madura, with the title of discussion “Tayub in Madura: From Rites Economy to Symbolic Power”?. It is very interesting topic since the topic of religion and local culture is less paid attention from CRCS students to study it. So, it is a part of Endy’s appreciation to present a topic that strongly related with the issue of religion and local culture.

Dear CRCS & ICRS students, faculty and guests We kindly invite you to participate in the CRCS & ICRS Wednesday Forum of this week. Wednesday forum will have M. Endy Saputro, M. A. as the speaker who will talk about “Tayub in Madura: from Ritual Economy to Symbolic Power”. Some information about this forum can be read as follows.

Date: Wednesday, 11 November 2009
Time: 12.30 pm – 2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue: Room 306, UGM Graduate School Teknika Utara, Pogung
Speaker: M. Endy Saputro, M. A.

Dear CRCS & ICRS students, faculty and guests We kindly invite you to participate in the CRCS & ICRS Wednesday Forum of this week. Wednesday forum will have Prof. Dr. Frans Wijsen as the speaker. Some information about this forum can be read as follows.

Date: Wednesday, 4 November 2009
Time: 12.30 pm – 2.30 pm
Venue: Room 306, UGM Graduate School Teknika Utara, Pogung
Speaker: Prof. Dr. FRANS WIJSEN

Abstract:

For the past few decades there has been dissatisfaction among religious scholars with objectivist definitions of religion and positivist methods of studying religion. However, alternative theories and methods of religious studies are not yet standardised. The application of Critical Discourse Analysis for the scholarly study of religion and inter-religious relations is a way among others to look for that alternative method. This presentation will explore an ongoing comparative research in Tanzania, Indonesia and the Netherlands. The main inquiry of this research is how does religious language represents and constitutes religious identities and by doing so to generate convergence or divergence among religious communities.

Prof. Gary D. Bouma and Prof. Greg Barton visited the Center for Religious & Cross-Cultural Studies on October 2, 2009. Prof. Bouma is a conferred Professor Emeritus of Monash University in Australia and an author of the books such as ‘Democracy in Islam’ (2007, with Sayed Khatab) and ‘Religious Diversity in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands’ (2009), while Prof. Barton is an Indonesianist and a famous author of ‘Gus Dur: the Authorized Biography of Abdurrahman Wahid’ (2003) and ‘Indonesia’s Struggle: Jemaah Islamiyah and Radical Islamism’ (2004).