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 KAREN BRYNER as the speaker who will talk about “New Trends in Elite Urban Islamic Schooling: A Case Study in Yogyakarta”. Some information about this forum can be read as follows.

Date: Wednesday, 3 February 2010
Time: 12.30 pm – 2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue: Room 306, UGM Graduate School Teknika Utara, Pogung
Speaker: Karen Bryner

For the weekly Wednesday Forum held on December 16, 2009, the invited speaker was Uma or Subhani Kusma Dewi. She earned her B.A. degree in Islamic Philosophy from the State Islamic University Sunan Kalijaga and completed her Master’s degree at CRCS-UGM, both in Yogyakarta.

During her presentation, Uma perceived that the coming of Islam in East Nusa Tenggara was around 15 C.E. and 18 C.E. which involved many elements of agents not only through the merchants’ mission but also by fishing activity around the coastal areas of the province, as well as the undeniable role of the ulama (Muslim cleric agents). The latest group of agents was peripherally discussed by the major historical record, though their significant influence could not be ignored easily.

During the weekly Wednesday Forum held on December 9, 2010, Dr. Phill Enns, the invited speaker, talked about the search for truth. Dr. Enns was once invited by CRCS-UGM as visiting lecturer in 2008; he taught the course “Introduction to Postmodernism.”? He previously taught at Gindiri College of Theology in Nigeria and at Brock University.

In his presentation, Dr. Enns perceived that in Academia today, one hears a great deal of discussion about culture, contexts and perspectives. This sort of discussion, in and of itself, is not mistaken, and in fact has proven to be quite valuable, both as a balance to earlier excesses and providing insight of its own. However, one of the consequences of this discourse, which has arisen primarily out of the social sciences, is the reluctance on the part of scholars to think of themselves as part of a larger project in pursuit of the truth. Dr Enns thinks this is unfortunate.

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.