The next Wednesday forum will discuss about Manggarain Dowry System and the Impact Towards Women. The speaker will be Fransiska Widyawati, M.Hum, a student of ICRS-Yogya. The forum will be held on:

Date : Wednesday, 10 December 2008
Time : 12.30 pm ?2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue : Room 306, UGM Graduate School Jln. Teknika Utara Pogung
Speaker : Fransiska Widyawati, M.Hum

Below is abstract and short bibliography about the speaker.

Abstract:

The dowry system is one of the important cultural practices of Manggarain. Before marriage, the families of the bride and the bridegroom have to decide the kind and the number of properties that should be paid by the bridegroom?s family. Beside it has a socio cultural good value, this practice is often criticized as source of violence towards women. People even say that belis (Indonesian word for dowry) is an abbreviation of ?beli istri? (to buy a wife). As a consequence wife is sometimes treated as a slave of her husband or her husband?s family and she has to obey their wishes.. She also has no powers of her own.

The next Wednesday forum will discuss about Manggarain Dowry System and the Impact Towards Women. The speaker will be Fransiska Widyawati, M.Hum, a student of ICRS-Yogya. The forum will be held on:

Date : Wednesday, 10 December 2008

Time : 12.30 pm

The CRCS&ICRS Wednesday forum on December 3, 2008 will talk about “Imperial Alchemy: Understanding Nationalism in Southeast Asia.” The speaker will be Prof. Anthony Reid. The forum will start at:

Time : 12.30 pm -2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue : Room 306, UGM Graduate School Jln. Teknika Utara Pogung YKT
Speaker : Prof. Anthony Reid

Abstract:

The new literature on nationalism (Anderson, Gellner, Giddens) has been popular in Asia , yet it is strangely unhelpful in explaining Asian phenomena. Each major Asian state somehow looks like an anomaly, failing to undergo the kind of culturally homogeneous national assertiveness that broke up empires in Europe and the Americas under the new pressures of industrialisation and print capitalism. Imperial borders have been sanctified as non-negotiable by China , India , Indonesia , Burma and the Philippines , though each has experienced modernity under radically different conditions. India and the Philippines democratised without fragmenting into ethnically based states; China and Burma stalled on democratization partly out of fear of fragmentation; Indonesia in 1998 recommenced its experiment with democracy with only a modest challenge of ethnic nationalism around the edges. The mid-twentieth Century marked one of the greatest watersheds of Asian history. The relatively brief Japanese occupation of Southeast Asia and much of China , and its sudden ending with the atomic bombs of August 1945, telescoped what might have been a long-term transition into a dramatic and violent revolution. In essence, imperial constructs were declared to be nation-states, the sole legitimate model of twentieth century politics, sanctioned in the ‘sovereign equality’ principle of the United Nations charter (1945). The world-system of competitive, theoretically equal sovereign states, inadequately labelled the ‘Westphalia system’, had been carried into Asia over several centuries under an imperial system which held that only ‘civilised states’ could be full members of the sovereign equality club. After 1945 that exclusivist hypocrisy was replaced by a more optimistic one, which held that every corner of the planet should be divided into theoretically equal sovereign states. Some imperial constructs decolonised and democratised in a series of federal compromises which left the outer shell of empire still able to act in the world as a nation state with the same borders as the old. India is the classic case, but in Southeast Asia the example was followed more cautiously in Malaysia . Others reacted against their humiliating pasts through the path of revolution, which asserted that the ideal model of the modern nation state should be implemented within the imperial borders without delay. Indonesia is my primary case, but the shadow of China looms always in the background. It was the task of nationalism to perform the alchemy of our title. The base metal of empire had to be transmuted into the gold of nationhood. The revolutionary alchemist was the most d ari ng. His gold comprised the sovereignty of the people, the equality of all citizens under a unified and centralised state, and a complete break with past loyalties. To achieve such a transmutation from the immense v ari ety and antiquity of political and civilizations forms in Asia would require alchemy more powerful than any that Europeans had needed in their own transitions from empires to nations. To achieve it without fragmenting the leviathans of imperial construction would require a true magic. Could we imagine nationalism in Europe within borders created by the Hapsburgs, Romanovs and Ottomans, as we do in Asia for the empires of British, Dutch, Spanish, French and Manchus? Seeking to understand that mysterious alchemy is the purpose of this talk, with Indonesia and Malaysia as my particular test cases.

The CRCS&ICRS Wednesday forum on December 3, 2008 will talk about “Imperial Alchemy: Understanding Nationalism in Southeast Asia.” The speaker will be Prof. Anthony Reid.
The forum will start at:

Time : 12.30 pm -2.30 pm (free lunch)

Venue : Room 306, UGM Graduate School Jln. Teknika Utara Pogung YKT

Speaker : Prof. Anthony Reid

Abstract:

The new literature on nationalism (Anderson, Gellner, Giddens) has been popular in Asia , yet it is strangely unhelpful in explaining Asian phenomena. Each major Asian state somehow looks like an anomaly, failing to undergo the kind of culturally homogeneous national assertiveness that broke up empires in Europe and the Americas under the new pressures of industrialisation and print capitalism. Imperial borders have been sanctified as non-negotiable by China , India , Indonesia , Burma and the Philippines , though each has experienced modernity under radically different conditions. India and the Philippines democratised without fragmenting into ethnically based states; China and Burma stalled on democratization partly out of fear of fragmentation; Indonesia in 1998 recommenced its experiment with democracy with only a modest challenge of ethnic nationalism around the edges.
The mid-twentieth Century marked one of the greatest watersheds of Asian history. The relatively brief Japanese occupation of Southeast Asia and much of China , and its sudden ending with the atomic bombs of August 1945, telescoped what might have been a long-term transition into a dramatic and violent revolution. In essence, imperial constructs were declared to be nation-states, the sole legitimate model of twentieth century politics, sanctioned in the ‘sovereign equality’ principle of the United Nations charter (1945).
The world-system of competitive, theoretically equal sovereign states, inadequately labelled the ‘Westphalia system’, had been carried into Asia over several centuries under an imperial system which held that only ‘civilised states’ could be full members of the sovereign equality club. After 1945 that exclusivist hypocrisy was replaced by a more optimistic one, which held that every corner of the planet should be divided into theoretically equal sovereign states. Some imperial constructs decolonised and democratised in a series of federal compromises which left the outer shell of empire still able to act in the world as a nation state with the same borders as the old. India is the classic case, but in Southeast Asia the example was followed more cautiously in Malaysia . Others reacted against their humiliating pasts through the path of revolution, which asserted that the ideal model of the modern nation state should be implemented within the imperial borders without delay. Indonesia is my primary case, but the shadow of China looms always in the background.
It was the task of nationalism to perform the alchemy of our title. The base metal of empire had to be transmuted into the gold of nationhood. The revolutionary alchemist was the most d ari ng. His gold comprised the sovereignty of the people, the equality of all citizens under a unified and centralised state, and a complete break with past loyalties. To achieve such a transmutation from the immense v ari ety and antiquity of political and civilizations forms in Asia would require alchemy more powerful than any that Europeans had needed in their own transitions from empires to nations. To achieve it without fragmenting the leviathans of imperial construction would require a true magic. Could we imagine nationalism in Europe within borders created by the Hapsburgs, Romanovs and Ottomans, as we do in Asia for the empires of British, Dutch, Spanish, French and Manchus? Seeking to understand that mysterious alchemy is the purpose of this talk, with Indonesia and Malaysia as my particular test cases.

On November 26, 2008, CRCS and ICRS will hold Wednesday Forum. The forum will discuss about ?Anthropological Approach in Religious Studies?. The speaker will be Ronald A. Lukens-Bull, Ph.D. The forum will be held on:

Date :Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Time : 1 pm ? 3 pm (free lunch)
Venue : Room 306, UGM Graduate School Jln. Teknika Utara, Pogung, Yogyakarta

Ronald A. Lukens-Bull is a lecturer at Department of Sociology-Anthropology, University of North Florida. He received his PH.D in Social-Cultural Anthropology from Arizona State University (1997). His areas of Specialization are Indonesia; Islamic Education and Leadership; Religion and Culture; Southeast Asian Religious Experience; Modernity and Globalization; Comparative Muslim Cultures. Currently he becomes Fulbright Senior Scholar in Islamic Studies at State Islamic Institute of North Sumatra, Medan. Some of his book publications are A Peaceful Jihad: Negotiating Identity and Modernity in Muslim Java. Jihad ala Pesantren di Mata Antropolog Amerika (Jihad ala Indonesian Islamic Boarding Schools in the Eyes of an American Anthropologist). And Sacred Places and Modern Landscapes: Sacred Geography and Social-Religious Transformations in South and Southeast Asia (Editor).

On November 26, 2008, CRCS and ICRS will hold Wednesday Forum. The forum will discuss about