Dialogue Moves: Practicing Research with Amerta Movement

Wednesday Forum – 30 August 2023

I have been undertaking a fellowship that investigates how Amerta Movement practice (developed by Javanese movement artist Suprapto Suryodarmo) supports dialogue between diverse ethnic and religious communities in Indonesia. This has been done in collaboration with Samsul Maarif (CRCS, UGM), Diane Butler (Dharma Nature Time), and artists who worked closely with Pak Prapto. Engaging with CRCS has prompted me to reconsider research methodologies from my own field of dance studies and their potential contribution to religious and cross-cultural studies. In particular, the area of practice research in performing arts explores how engagement in creative practice has the potential to develop new ways of knowing. I will share how my own bodily experience and creative responses have lent themselves towards new understandings of the research enquiry on dialogue through the Amerta Movement. Finally, I consider what practice research might offer a researcher engaging in dialogue across differences, inspired by Kershaw’s call for the ‘profound challenge to established modes of knowledge production in universities that the creative impulse in practice might, at its best, always produce’ (2009, 5).

Politics, Court, and Religion in India

Wednesday Forum – 17 May 2023

The Supreme Court of India examines the constitutionality of the Talaq-e-biddat, a practice to seek divorce among the Muslims in India. Seeking a remedy to this practice, the petitioner appeals that the court should declare it invalid because it is gender discriminatory, arbitrary, and is not an essential part of the religion. Through the majority judgment, Talaq-e-biddat is set aside, which is based on the essential religious practice test and doctrine of arbitrariness. This case engages questions of gender equality, right to religion, and authority of the judiciary to intervene in the personal laws. While engaging with the Article 25 on religious freedom, this paper aims to argue that the liberal rights are used by citizens to claim religious rights. It shows the politics of society in India which is influenced by the majority religion. It does so by conducting an in-depth textual analysis of the Triple Talaq case record and interviews conducted with lawyers, journalists, and activists.

Illness as Interreligious Encounter: A Study from Religiously-Affiliated Hospitals

Wednesday Forum – 12 April 2023

Everyone, regardless of ethnicity, race, religion, and social status, is vulnerable to illness. Illness is a part of universal and inevitable of human fragility. One of main need of people who are ill, is a healthcare service which is generally provided by the hospital. Hence, illness is not only a complex medical and biological analyses that require objective evidence of malfunction at the microscopic level, but illness is also a social event. However, within hospital patients not only get healthcare service patients but that moment also potentially exposes them to greater diversity. Human encounter within hospital can be more challenging and interesting when the hospital is religiously affiliated hospital, because the religious conviction of the patient and the hospital are the basis for interreligious encounter. What kind of dynamics can occur in interreligious encounters within religiously affiliated hospitals? Can illness as human fragility and encounters within religiously affiliated hospitals strengthen interreligious relations?

Queering Interfaith Dialogue in Indonesia; Reimagining Inclusive Theology toward Diverse Faiths, Genders and Sexualities

Wednesday Forum – 29 March 2023

Religions and queer identities are often purportedly seen as antithetical to each other, impossible to reconcile, and harshly incompatible to be openly and mutually ‘holding hands’ with each other. The misconceptions that religions and faiths cannot accept and support queer identities are pervasive that it systematically victimizes and marginalizes the life of many queer people. Yet in Indonesia, despite mainstream conservative attitude toward queer identities, queer-inclusive voices coming from faith leaders and queer activists are resisting and challenging the status quo. “Queering Interfaith Dialogue in Indonesia” is a master’s thesis of Amar Alfikar, a trans man Muslim activist who has been working in the last 7 years to advocate queer-of-faith activism in Muslim contexts.

Enduring the Gimmicks and Polemics: Digital Performance of Religious Minorities During the Pandemic

Wednesday Forum – 01 March 2023

Despite the constitutional safeguard of Indonesia’s constitution, they were enshrined in Art. 28E, 28I, and 29, the freedom of religious expression is complicated. Many religious minority communities and irreligious individuals were suffering discrimination. The burden is manifold for those beyond the fringe of six government-sponsored religions, such as Baha’ism, Sikhism, Taoism, Judaism, ancestral faiths, and many spiritual movements (Penghayat).
The COVID-19 pandemic surprisingly encouraged social solidarity, often to the point of interfaith engagement. Despite numerous reports of women, diffables (disabilities), and other marginal groups encountering challenges, they, including religious minorities, immediately tuned in and found a decent place within the solidarity. Pandemics forced religion to immerse into the digital realm much deeper, along with its painful consequences. For sure, it cast a long shadow on digital engagements, while marginal communities could and probably would embrace it in the coming days of post-pandemic.
The reality on the ground is complicated. The digital platform, which includes numerous digital services, including social media (socmed), once offered hope for a more democratic social space and a place for minority groups to express their religiosity much freer. On the other hand, it is growing to embrace the democratic nemesis, such as becoming hate-speech and other digital illnesses enablers.
Against the above complicated and contradictory situation, between promise and unpropitious situation, there is an urgency to gauge the digital performance of religious minority communities during the pandemic. The present paper focuses on religious minority communities’ experiences in digital engagement, ranging from Confucians to Penghayat.

Dragon Nests below the Wind: the History and Diversity of Chinatowns in the Archipelago

Wednesday Forum – 22 February 2023

This talk is based on the thoughts and findings gathered during the research conducted in Chinatowns on five islands: Riau, Bangka Belitung, Java, Madura and Timor. By observing its cultural background and practices, this research aims to learn the history of the formation and development of Indonesia’s Chinatown. In the context of history, social change, and urban development, its uniqueness draws an illustration of how the communities exist and grow influenced by the cultural heritage and the dynamic complexity of Chinatown life as well. Subsequently, this mixture facts contribute as the forming elements to Indonesian culture.

British Religious Plurality in the Age of Charles III

Wednesday Forum – 15 February 2023

On 6th May King Charles III will be crowned in Westminster Abbey, a religious ceremony confirming his role, not just as Head of State, but as Supreme Governor of England’s Established Church. But he leads a kingdom that has seen both significant secularisation and growth in non-Christian minorities over the last twenty years. This lecture will explore the impact of these trends on British identity and the way in which the understanding of constitutional monarchy and state religion have evolved to accommodate a complexly secular and religiously plural modern nation. It examines an English pluralist school of political thought that King Charles sees as characterising the British understanding of nationhood.

Kauman as Current Little Mecca in Indonesia

Wednesday Forum – 7 December 2022

Kauman is one representation of Little Mecca that still existing in several cities in Java Island, Indonesia. It has been a center of Islamic teachings since the sultanates period until now. Kauman itself historically was a small kampong that next to the grand mosque. It was the home for ulama and his families to live and take care the mosques. After returning home from hajj pilgrimage, some ulama established their own boarding schools in Kauman. They would like to transfer knowledges from Middle East to their students. This makes Kauman emerged an Islamic enclave in urban areas. One prominent Kauman kampong is Kauman of Yogyakarta. It was well known for ulama’s residential area during Mataram Kingdom and early Yogyakarta Sultanate period in the late 18 century. But now it has been changed to be large kampong that inspired the birth of Muhammadiyah, the second mass Islamic organization in Indonesia. This kampong transformation historically show how the inter-linkage connection with Middle East especially pan-Islamism movement and reformist Islam spirit. These two values basically were inspired from the same movement in Arabian Peninsula. Some building itself still has an Islamic architecture that influenced by Middle East. This architecture basically showed the cultural connection with the middle eastern civilization, particularly mosques and boarding schools. More importantly, Kauman is entirely pedestrianized that ensure the quietness condition for students studying Islam inside the surau or langgar. This shows how Arab identity is important to preach Islam in Indonesia especially urban areas. This study would like to reveal the continuing connection between middle eastern influence and Islamic teachings in Kauman.

Lived Eco-Religion: How social movements in Indonesian local communities respond to environmental crises in creative ways

Wednesday Forum – 23 November 2022

How do religions respond to environmental crises? Beyond debates about religion as destroying or saving the planet, we present a synthetic review of 244 qualitative studies (some written by CRCS/ICRS alumni) of 208 environmental social movements operating at the local community level in Indonesia between 1990 and 2022. Using this data, we present a conceptual model for how environmental movements employ creative adaptation of religious beliefs and practices to motivate changes in environmental behavior. We share three findings and their implications: 1) high levels of synthesis between official religions, adat systems and local wisdom; 2) contextual factors that directly influence environmental movements to adopt blended environmental and lived religious responses; 3) intense contestation within local communities shaping the creative process.

Planetary Thinking in a Post-Human World

Wednesday Forum – 09 November 2022

In his book, The Darker Side of Western Modernity, Walter Mignolo outlines several options for a future of the planet beyond the western, modern colonial world. He spends most of that book talking about the decolonial option, with only fragments spent on what he calls “the spiritual option.” In brief, the spiritual option is about decolonizing religious traditions through more embodied spiritualities that focus people on the human and more-than-human communities in which they live. As such, the spiritual option has affinities with both “liberation” style religious strands and with animisms found in indigenous communities. In addition, recent scholarship around “New Materialisms” also suggests that there is agency and value in the rest of the natural world: much like in animist traditions, everything on the planet is alive, acts, and is acted upon. In my contribution to this discussion, I make an argument for the ethics of a post-human world from animist and new materialist perspectives. Such an argument depends on something like a planetary spirituality, which may be a supplement to Mignolo’s “spiritual option.”

Divorce and Muslim Women’s Empowerment in Indonesia

Wednesday Forum – 02 November 2022

Muslim family law is a crucial determinant of women’s rights in many Muslim settings. Muslim family law is commonly interpreted to stipulate a family structure in which husbands are breadwinners and household leaders while wives are responsible for the domestic realm and may be expected to obey their husbands. However, gender norms and practices in majority Muslim societies have changed, with increasing numbers of women pursuing higher education and careers. This study examines Indonesian Muslim women’s divorce narratives during a period of increasing divorce cases. I find that by facilitating women’s exit from marriages, Indonesia’s Islamic courts accommodate women’s changing expectations of marriage. The case of Indonesia illuminates how a religious legal system may have unintended consequences, promoting women’s higher aspirations for marriage and potentially shifting gender norms more broadly.

What’s Wrong with Our Theology: Towards a Contextual Epistemology

Wednesday Forum – 26 October 2022

Theologies of the major religions have over the centuries so colluded with empires that untangling its first principles from those that legitimize the oppressions of empires is difficult, if not impossible. This is a Christian theologian’s reflection on an alternative theological epistemology, based primarily on the principles proposed by Paulo Freire more than fifty years ago. Is it too late for religions, or can they listen to, learn from and live in deep solidarity with those in the margins? An innovate approach – Interfaith Peacemaker Teams – that combine the best practices of interreligious dialogue and Alinskian (as in Saul Alinsky) community organizing proposes an answer.

Grassroots Muslim Majoritarianism: An Analysis of Salafi Islamic Expansion in Makassar & Its Socio-political Significance

Wednesday Forum – 19 October 2022

Over the past 30 years, Indonesia has witnessed the growing prominence of a number of transnational Islamic revivalist movements. These have had a considerable impact on political culture, as the popularity of these movements has gone hand-in-hand with increasingly sectarian views across segments of Indonesian society. Yet how do such movements successfully transmit their ideas at the grassroots level and present them in ways that influence national political opinion? Conversely, how does such grassroots activism alter the message and social aims of such activists? I aim to address these questions by focusing on the city of Makassar, South Sulawesi, and the activism of Indonesia’s largest Salafi-influenced organisation, Wahdah Islamiyah. Illuminating how Wahdah Islamiyah have grown their local network of mosques and schools, and the subtle practices they deploy to frame their Islamic message in ways that both relate to the anxieties of their audience, I explain how they promote a Muslim majoritarian vision of society. More broadly, I conclude by assessing the extent to which such activism can form an understandings pertaining to the socio-political mobilisation of religious social movements, and what it may tell us about the health of democratic debate and pluralism in 21^st century Indonesia.

In Search of Allah: Queer Spiritual Space in Bissu Community, South Sulawesi

Wednesday Forum – 12 October 2022

The proliferation of conservative Islam has affected non-normative gender and sexuality groups’ experience and construction of identity, as it has impacted the Bissu community in South Sulawesi. Bissu can be categorized as pan-Indigenous, including gender, sexual, and/or spiritual identity. Within Indigenous communities with androgynous concepts in their cosmology, Bissu have culturally-specific ceremonial and social roles in Bugis culture. In this ongoing research, I seek to understand how Bissu have encountered confrontation and acceptance within their queer indigenous body and spiritual space and how it has impacted their ability to partake and learn their religion and culture.

The Everyday Practices of Women’s Fatwa-making in Java, Indonesia

Wednesday Forum – 05 October 2022

My study deals with the legitimacy of Muslim women as ulama and the right ascribed to them by society to interpret religious texts and issue fatwas in response both to the everyday concerns of their followers (jamaah) and to urgent social problems. This study is therefore primarily concerned with the concept of religious authority and how it is modulated through gender. Taking a combined anthropological and gender lens, my study examines women issuing fatwas in different places and spheres of interaction between the fatwa-giver and fatwa asker as occurring at the institution, grassroots, women’s movement, and women’s magazines; spaces that are often considered as being of marginal importance in fatwa-making especially when it is done by women.

From Srandib, via Lanka, to Ceylon: Exile and Memory in the Colonial Age

Wednesday Forum – 27 April 2022

The small, Indian Ocean island known as Sarandib, Lanka, and Ceylon was a site of banishment throughout the 18th century for members of royal families, convicts, servants and others sent there from across the Indonesian archipelago. Descendants of these exiles who remained on the island continued to speak and write in Malay, the archipelago’s lingua franca, and to adhere to a collective Muslim identity for several centuries and into the present. The talk considers if and how earlier religious and literary traditions of banishment tied to the island – those of Adam’s fall from paradise to Sarandib and Sinta’s abduction to Lanka – played a role in the lives of the early exiles and their descendants.

Wednesday Forum, 20 April 2022, Speaker: A'an Suryana (ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore)

Wednesday Forum, 13 April 2022, Speaker: Diane Butler (Universitas Udayana)

Wednesday Forum, 06 April 2022, Speaker: Soraj Hongladarom (Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok)

Wednesday Forum, 30 March 2022, Speaker: Martina Safitry (UIN Raden Mas Said Surakarta)

Wednesday Forum, 23 March 2022, Speaker: Anne K. Rasmussen (the College of William and Mary)

Wednesday Forum, 16 March 2022, Speaker: Nadarajah Manickam (Multiversity Platform, Loyola Extension Services. Loyola College of Social Sciences, Kerala, India)

Wednesday Forum, 09 March 2022, Speaker: Myrna Safitri (Badan Restorasi Gambut dan Mangrove)

Wednesday Forum, 02 March 2022, Speaker: Suryaningsi Mila (Christian Church of Sumba Theological Seminary, STT GKS)

Wednesday Forum, 23 Februari 2022, Speaker: Izak Y.M. Lattu (Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana)

Wednesday Forum, 17 November 2021, Speaker: Jesada Buaban (Ph.D. Student, ICRS )

Wednesday Forum, 10 November 2021, Speaker: Emanuel Gerrit Singgih (Duta Wacana Christian University)

Wednesday Forum, 03 November 2021, Speaker: Yahya Wijaya (Duta Wacana Christian University)

Wednesday Forum, 27 October 2021, Speaker: Ali Ilham Almujaddidy (Institute of International Studies, UGM)

Wednesday Forum, 20 October 2021, Speakers: Chandra Prijosusilo (Sekar Kawung Foundation), Mochammad Indrawan (RCCC-UI)

Wednesday Forum, 13 October 2021, Speaker: Linda Busta, Petra Christian University

Wednesday Forum, 06 October 2021. Speaker: Yanwar Pribadi, UIN Sultan Maulana Hasanuddin Banten

Wednesday Forum, 29 September, 2021. Speaker: Krisna Yogi Pramono, Perkantas

Wednesday Forum, 22 September, 2021. Speaker: Harriet Crisp, CRCS Alumna

Wednesday Forum, September 15, 2021. Speaker: Muhammad Adlin Sila, lecturer at UIN Syarif Hidayatullah, Jakarta

Wednesday Forum, April 28, 2021. Speaker: Paul Hedges, Associate Professor in the Interreligious Relations in Plural Societies Programme, RSIS, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Wednesday Forum, April 14, 2021. Speaker: a Christian pastor serving with the Yogyakarta International Congregation and alumnus of ICRS.

Wednesday Forum, April 7, 2021. Speaker: Kor Grit, Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the Faculty of Theology at UKDW, Yogyakarta

Wednesday Forum, 31 March 2021. Speaker: Erica Larson, Postdoctoral Fellow at Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore.

Wednesday Forum, 17 March 2021. Speaker: Claire-Marie Hefner, a postdoctoral scholar of Islamic studies in the Department of Religion at Florida State University.

Wednesday Forum, March 10, 2021. Speaker: Ricardo Vargas Posada, alumnus of ICRS, Yogyakarta.

Wednesday Forum, March 3, 2021, with Daniel Majchrowicz, Assistant Professor of South Asian Literature and Culture at Northwestern University in Evanston, IL, USA.

Wednesday Forum, 24 October 2021, with Julie Gaynes, PhD candidate in Culture and Performance at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

Wednesday Forum, 17 February 2021. Speaker: Dr. Dicky Sofjan, Core Doctoral Faculty at ICRS, Yogyakarta.

Wednesday Forum, 16 Dec 2020. Speaker: Mohammad Iqbal Ahnaf, lecturer at CRCS UGM.

Wednesday Forum, 9 Dec 2020. Speaker: Dr Namrata Chaturvedi, Associate Professor in the Department of English, SRM University, Sikkim, India.

Wednesday Forum, Dec 2, 2020. Speaker: Rüdiger Lohlker, professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Vienna, Austria.

Wednesday Forum on 25 November 2020 with Saba Soomekh, the Associate Director at AJC-LA and a lecturer at The Academy for Jewish Religion, California.

Wednesday Forum, November 18, 2020. Speaker: Emma Meehan, assistant professor at the Centre for Dance Research, Coventry University, UK.

Wednesday Forum, Nov 11, 2020. Speaker: M. Amin Abdullah, professor of Islamic philosophy and Islamic studies at UIN Sunan Kalijaga, Yogyakarta.

Wednesday Forum, November 4, 2020, with Dr Ari Gordon, director of U.S. Muslim-Jewish Relations for American Jewish Committee.

Wednesday Forum, October 21, 2020, with Romo Martinus Joko Lelono, a Catholic priest, on youth religion in Komunitas Tritunggal Mahakudus.

Wednesday Forum, 14 October 2020. Speaker: Fatimah Husein, associate director of ICRS Yogyakarta

Wednesday Forum, October 7, 2020. Speaker: Mahaarum Kusuma Pertiwi, lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Universitas Gadjah Mada.

Wednesday Forum, May 20, 2020. Speaker: Paul Knitter, Emeritus Professor of Theology and Religions at Union Theological Seminary, New York City.

Wednesday Forum online, 29 April 2020. Speaker: Christine E Gudorf, retired Professor of Religious Studies at Florida International University.

Wednesday Forum, 18 March 2020. Speaker: Leila Chamankhah, from the Department of Philosophy, University of Dayton, Ohio.

Wednesday Forum, 4 March 2020. Speaker: Suhadi, lecturer at the Graduate School, UIN Sunan Kalijaga

Wednesday Forum, 26 Feb 2020. Speaker: Dr Zainal Abidin Bagir, director of ICRS Yogyakarta

Wednesday Forum, 19 February 2020. Speaker: Dr. amina wadud, from the Starr King School for the Ministry, California, USA.

Wednesday Forum, February 12, 2020. Speaker: Reinhold Bernhardt, professor of systematic theology at the University of Basel, Switzerland.

Wednesday Forum, 13 Nov 2019. Speaker: Joel Lohr, President of Hartford Seminary, USA

Wednesday Forum, 6 November 2019. Speaker: Dr Abdul Wahid, from FIB UGM.

Wednesday Forum, 23 October 2019. Speaker: Mohammad Zaki Arrobi, from FISIPOL UGM.

Wednesday Forum, 16 Oct 2019. Speaker: Prof. Karel Steenbrink from Utrecht University, the Netherlands.

Wednesday Forum, 9 Oct 2019. Speaker: Yulianti, PhD candidate for a Leiden-UGM joint program.

Wednesday Forum, 2 Oct 2019. Speaker: Dr Carola Lorea, from Asia Research Institute, NUS.

Wednesday Forum, 25 Sept 2019. Guest of honor: Dr Mehrdad Rakhshandeh from Iran's Embassy in Jakarta. Speakers: Dr Nasir Tamara and Dr Dicky Sofjan.

Wednesday Forum, 18 Sept 2019. Speaker: Jeffrey Kenney, professor of religious studies at DePauw University, USA.

Wednesday Forum, 11 September 2019. Speaker: Syamsul Asri, Ph.D. candidate at ICRS, Yogyakarta.

Wednesday Forum, 4 September 2019. Speaker: Samsul "Anchu" Maarif, faculty member at CRCS UGM.

Wednesday Forum, 28 August 2019. Speaker: Michael Northcott, professor of religion and ecology at ICRS Yogyakarta.

Wed Forum, 15 May 2019. Speaker: James Edmonds, PhD candidate at ASU.

Wed Forum, 8 May 2019. Speaker: Zainal Abidin Bagir, director of CRCS UGM.

Wednesday Forum, 10 April 2019. Speaker: Vissia Ita Yulianto, from Center for Southeast Asian Social Studies, UGM.

Wed Forum, 27 March 2019. Speaker: Mowafg Masuwd, PhD candidate at ICRS, Yogyakarta.

Wednesday Forum, 20 March 2019. Speaker: Judith Schlehe, professor of Socio-Cultural Anthropology at the University of Freiburg, Germany

Wednesday Forum, 13 March 2019. Speaker: Alimatul Qibtiyah from UIN Sunan Kalijaga.

Wednesday Forum, 6 March 2019. Speaker: Shaun Malarney, Professor of Anthropology at International Christian University in Tokyo, Japan.

Wednesday Forum, 27 February 2019. Speaker: Nur Nanung Widiyanto.

Wednesday Forum, 20 Feb 2019. Speaker: Evi Lina Sutrisno.

Wednesday Forum, 13 Feb 2019. Speaker: Prof. Takeshi Kimura, from the University of Tsukuba, Japan.

Wednesday Forum, 6 February 2019. Speaker: Mohammad Zaim.

Wed Forum, 5 Dec 2018. Speaker: Dayana Lengauer from the Institute for Social Anthropology at the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

Wednesday Forum, 28 November 2018. Speaker: Dicky Senda, founder of Lakoat.Kujawas.

Wed Forum, 21 Nov 2018. Speaker: Dr Siti Syamsiyatun, director of ICRS.

Wednesday Forum, 14 November 2018. Speaker: Ismail Fajrie Alatas from New York University.

Wednesday Forum, 7 Nov 2018. Speaker: Le Ngoc Bich Ly from Payap University, Thailand.

Wed Forum, 24 Oct 2018. Speaker: Maria Adriani, from UII Yogyakarta.

Wednesday Forum, 17 October 2018. Speaker: Daniel Petz.

Wednesday Forum, 10 October 2018. Speaker: Daud Sihombing.

Wednesday Forum, 3 October 2018. Speaker: Elizabeth D Inandiak, a french writer and translator.

Wednesday Forum, 26 Sept 2018. Speaker: Azis Anwar Fachrudin

Wed Forum, 19 September 2018. Speaker: Abdul Gaffar Karim, from FISIPOL, UGM.

CRCS and ICRS are now looking for potential speakers for the weekly Wednesday Forum.

Wednesday Forum, 12 Sept. Speaker: Achmad Munjid, from FIB UGM.

Wednesday Forum, May 9, 2018. Speaker: Volker Gottowik from Goethe University, Frankfurt, Germany.

Wednesday Forum, May 2, 2018. Speaker: Eckhard Zemmrich from Humboldt-Universität, Berlin.

Wednesday Forum, April 25, 2018. Speaker: Al Khanif, from Universitas Jember.

Wednesday Forum, April 18, 2018. Speaker: Prof. Magdy Behman, from Eastern Mennonite University, Virginia, USA.

Wednesday Forum, April 11, 2018. Speaker: Dr Suhadi Cholil from the Graduate School of UIN Sunan Kalijaga.

Wednesday Forum, April 4, 2018. Speaker: Barbara Andaya, professor of Asian Studies at the University of Hawai'i.

Wednesday Forum, March 28, 2018. Speaker: Frans Wijsen from Radboud University, the Netherlands.

Wednesday Forum, March 21, 2018. Speaker: Diah Kusumaningrum, lecturer at the Department of International Relations, UGM.

Wednesday Forum, March 14, 2018. Speaker: Ayu Kartika Dewi, managing director of Indika Foundation, Jakarta.

Wednesday Forum, March 7, 2018. Speaker: Hilman Latief, from Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta.

Wednesday Forum, February 28, 2018. Speaker: Matt Colaciello, a digital storyteller.

Wednesday Forum, February 14, 2018. Speaker: Febriana Firdaus, a freelance investigative journalist.

Wednesday Forum with Prof. Arskal Salim from the Ministry of Religious Affairs, on Feb 7 at the Graduate School of UGM.

Wednesday Forum, December 6, 2017. Speaker: Rudolf Dethu, founder of Muda Berbuat Bertanggung Jawab.

Wednesday Forum, 29 Nov 2017. Speaker: Farsijana Adeney-Risakotta, grantee of the Contending Modernities project.

Wednesday Forum, 22 November 2017. Speaker: Wening Udasmoro, the dean of the Faculty of Cultural Sciences, UGM.

Wednesday Forum, 15 November 2017. Speaker: Mark Woodward, Associate Professor at Arizona State University.

Wednesday Forum, 8 November, 2017. Speaker: Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Grosshans from Germany.

Wednesday Forum, Nov 1, 2017. Speaker: Evi Sutrisno, PhD candidate in Anthropology at the University of Washington.

Wednesday Forum, October 25, 2017. Speaker: Prof. Bernard Adeney-Risakotta, the founding director of ICRS, Yogyakarta.

Wednesday Forum, October 18, 2017. Speaker: Prof. Gerrit Singgih from Duta Wacana Christian University, Yogyakarta.

Wednesday Forum, Oct 11, 2017, with Maria (Deng) Gigiento from the Philippines.

Wednesday Forum, October 4, 2017, with Linda Yanti Sulistiawati from the Faculty of Law, UGM.

CRCS-ICRS Wednesday Forum, Sept 27, 2017, with Dr Mun'im Sirry of the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

Wednesday Forum, September 20, learning experiences of Mitra Wacana. Speaker: Arif Sugeng Widodo.

This presentation will argue for the need for a paradigm shift in the understanding of Islam from a religion oriented to law (nomos) to one oriented to love (eros), from prioritizing orthodoxy to orthopraxy.

CRCS-ICRS Wednesday Forum, Sept 6, 2017. Speaker: Dr. Mohammad Iqbal Ahnaf.

CRCS-ICRS Wednesday Forum, August 30, 2017, at the Graduate School, Universitas Gadjah Mada, on the dakwah method of a young Hizbut Tahrir-affiliated preacher.

Wednesday Forum on August 23, 2017, discussing the relationship between Indonesia's New Order government and Muslim groups. The speaker: Gde Dwitya Arief Metera from Northwestern University.

The architectural form is one indicator that reflects religious practices evolve over long periods of time. There are scholars who do not accept that religions and religious architecture have a history. These scholars prefer to believe that religious practices emerge fully formed and that they are static (i.e. they do not change). Most scholars, however, view the practice of religion as an evolving phenomenon based upon cultural symbolism. Furthermore, religious practices can be influenced by contact with external groups and often reflect shared histories between different religions. This is an idea that is frequently in conflict with political sensitivities, but may also offer opportunities for inter-faith dialogue.

In the late-15^th to mid-16^th century, Europe experienced three revolutions: a geographical revolution (“voyages of discovery” and colonial expansion); a religious revolution (the Protestant Reformation) and a Scientific Revolution. Within the religion and science discourse, the relationship between two of these revolutions—the Protestant Reformation and the Scientific Revolution—has been much studied, while the third revolution has been ignored. As a result, the ghosts of colonialism still haunt us. This presentation will explore the ways considerations of the third revolution—and postcolonial perspectives—broaden out understanding and expand the discourse, with special attention to the contributions of postcolonial Science Fictions.

Positionality is an important issue in the humanities and social sciences today. What is the relationship of the researcher to the topic she/he is discussing? From what position does she/he speak? To me personally as European living and working in Indonesia, this has always been challenging question. It has become even more complex and challenging since I converted to Islam. Only one essay in my newest book (2016) is explicitly about this, but basically the book is written from the perspective of someone in the process of crossing over (converting) and reflects on the ambivalence of this process.

The EU countries have been inefficiently managing the latest European migrant crisis, among them Poland was particularly unsuccessful. Contemporary discourse on refugees from the Middle East in Poland revolves around the following issues: the danger of altering Polish culture, the increase of the likelihood of terrorism, and the postulate of empathy towards people threatened by war. The religious factor plays a significant role in this discourse, since refugees who come from predominantly Muslim countries from a group of special interest in this Catholic-majority state. Halina Grzymała-Moszczyńska, Adam Anczyk, and Anna M. Maćkowiak have examined, qualitatively, how Poles perceive Islam, and how this image may be associated with attitudes towards refugees. The aim of this study was to analyze narratives about Islam and the religious Other, emerging from partially structured interviews. The questionnaire, containing citations from the Bible, the Quran, and the Bhagavad Gita served as the trigger for interviews conducted after filling it out.

One of the most significant ways the Indonesian state plays an active role in the country’s religious life is through education: Muslim students at all levels are required to take Islamic education classes, for which the government writes curricula and employs teachers. Therefore, the state—from the center at the Ministry of Religious Affairs to the periphery at individual teacher at public schools—has considerable power to shape religious perspectives of each new generation. His ongoing research is an ethnographic study of Islamic education in public high schools (Sekolah Menengah Atas Negeri) in the province of Yogyakarta, carried out through classroom observation, teacher interviews, and student focus groups. He will present the characteristics and effects of Islamic education in three fields: (a) perspective of religious diversity within Islam; (b) the valorization of the democratic nation-state as Islamic; and (c) the gender ideologies promoted as normatively Islamic. It is also noted how these phenomena vary in and among schools, noting the influence of socio-economic class, education, gender and religious background.

In post-conflict Maluku, there has been renewed interest in redeveloping the Banda Islands as a major tourist attraction for the region, and as a world heritage site. As practices of tourism represent culture for diverse audiences, they also inform how local inhabitants conceptualize their identities, as well as influence the processes of collective memory. The Indonesian concepts of culture draw on relationships to land, community and cosmology referred to as adat that have a dynamic and complex relationship to people’s religious identifications. In this talk, I’ll explore how Christians displaced from the Banda islands during the conflict are being “re-membered” as outsiders in the process of reconstructing culture for the consumption of tourists, and consider how representations of culture for the tourism industry can potentially strengthen exclusive versions of local identity.

As suggested by Ben Anderson, media is a powerful means in creating imagined community and accordingly in establishing a sense of cosmopolitanism. Taking this insight, the presentation will explore the rethoric represented in the series of comic under the title Baladeva, published by Tantraz Comiks (/Comics) Bali, Denpasar. The comic will be framed within the notion of micro-cosmopolitanism—a cosmopolitanism from below (Cronin, 2006)—through which the pressing questions of imagination of nationalism and cosmopolitanism, counter-transnational religious discourse, and religious minority are played out. Contemplating the present day contestation between nationalism and transnationalism discourse, understanding contemporary comics to a degree might illuminate the shift in the present Indonesia, notably from the perspective of popular culture.

The presenters examine popular forms of online piety in Indonesia. They are particularly concerned how Indonesian Muslims try to cope with the ambivalences that their social media practices inevitably generate. These practices range from taking wefies (selfies of a group of people) at religious events that are posted on social media platforms, participating in online Quran reading groups, various form of online da’wah (proselytization) to documenting one’s pilgrimages and meetings with Islamic figures online. Given the importance of visibility that these social media practices entail, the presentation has a special focus on the concept of riya’ (showing off one’s piety) reminding Muslims to avoid that behavior. Arguing that discussions about riya’ have experienced a kind of revival in today’s social media age, the presenters attempt to point out that online piety is inherently ambiguous eliciting a dynamic of discourses and practices that considerably informs the current field of Islam in Indonesia today.

Since 2011, 5 million Syrians have fled civil war in their country. Most of these refugees live in local communities in neighboring countries. Local faith communities and global humanitarian actors regularly work together to provide assistance for Syrian refugees. This talk presents research about Arab and Western Christians providing support for Syrian refugees living in Jordan, based on fieldwork conducted in 2015-16. The talk addresses three questions raised in literature about faith-based organizations working in humanitarian and development projects: 1) Do religious groups approach aid differently from non-religious (secular) organizations?; 2) What is the role of local faith communities in providing humanitarian aid?; 3) How do religious groups providing aid manage religious difference and deal with challenges of proselytization?

Conflict between Sunni and Shia Muslims has taken place in Madura, particularly in Sampang, for many years, triggered typically not in relation to different interpretations of the Islamic faith but rather by clashes between the various personal and political interests of the local religious elites. This study examines the opinions, beliefs, and experiences of the communities of Sunni and Shia adherents in Madura using a communication-cultural studies perspective in order to explore the contestation of meanings of local religious and ethnic identities. This perspective can provide an alternative for unpacking the everyday lives of the Sunni and Shiites and understanding the conflict through their local cultural backgrounds and religious experiences.

Abstract
The Islamic Otaku Community (IOC) is an Islamic fan-based community, which encourages young Muslims—male and female—who are actively engaged in otaku fandom to stay committed to Islamic norms and values. Hijab Cosplay can be perceived as a unique site which brings together two worlds, the sacred/ascetic activities of being a Muslimah and the secular/hedonistic activities of the otaku, in which young Muslimah not only choose, appropriate and reproduce characters from Japanese anime, manga and games, but also (re)claim their femininity as Muslimah in relation to it. In this talk, I aim to discuss how Muslim femininity is remediated through the practice of hijab cosplay, which is posted and circulated on the IOC fansite, and how the female dressed body as a mediation of femininity is actively mediated in another medium. Since the goal of remediation is to refashion or reform the earlier version of the medium, I consider the ways in which young Muslimah attempt to refashion and reclaim Muslim femininity through fandom practices. Since cosplay is not confined to the act of costuming, but is also immersed in wider fan practices, I also look at the remediation of Muslim femininity in Islamic Mangaka (fan arts and fans writing produced and posted by IOC members).

Breanna Bradley is an undergraduate student at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service located in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. Bradley’s studies focus on the relationship between culture and politics in Southeast Asia. She is currently a research assistant at the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies (ICRS), a Ph.D. program in Inter-Religious Studies located at Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. She has previously held positions as an undergraduate research fellow at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs and as a program coordinator for Georgetown University’s D.C. School’s Project, a program aimed to provide English language access for the immigrant community of the Washington DC area. She is interested in the role that Indonesian Islam plays in Indonesian culture and politics and is currently assisting with research surrounding the Tabot festival, a festival with its roots in Shia Islam celebrated by a majority Sunni community every year in Bengkulu, Sumatra.

Rachmad Hidayat is a fellow and Project Director in the Kalijaga Institute for Justice, State Islamic University Sunan Kalijaga, a research associate at the Asia Institute, the University of Melbourne and previously was a visiting scholar at the Institute for Politics, Religions and Society, the Australian Catholic University. He earned a PhD in 2016 and MA in 2010 both at Monash University. Rachmad had worked at the State Islamic University Sunan Kalijaga as a project officer and research officer for programs fostering gender mainstreaming in religious contexts. His academic interests focus on how the discourse of masculinities and femininities sociologically shape and are shaped by dominant imbalance power relationship in families, institutions, academia, and religion.  He has published

Speaker

Dian Arymami is a Cultural and Media Studies graduate and currently active as a lecturer in Department of Communication, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, UGM since 2009. Having had her childhood in a constant move in Africa, she had found keen interest in culture and cultural communications, along with issues concerning empowerment, sexuality, and social criticism. Some of her writings can be found in Perempuan Bicara Kretek (2012), CSR Indonesia (2013), Satu Dekade Wajah Film Indonesia (2014). Currently, she is working on her dissertation on Redefining Intimacy. She can be contacted through d.arymami@gmail.com or www.arymami.com.

Once the exclusive purview of male performers, women started singing publicly in the 1960s. By the 1990s, women had displaced male singers and nowadays it is extremely rare to encounter male singers. The predominantly male audiences are not terribly interested in them. However, earlier concerns that it was not appropriate for women to perform on stage in this deeply Islamic society did not disappear entirely and there are still questions about the morality of singers who are out working late at night.

Abstract

The Indonesian Ahmadiyya community has been facing violent conflicts after the Reformasi era. This dissertation focuses on the narrative of Ahmadi women about their experiences in dealing with daily conflicts they face in relation to their faith. This paper focuses on the acts of the Ahmadi women organization called Lajnah Imaillah from 2000 to early 2015 by examining their defense mechanism and exercising agency in resisting and preventing conflicts. The study was conducted in four areas in Indonesia, Kuningan in West Java, Yogyakarta, Lombok in West Nusa Tenggara and Head Office of Lajnah Imaillah in Bogor. The informants were Ahmadi women from different socio economics status and positions in the organization. Using narrative inquiry, this research found out that in responding and resisting to violent conflicts, Lajnah Imaillah has been changing its way of resistance and its forms of defense mechanism. The conflicts that Ahmadi women face have encouraged them organizationally and individually to be more actively participate in wider society and build good relationships with the religious others outside of the community. Therefore this paper argues that non-violent defense mechanism promotes better relations and mutual understanding among conflicting parties in society.
Speaker
Nina Mariani Noor just earned her Ph.D from Inter Religious Studies, ICRS (Indonesian Consortium For Religious Studies) Universitas Gadjah Mada last January. Her concern is on conflict resolution, gender, and minority studies. Nina is Programme Executive Globethics.net Indonesia (www.globethics.net) . Globethics.net is the biggest, global online platform dedicated to promote inclusive, values-driven transformation for sustainable living, through access to knowledge, networking, collaborative research, training and events. She also teaches in Universitas Pembangunan Nasional (UPN) Yogyakarta this semester.

Abstract
Among Southeast Asia’s many distinctive features, some would say stereotypes, there are two which I have helped to build. The first is its great diversity of language, religion, mode of production and political organization, where ‘empires failed to unify’ and stateless hunter-gatherers may still be found. The second is the economic autonomy of women, who had their own secure share in production (planting, harvesting, textiles, pottery, marketing) and therefore an almost uniquely strong position in sexual politics. As an historian, I was excited to demonstrate both features in the era before modernity entranced the region around 1900. Today’s students are entitled to ask, ‘Then what happened?’ Does modernity require nationalist homogeneity and patriarchy? Or was the region seduced by a peculiar ‘Victorian’ model of colonial modernity that could never really succeed in such a context?
Speaker
Anthony Reid is a Southeast Asian historian, once again based at the Australian National University after serving as founding Director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at UCLA (1999-2002) and of the Asia Research Institute at NUS, Singapore (2002-7). Since 2004 he has been increasingly interested in the impact of natural disasters on Southeast Asian history.  His books include The Contest for North Sumatra: Aceh, the Netherlands and Britain, 1858-98 (1969); The Indonesian National Revolution (1974);  The Blood of the People: Revolution and the End of Traditional Rule in Northern Sumatra (1979); Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, c.1450-1680  (2 vols. 1988-93); An Indonesian Frontier: Acehnese and other histories of Sumatra (2004); Imperial Alchemy: Nationalism and political identity in Southeast Asia (2010); To Nation by Revolution: Indonesia in the 20th Century (2011); and A History of Southeast Asia: Critical Crossroads (2015).
 

Abstract
American Jews have long been prominently involved in the American media and film industries, so much so that some commentators have even said they are ‘the backbone of film production in America’. This position has indeed given opportunities for Jewish Americans in the industry to play a prominent role in shaping the business including issues of how Jews and Judaism are represented in film and other media. However, depictions of Jews and Judaism in American movies have changed according to political and cultural conditions. After World War II, a new formula emerged on the silver screen. The reframing of American religious identity as “Judeo-Christian” encouraged directors and producers who were Jewish to promote the concept of America as a Judeo-Christian nation as a response to ongoing anti-Semitism in America. Examining Biblically-themed movies such as The Ten Commandments and Ben Hur-A Tale of the Christ, this presentation intends to explore the connection between the idea of a “Judeo-Christian” tradition and the acceptance of Jewish Americans and recent immigrants by American society. The portrayal of Jews in these movies is interesting to discuss here, not only because Jews and Christians are depicted in the same framework of the Hollywood movie, but also because of the underlying politics of representations.

Abstract
Starting with a discussion of goddesses presenting “her stories” of water and land, my presentation delves more deeply into ideas of natural femininity that often lost in present ways of writing “his-story. It is devoted to showing how can turn distant knowledge of a faraway past into touching individual memories for us who hear the spirits speaking through our bodies, our sexualities, trees, plants, animals, land, and water—this is in stark contrast to the homogenizing and brutal knowledge that sees nature as a mere ‘natural resources’ and the threat of ‘natural disaster’. My description of oikophilia will connect our reckless pursuit of individual gratification that jeopardizes our mother Earth and aid in un-learning oppressive myths toward women’s roles in natural preservation, and thus exposing the fundamental problem that all people need a philosophy of conservation.

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The relation between people’s perceptions of pollution (of Upper Citarum river) and purification (in Islamic teaching and local narratives) and their practices of water use.

Growing population and excessive urbanization in West Java has led to an increased demand for water and space, bringing with it significant problems related to water in and around the Upper Citarum River basin. The environmental burden is making the Citarum one of the most polluted rivers in the world. More effective water management and attention to public health has been perceived as the best way to overcome the problem, but  that approach puts aside local views on the sacred nature of the river’s water. Hence it is is necessary to focus on the nexus between development and religion as concerns water.  This presentation will search for the answer in how Muslims in the Upper Citarum Basin perceive the river as (un)clean and how their behavior is influenced by their understandings of pollution and purification.

 
Speaker
Haryani Saptaningtyas is a researcher and member of the advocacy staff of Percik Institute, Salatiga.  She completed her master degree in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Since 1997, she has been actively involved in social and enviromental research.  Currently she is a Ph.D. candidate in the Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies at Radboud University Nijmegen, where she is working on an interdisciplinary research project entitled “Water, Health and Development at Upper Citarum River Basin.”

Abstract
The presentation attempts to demonstrate that jihadism is not monolithic. In addition, it aims to obliterate generalizing assumption that entire Indonesian jihadists support ISIS.  In the Jemaah Islamiyah body—the biggest militant network in Southeast Asia—for instance, subdivision of its sympathizers is becoming more evident. The dispute is strikingly public after fierce debates over support for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).  Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia (MMI) and Jemaah Anshar al-Tauhid (JAT)—the splinter cells of the Jemaah Islamiyah—hold contrasting perspectives on the Islamic State. The former refuses to pledge allegiances with ISIS, arguing that the caliphate is invalid, while the latter sees it as legitimate, requiring all its members to render support for the Islamic State. This dispute evidently indicates fragmentation in the Jemaah Islamiyah body in ideology, strategy and political goal.  This presentation will explore such disintegration and its effects to Indonesian Jihadists’ future political struggle.

Speaker
Maurisa Zinira is the Lecturer of Universitas Sains of Al-Quran and UIN Walisongo Semarang. After completing master degree of religious studies from Center of Religion and Cross-Cultural Studies (CRCS) Universitas Gadjah Mada, Zinira continue his master degree in Department of Religious Studies, Florida International University where she achieves outstanding student achievement.

Speaker
Muhammad Al-Fayyadl is a contributor to islambergerak.com, a website dedicated to the construction of a progressive Islamic movement in Indonesia. He earned his master’s degree in contemporary philosophy from the University of Paris-VIII, France.

Sunda Wiwitan is an indigenous religion of that is practiced by some Sundanese people in Cigugur, Kuningan, West Java. Although the state recognizes this spiritual practice as an aliran kepercayaan, or a recognized belief organization, this community still faces discrimination for practicing their ancestral religion both from the state and from members of the religious majority in their surrounding social environment.  
This fifteen-minute documentary tells the story of Anih, a 14 year old Sunda Wiwitan girl, and how she faces the challenges of the societal reactions to being part of a family of Sunda Wiwitan followers.   
Karatagan Ciremai is of one of six documentaries of the Kembang 6 Rupa series, a collaborative documentary project voicing girls’ points of view from six areas in Indonesia: Kuningan, Indramayu, Sleman, Sumedang, Sumbawa and Wamena.

ABSTRACT
One of the major fears about religious freedom, especially in a country, that values harmony, such as Indonesia, is that there is a conflict between religious freedom, on one hand, and social harmony and economic prosperity, on the other. The latest scientific research offers strong reason to allay this fear: it indicates that religious freedom strengthens other human right, leads to better economic outcomes, and lowers social conflict.”

SPEAKER
Paul Marshall is a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom and the author and editor of more than twenty books on religion and politics, especially religious freedom. The most recent out of many books he wrote are Persecuted: The Global Assault on Christians (2013, with Lela Gilbert and Nina Shea), Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide (2011, with Nina Shea), and Religious Freedom in the World (2007). His writings have been translated into many languages from Russian, German, to Japanese, Malay, Korean, Arabic, Farsi, and Chinese. He appears in television programs in ABC Evening News; CNN; PBS; Japanese Broadcasting Corporations; and Al Jazeera. His work has been published in the New York Times, Wall St. Journal, Washington Post, and many others. Marshall is also a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Institute for the Study of Religion at Baylor University; Senior Fellow at the Leimena Institute, Jakarta; and Visiting Professor at the Graduate School of Syarif Hidayatullah State I​slamic University (UIN) Jakarta.

Canada’s Office of Religious Freedom

On February 19, 2013, Canada’s Prime Minister, the Right Honourable Stephen Harper, announced the establishment of the Office of Religious Freedom within Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada. Its mandate is to promote and defend freedom of religion in the world as a key foreign policy priority of the Government of Canada.

In advancing freedom of religion, the Office of Religious Freedom will draw upon the Canadian experience of pluralism that is grounded in Canada’s multicultural and multi-faith society. Promoting and defending freedom of religion is a core element of Canada’s principled foreign policy based on respect for freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

Abstract:
The paper examines religious shrines as symbols and the cluster of local knowledge of Christian-Muslims relationships in Maluku. In the social-cultural context of Maluku, religious sanctuaries — mosque and church- have become interreligious spheres. Although the shrine stands for a specific religious ritual, in the cultural sense the building is the responsibility of interreligious community who intertwined in shared cultural identity (pela).

This research explores church and mosque as symbols of interreligious hyphenation. It is a hyphenated reality because, in the cultural sense, church-mosque belongs to Christian and Muslim. In the local dynamic of Christian-Muslim engagement, the shrine conveys the collective memory of kinship (rasa orang basudara) among Malukan Muslims and Christians. Using an interdisciplinary approach: Christian-Muslim engagement in the sociology of religion and collective memory in folklore studies, this paper explores Malukan church-mosque as the representation of the total system of indigenous culture in five islands in Maluku.

The presentations slides of Wednesday Forum, Sept. 4th 2013, “Bridging Interfaith Dialogue Through The Virgin Mary” can be downloaded below:

1. Sharing Mary-Marlies Ter Borg.

2. FACE OF MARY- Dr. Fredrik Y.A. Doeka.

3. Gender Issues on Sharing Mary-Alimatul Qibtiyyah.

We invite you to come to our Wednesday Forum every wednesday at 1-3 PM, room 406, 4th floor of Graduate School Building, UGM. Jl. Teknika Utara, Pogung, Yogyakarta.

CRCS-ICRS Wednesday Forum

Indonesian And Western Social Imaginaries

September 12, 2012 (12:30 – 14:30pm)

Venue: ROOM 306, UGM Graduate School Building 3rd floor.

Abstract

Western social theory is frequently based on a paradigm of development from traditional societies to modernity. This paper argues that there is not one “modernity” but rather multiple modernities. Linear “progress” is part of a Western social imagination of development from simple, irrational, religious, traditional societies to complex, rational modern societies ruled by science. The paper suggests that how Indonesians imagine social reality is different from how people in the West imagine society. However not all Indonesians imagine the same social reality. Using Weberian ideal types, the paper suggests that part of the diversity in Indonesian society stems from competing social imaginaries, not just between “East” and “West”, but between different combinations of practices, stories, hopes, beliefs and imaginations which come from many different sources.

Speaker
Prof. Dr. Bernard T. Adeney-Risakotta. His doctoral degree was earned from the Graduate Theological Union at the University of California, Berkeley, in Religion and Society, Social Ethics and Political Science. His academic interests are mainly in Ethics, politics, society, and religious studies. He received his bachelor degree in Asian Studies and English Literature from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, USA, while his master degree was obtained from the University of London, England, in Social Ethics and Asian Religions. His publications are: “Globalization, Religion and Fundamentalism” (2006), “Power from Below: Deconstructing the Dominant Paradigm” (2005), “Etika Sosial Lintas Budaya” (2000), “Strange Virtues: Ethics in a Multicultural World” (1995), “Just War, Political Realism & Faith” (1988), “Ambivalensi Teknologi” in Ilmu, Etika dan Agama (2006), “Teologi Bencana –Pendahuluan” in Teologi Bencana – Pergumulan Iman dalam Konteks Bencana Alam dan Bencana Sosial“ (2006), etc.

Mustaghfiroh Rahayu (kanan)

The existence of various religions in Indonesia, even before the declaration of independence, gives a major impact on public policy products. As a religion followed by the majority of Indonesia’s population, Islam becomes the most favorite ‘vehicle’ for many people to slip in variety of teaching, which they consider ‘Islamic value’ in a variety of existing regulations. There are at least three legal products in Indonesia that are allegedly having an excessive tendency of Islamization and an exclusive look that are being discussed in the Legislature, namely: Halal Product Guarantee Bill, Zakat Bill, and Hajj Management Bill. Moreover, the arguments of religion, especially for Islam, also take an important role in the Anti-Pornography Law, Marriage Law and Inter-Religious Harmony Bill.

Mucha-Shim Quiling Arquiza

The emergence of Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), which was founded by Nur Misuari in 1969, has brought new spirit for the Moro to gain their independent. Moro refers to 13 ethnic groups in southern Philippines (Mindanao Island, Sulu Island, Palawan, Basilan, and so on). MNLF organises armed rebellion against the Philippines government, demanding economic equality and independence as sovereign state.

Stereotype as an insurgent has created different reactions towards the repressive regime. Hostility, frustration, and primordial chauvinism are recorded into collective memories and have become legacy through generations. Those memories and legacies manifest in not only physical resistance but also visual art, graphic art, and oral narrative.

Sumanto Al Qurtuby

On Sunday, September 11, 2011, Ambon was in turmoil again. It reminds us of a greater tragedy in January 1999. Some academic studies have been done to uncover the root of Ambon conflict. Most foreign researchers focused their research on social, political, and economic aspects. They viewed trade competition, bureaucracy and dispute over land as the causes of the conflicts that occurred in Ambon. In fact, the existence of the two communities (Muslims versus Christians) indicates the strong role of religion in the conflict.

Victims of natural disasters and humanitarian activists do not always share theological views of the meaning of disaster, even though both have same religious tradition. The victims tend to see the disaster as something happened according to the God’s will and relief organizations tend see the disaster as related to the more complex factors. This difference effects the cooperation between the victims and the relief groups in the disaster management and mitigation.

This a research finding revealed by Professor Siti Samsiyatun in her WedForum presentation (16/11/11) entitled ”Embracing Merapi with Faith”. What made this differrence, according to Syamsiatun, is the fact that most of those working for relief groups ae from the elite level. In contrast victims are under heavy psychological pressure so they cannot more holding the social view they hold outside the catastrophic situation.

Democracy provides both opportunities and challenges for Islamist movements Indonesia. On the one side, it grants movements with political freedom that allows mobilization. Such a freedom is a privilege for Indonesian Islamists compared to political restriction in many other Muslim countries. On the other side, democracy presents political opportunities for accommodation of Islamic political interest. The majority Muslim population gives potential constituent for the accommodation of Islamic values and laws. This democratic advantage however poses a challenge for Islamist movement advocating a fundamental change in the political system. The presence of Muslims in the system counters anti-systemic opposition. The impact of this challenge is evident in the political behavior of Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI). Started with a revolutionary goal of replacing democracy with an Islamic political system of khilafah, the movement now has to adjust with political reality. While persistently continuing its rhetorical opposition to democracy, HTI is becoming more tolerant of participation in the democratic system.

Religion has two diferrent functions, i.e. social critique and instrument of legitimacy. Unfortunately at present, especially in the Indonesian context, religion often demonstrates more role in the second function, instrument of legitimacy, than the idealized function of social critique. This view was proposed by Achmad Munjid in his WedForum presentation (26/10/11) entitled ‘The Role of Religion as Social Critique’.

Munjid, a Ph. D. candidate of religious studies at the Temple University, USA, used the concept of capital and power proposed by post-modernist scholars such as Peirre Bourdieu and Louis Althusser. Religion has power and ability to maintain the capitals for the social interest. Religion also plays a role as the reservoir of memory of society by which the memory of social struggle can be reproduced.

All religions are embedded and exist in cultural forms while the religion itself is the most powerful thing in changing culture. Islam as a religion also presents such cultural scene in all of Muslims’ living spheres. But the key question is the position of Arabic culture in the practice of Islam because this religion is born and spread in the Arabic context. This issue was raised by ICRS Professor, Bernard Adeney-Risakotta, in his talk at the Wednesday Forum (9/9/11).

In his presentation entitled ‘Islam and Culture: Educational Perspectives’ Bernie (how he is usually called) stated that he has been impressed by the Islamic culture in last twenty years living in Indonesia. He found that the culture of Islamic society or umma is multi-facets and not monolithic while the religious practice is not always in accordance with Quranic teaching. Based on his observation of Muslims in Indonesia Bernie categorizes Muslims’ thinking toward the culture.

Kekerasan dan penindasan terhadap perempuan masih terus terjadi di sekitar kita, baik di ruang publik maupun di ruang domestik seperti rumah tangga. Perempuan terjebak dalam subordinasi jender dan masih terbentur untuk memperoleh sesuatu yang menjadi haknya. Kondisi ini tak hanya terjadi di negara-negara dunia ketiga tetapi juga di negara-negara maju.

Adalah Wednesday Forum CRCS-ICRS 19 Oktober yang mengangkat tema diskriminasi terhadap perempuan dengan format berbeda dari biasanya, yakni pemutaran film “Provoked”. Film yang disutradarai Jag Mundhra ini dirislis tahun 2007, berdasar kehidupan nyata Kiranjit Ahluwalia, seorang perempuan Punjabi yang hidup di Inggris dan berjuang dalam isu hukum lokal Inggris. Dia mengalami tekanan selama sepuluh tahun pernikahannya dengan seorang pria Punjab, Deepak.

In last thirty years China has been successful in overcoming global isolation, alienation and misunderstanding created after to the Cold War. The communist state of China now adopts a more open strategy in its political, cultural and economic affairs. This change effects religious life; to some extent the Chinese people now enjoy more religious freedom compared to the situation the period of Cultural Revolution. However, religious life in China is a complex issue. It cannot be explained in a single way. This view is raised by the Director of the Hong Kong – America Center (HKAC), at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Dr. Glenn Shive In his CRCS-ICRS WedForum talk (12/10/2011).

The pesantren which was established in 2008 by Maryani, a waria, becomes the field site for Dian Maya Safitri, a CRCS student, to conduct her MA research. And on last Wednesday 28 September 2011, she became the speaker in the CRCS Wednesday Forum to share her research experience. Bringing the title Politics of Piety: Negotiating Islamic Religious Embodiment, she explained that the presentation was based on the fourth chapter of her research. The main subject was the warias’s freedom of choice got by in the pesantren to perform the Islamic rituals in either masculine, feminine or the waria way.

“There were many unreported huge seismic events in Sumatera,” said Anthony Reid in his public lecture ‘Rewriting (Sumatran) History in the Light of Seismology’ held by CRCS-ICRS GMU on Wednesday, 13 July 2011. This special event was held in the room 306 CRCS-ICRS UGM and attended by both Indonesian and foreign academics.

According to Reid, tsunami had depopulated western coastal area of Sumatra over many times. Statistical reports of decreasing population support this assumption. Unfortunately the Islamic maritime kingdoms in Sumatra such as Samudera Pasai and Perlak had no historic report on the previous Hindu-Buddhist reign around the area.

Wednesday forum is a weekly public discussion on various topics of religion and culture organized by CRCS and Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies (ICRS). The forum is held every Wednesday at 12.30 – 2.30 PM in room 306 (3rd floor) of UGM graduate school building. Since 2002 many scholars, students, and researchers worldwide have presented their papers or on-going research in this forum.

Anyone who wants to make a presentation in this forum should fill out the Wedforum-form and send it to wednesdayforum@yahoo.com and crcs@ugm.ac.id. For further information and inquiries, please feel free to contact the organizer Najiyah Martiam (jim) at jiahjim@yahoo.com or Amanah Nurish at amnuris@yahoo.com.

It was on May 2, 2011 that Dr. Teresa Murphy came to CRCS GMU to be the speaker of the weekly Wednesday Forum. Under the title ‘The Importance of Religion in the US Labor Movement in the Early Nineteenth Century’ Dr. Murphy, a professor from George Washington University, tried to demonstrate the relation between religious change and the labor movement in the 1840s. In this presentation, Dr. Murphy also stressed the women’s important role in the labor movement. At first, Murphy described the Christian revival in the early 19th century in the United States, known as the Second Great Awakening. The number of conversions escalated greatly during this period, and participation in religious institutions exploded, leading to contestation of the traditional church hierarchy due to the more open concept of religious leadership. Religious services were no longer held solely in churches, but also in open encamps where women and the slaves could participate.

Buddhist ancient sites around Yogyakarta have been marginalized under the shadow of Prambanan Hindu temple, the biggest in the region, said Kris Budiman in his presentation at CRCS-ICRS Wednesday forum held on May 11th 2011. A lecturer at post-graduate program of Media and Cultural studies GMU tried to capture the condition of the Buddhist sites and constellations between the government, the Buddhists and local people living in the neighborhood.

Kris initially stated that his presentation was not going to be in academic tone instead of in what he called “travelling” [narratives]. Pictures of the Buddhist artifacts including temples and statues featured prominently in his presentation slides. Those are the minor sites, amongst are very small remains, located in some places of around Yogyakarta. They come from the era of old Mataram kingdom ruled by Sailendra Buddhist dynasty during eighth to ninth century CE.

Dr. Judith Schlehe, German Anthropologist who has also a specialization in South Asian Studies, was the speaker for the CRCS-ICRS Wednesday Forum on April 13th 2011. Dr. Judith Schlehe made her presentation on ‘Bukit Kasih, the Hill of Love: Multireligiosity for Pleasure’. It is the result of her field research on tourism site in North Sulawesi called Bukit Kasih (Hill of Love) which has a concept of inter-religious tourism marked by worship houses of different religions.

Bukit Kasih is located in the village of Kanonang, Kawangkoan District, Minahasa Regency, Governorate of North Sulawesi. From Manado, the capital of Governorate, it is fifty about kilometers far to the south. The location is a hilly area which considered as holy site according to the local ancestral belief. It was first opened as Bukit Doa (Hill of Prayer) in 1999, but later in 2004 the Indonesian State recognized the place as the religious place. They erected five religious houses and the place were name as Bukit Kasih.

Ms. Amanah Nurish, an alumni of CRCS came to the CRCS-ICRS Wednesday Forum on 27th April 2011 and presented the paper on ‘Baha’ism in European Countries. She traveled to some of the European countries months ago to find out the religious life of the Baha’i community. She made her interest to study about the Baha’i community in different part of the world and she wrote her thesis on “Baha’sm in Indonesia” as the required fulfillment of the Master’s program at CRCS. She made the comparative study between Baha’is in Europe and Indonesia in terms of the religious freedom. In her study, she have found the Baha’ism as the new Abrahamic religion access more privilege in the European countries than in Indonesia. According to her findings from the interviews, the Baha’i community can access to the freedom of religious practices in Germany and Netherland, whereas paradoxically in Indonesia, the Baha’i is not even recognized by the state. In the birthplace, Baha’is suffer the persecution by the local Iranian rule. For the Muslim clergy, Baha’ism is seen as the offshoot of the Abrahamic religions which labeled as apostasy. Many Muslims majority countries, except the Turkey, chastised to this new religious movement. This made Baha’is from the Middle East who prevails in the European countries find the freedom of religiosity.

It was on the 6 April 2011 when the CRCS-ICRS Wednesday Forum had Abdul Hamid Robinson-Royal to be the presenter of the discussion. Bringing the title ‘Islam in America, from Hajj to Hip Hop and from Roots to Rap’ this Ph.D. student of the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California, who takes the fellowship program in ICRS Yogyakarta delivered a presentation about the Muslims of USA, highlighting African-American Muslims, their history and identity.

Abdul Hamid who is also a musician and has a master degree of music used the term ‘hip hop’ and ‘rap’ to show the diversity of Muslim community in USA, and its history. But again, the issue of identity is still a problem so that Abdul Hamid must open his presentation with the scientific notion of such terms like ‘indigenous’, ‘authentic’, ‘pluralism’, authority, ‘panoptic’, the difference between ‘decolonial’ and ‘post-colonial’ and the introduction of the concepts of ‘double consciousness’ and ‘double colonization’.

Last December 22nd, 2010 was the last edition of CRCS-ICRS Wednesday Forum for the first semester of 2010. The speaker was the Director of the CRCS UGM, Dr. Zainal Abidin Bagir, whose presentation titled “Religious Freedom, Harmony and ‘the Middle Way’: Analysis of the Indonesian Constitutional Court’s 2010 Decision on the Law on Defamation of Religion”.

Starting from an analysis written by CRCS UGM team of which Zainal Abidin was one of team members, they proposed the analysis as a consideration of the Constitutional Court (MK) decision in last April about the Religious Defamation Law (Law No. 1/PNPS/1965). Some NGOs and figures applied for judicial review of that law to the Constitutional Court. For this reason, before making a decision, the Court received considerations from all parties, including CRCS UGM.

CRCS-ICRS Wednesday Forum on 15 December 2010 was a homecoming story of Mark Woodward, one of the lecturers of CRCS UGM from the United States. Woodward, a professor of Arizona State University, during his return, was observing the development of political issues in his country. He found polemics related with constructing plan of an Islamic cultural center in New York named Park51 or Cordoba House that is likely known as Ground Zero Mosque, a title given due to effects of political sentiment.

Interfaith dialogues organized by religious communities, academic schools, governmental institutions, and NGOs have been identical to the role of senior figures. As the consequence, the role of the youth which is actually potential, is somewhat neglected in the effort of developing dialogue. The topic of revitalizing the role youth in interfaith dialogue was the issue raised by Roma Ulinnuha, an ICRS student, when speaking in Wednesday Forum on 08 December 2010.

Bringing out “Youth in Promoting Religious Dialogue: Comparative Study of Youth Representation in Indonesia and in United States”, Roma tried to explain how the young generation able to take an active role in developing interfaith dialogue. The research case that he did was about the activities undertaken by the organization Youth Movement or Gerakan Pemuda (GP) Ansor in Indonesia and the Interfaith Youth-Core (IFYC) in the United States.

Harmony and freedom are two crucial concepts within religious life. Those concepts are not simply realized by the religious community as such, eventhough it takes a long process to achieve, we must maintain the sustainability by putting on siginificant efforts. Not only acted by religious groups, this struggle must be supported by the political groups as well. That is the outline of a presentation delivered by Simone Sinn at CRCS-ICRS Wednesday Forum, last November 24th 2010.

Simone, a researcher and a Ph.D. candidate from the Faculty of Protestant Theology, University of Münster, Germany, delivered a presentation titled “Religious Harmony and Religious Freedom: Theological and Societal Considerations on Two Prominent Concepts.” In the forum moderated by Vanny Suitela, a CRCS graduate, Simone said that the theme raised was based on her ongoing research.

In the study of Islamic philosophy, the name of Shihabuddin Suhrawardi is well-known for his illuminative philosophical concept. He was a controversial figure in his time that he tried to combine the concept of philosophy with mysticism. In Wednesday Forum CRCS-ICRS December 1st 2010, this figure was elaborated by John Compaglia, a student of Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, and a holder of the Luce Fellowship Program at UGM, presenting “The Context and Content of Suhrawardi’s Use of Cosmogonic and Cosmological Doctrines in His Philosophical Allegories”.

Last July 5-23, 2010, a few students, a staff, and a lecturer of CRCS UGM were invited to participate in the “Vienna International Christian-Islamic Summer University” (VICISU) 2010 in the University of Vienna, Austria, in cooperation with the Austrian Ministry of Research and Science. The CRCS was represented by Dian Maya Safitri, Yuyun Sri Wahjuni, Sholahudin, Mohammad Rokib, Maria Ingrid Nabuboga, and Dr. Fatimah Husein.

For the November 3, 2010 edition of Wednesday Forum, two of them, Yuyun Sri Wahyu and Mohammad Rokib had the opportunity to share their experience.

For the second time, a student of the University of Malaya Kuala Lumpur took part in “Wednesday Forum” of CRCS/ICRS. The previous theme raised was about the issue of sleeping, and for 20 October 2010 discussion, the theme raised was about the concepts of reward and punishment within the educational system.

Moderated by Nyong Eka Teguh Imam Santoso from ICRS, the forum presented Mohamad Khairul Bajuri, a graduate student of philosophy from University of Malaya, who explored the title of “Use of Reinforcement in Learning: Content Analysis from Behavioral Science and Islamic Perspectives.” Bajuri delivered the results of a research he conducted in several institutions of Islamic education in Malaysia. Before conducting field observation, the research was initially begun with literature reviews from both scientific literatures, mainly psychology, and Islamic literatures.

One of the social phenomena feasible to be examined comprehensively is the issue of suicide. The frequency of suicides is relatively high and closely related to various aspects of human life. Addressing this issue, therefore, must be begun with a thorough study involving interdisciplinary methodology as delivered by Dicky Sofjan, Ph.D in his presentation at CRCS-ICRS Wednesday Forum on Wednesday, 27 October 2010.

Presenting “Suicide and Social Disintegration: Where’s the (Dis)-Connection?”, Dicky Sofjan, a Regional Project Manager in the Asian Public Intellectuals (API) institution, began his presentation with a description of the suicide intensity around the world. The varied motives and types of suicide were also presented. In particular, he mentioned the quite high suicide rate in the area of Gunung Kidul Regency, Yogyakarta Special Province.

The weekly discussion “Wednesday Forum” of CRCS – ICRS UGM held  on 6 October 2010, brought up an interesting and unusual topic that was “Exploring Christian – Muslim Engagement: Past Development and Future Prospect”. The discussion was a collaboration between CRCS – ICRS UGM with the UNESCO Chair in Interreligious and Intercultural Relations, School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University, Australia, conducted via video conference media. The program took place in the multimedia conference room, Faculty of Law UGM at 13.00, and among the participants were ICRS and CRCS students and also Faculty of Law students.

At the so-called weekly program, “Wednesday Forum”, on Wednesday, 22 September 2010, Dr. G.M. Speelman, a lecturer and researcher of Religious Studies and Islamic Studies at the Protestant Theological University (PThU), the Netherlands, was coming to CRCS as the speaker of the discussion. The theme brought was “Men and Women in Inter–religious Dialogue “.

Approximately at 13.00 the discussion was opened by moderator Leonard C. Epaphras, SSi, MTh, an ICRS doctoral student, after previously begun with a lunch session. Through her presentation, Speelman explained that the theme she brought was based on a research which was conducted in her country, concerning the relation between men and women  in the interreligious dialogue. The result of this research is planned to be published in an international journal. And through this forum, a few points from the research would be discussed before presented on a journal.

Dear CRCS and ICRS students, faculty and guests, We kindly invite you to participate in the CRCS and ICRS Wednesday Forum of this week. Wednesday forum will have Dr. M. Valliammal Baskaran (Associate Professor, Department of History, Lady Doak College, Madurai Tamilnadu, India) as the speaker who will talk about “Inter-religious Relations in Ancient Tamilnadu.” Some information about this forum can be read as follows.

Date: Wednesday, 28 April 2010
Time: 12.30 pm – 2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue: Room 306, UGM Graduate School Teknika Utara, Pogung
Speaker: Dr. M. Valliammal Baskaran

Dear CRCS and ICRS students, faculty and guests, We kindly invite you to participate in the CRCS and ICRS Wednesday Forum of this week. Wednesday forum will have M.William Baskaran (Professor and Head, Department of Gandhian Thought and Peace Science) as the speaker who will talk about “Relevance of Gandhian Philosophy in the 21st Century.” Some information about this forum can be read as follows.

Date: Wednesday, 12 May 2010
Time: 12.30 pm – 2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue: Room 306, UGM Graduate School Teknika Utara, Pogung
Speaker: M.William Baskaran

On April 28, 2010, the speaker of the weekly ICRS-CRCS Wednesday Forum was Dr. M. Valliammal Baskaran who spoke on “the Inter Religious Relations in Ancient Tamilnadu.” While Maufur, the ICRS academic coordinator, acted as moderator.

Before proceeding to the meat of her presentation, Dr. Baskaran showed first the map of India to locate where Tamilnadu is to the audience. According to her, during the Sangam Age (300 B.C. to 300 AD), there were three major types of religions that existed which were the: Vedic religion; Indigenous faiths; and Shramanic religions – refer to Jainism, Buddhism, Ajivaka etc. She said that during that time these three major types of religions co-existed until the end of the Sangam Age.

The theme of the CRCS-ICRS Wednesday Forum held on March 24, 2010 was “Sanctification or Subordination? Traditional Jewish Marriage and Alternatives within Rabbinic Literature”? presented by Melanie Landau from the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation at Monash University. Dr. Siti Syamsiyatun acted as moderator. The forum cum videoconference was conducted at the Conference Room at the Faculty of Law, UGM.

Ms. Landau discussed the traditional elements of Jewish marriage, two legal authorities or modification to Jewish marriage and the new interpretation to traditional marriage; she also included the aspect of the acquisition of the woman by the man, as elaborated in ancient and medieval rabbinic texts.

During the weekly Wednesday Forum held on March 10, 2010, Mr. Jimmy Marcos Immanuel, a senior CRCS student, presented parts of his field research result on the Marapu and Natural Disaster in East Sumba. Though the audience was few due to a workshop which was being held at the fifth floor of the Graduate School Building where some of the CRCS students attended, the forum was able to cross successfully.

With the theme “Marapu, Nature and Natural Disaster,” Mr. Jimmy presented his research in three parts. First, he showed to the attendees where Sumba is in Indonesia with the help of a map and a brief history of the place. Second, he gave the audience a glimpse of the village life of the Marapu people before and the present, also the cosmology of the Marapu people. And the third, he presented the concept and attitude of the Marapu people with regard to ecological problems which are compared to Government’s policy and scholars’ definition of natural disaster.

CRCS & ICRS WEDNESDAY FORUM THROUGH A VIDEO CONFERENCE WITH MONASH UNIVERSITY.

Dear CRCS & ICRS students, faculty and guests, We kindly invite you to participate in the CRCS & ICRS Wednesday Forum of this week. Wednesday forum this week will be a forum through video conference with Monash University, and we will have Dr. Melanie Landau (Lecturer, Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation, Monash University) as the speaker who will talk about “Sanctification of Subordination? Traditional Jewish Marriage and Alternatives within Rabbinic Literature.” Some information about this forum can be read as follows.

The interesting topic delivered during the Wednesday Forum on March 3, 2010 was given by Maesur Zaky from the PKBI (Indonesian Family Planning Center) in Yogyakarta. During the forum, Maria Ingrid Nabubhoga, the foreign-students host, acted as moderator.

In the forum, Zaky built an argument that religion is often placed in a dichotomous system. As a result, almost all approaches in life are divided into two categories: true and false, black and white, right and left, and other ambiguous categorizations. Among other life, sexuality and gender is a phenomenon that often explicitly categorized in binary opposition.

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 Mucha-Shim Quiling Arquiza (Ph.D. Student, ICRS-Yogya) as the speaker who will talk about “From Mission to Transformation: Dialogic encounter of peoples of faith in the bleeding Promised Land.” Some information about this forum can be read as follows.

Date: Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Time: 12.30 pm – 2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue: Room 306, UGM Graduate School Teknika Utara, Pogung
Speaker: Mucha-Shim Quiling Arquiza

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 Maesur Zaky, MA(Youth Center PKBI DIY) as the speaker who will talk about “Gender-Queer Perspective on Religion”. Some information about this forum can be read as follows.

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

Abstract:

Religion is often represented as binary system of life management. Consequently, it approaches almost all aspects of life by dividing them into dichotomously two categories, like right-wrong, black-white, rights-left, and another bimodal categorization. Among aspects of life, sexuality and gender are perhaps the most apparent aspect that is clearly categorized as binary. Even the two aspect are likely the basis by which other aspects of life are dichotomously categorized.

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 Mytha Candria (Ph.D. Student, ICRS-Yogya) as the speaker who will talk about “Women, Sexuality & Religiousity in Literary Works”. Some information about this forum can be read as follows.

Date: Wednesday, 24 February 2010
Time: 12.30 pm – 2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue: Room 306, UGM Graduate School Teknika Utara, Pogung
Speaker: Mytha Candria

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 Jay T. Rock (Coordinator for Interfaith Relations for the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.) as the speaker who will talk about “A Common Word Between Us and You: Are love of God and love of neighbor sufficient basis for Christian-Muslim relations?”. Some information about this forum can be read as follows.

Date: Wednesday, 17 February 2010
Time: 12.30 pm – 2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue: Room 306, UGM Graduate School Teknika Utara, Pogung
Speaker: Jay T. Rock

For the weekly Wednesday Forum held on February 10, 2010, a schedule originally arranged for Prof. Mark Woodward, Mr. Roy Allan B. Tolentino, an ICRS student, discussed the “Levinasian Ethics and Interreligious Dialogue” instead. Mr. Ali Amin, MA, acted as moderator. Mr. Tolentino talked about the works of Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995) which poses as a challenge to traditional ethical systems, in its radical reorientation of subjectivity. The presentation aimed to introduce Levinas and show his ethics that can inform inter-religious dialogue.

The guest speaker for the weekly Wednesday Forum on February 17, 2010 was Jay Rock who discussed “The Common Word between Us and You: Are love of God and love of neighbour sufficient basis for Christian-Muslim relations?” while Prof. Dr. Bernard Adeney-Risakotta, ICRS-Yogya Director, acted as moderator who made the discussion atmosphere more exciting. Mr. Rock questioned how did Christians respond the concept of Common Word and its relationship with Islam? Can this term affirm a basis for relationship, and also see the importance of attending to our differences?

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 Jimmy Marcos Immanuel as the speaker who will talk about “Marapu, Nature and Natural Disaster”. Some information about this forum can be read as follows.

Date: Wednesday, 10 March 2010
Time: 12.30 pm – 2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue: Room 306, UGM Graduate School Teknika Utara, Pogung
Speaker: Jimmy Marcos Immanuel, S.Si-Teol.

It has just been realized that CRCS has already run two periods of Competitive Research Grant Projects with a theme “Interpretations and Responses on Natural Disaster: The Integrative Studies of Science, Religion and Culture.”

The first period started at the end of 2008, and now the successful research grantees are going to report their researches. The second period is going to hold another workshop and selection for the 10 best proposals.

This grant has involved academicians, researchers, and NGO activists from every corner of Indonesia. Some of their proposals are done individually while the other proposals are done by groups.

Ms. Karen Bryner, a PhD candidate from Columbia University, presented her field research during the first Wednesday Forum for the semester and of the year which was held on February 3, 2010 at 1:00 PM, while Nina M. Noor, a PhD student, acted as moderator.

In the forum, Ms. Bryner perceived the combination of Islamic revival and the growing middle class in generating a new market for Islamic education which is the elite urban Islamic schools. This combination happened in the 1990s when many middle-class Muslims spend their money in educating their children by sending them to a very expensive elementary school which charged much than that of a state university. These Islamic elementary schools, unlike many of the traditional Islamic education institutions, are not largely directly connected to the long established Islamic organizations such as NU and Muhammadiyah, but rather to independent foundations or franchises. Yet tensions between Islamic organizations are being played out, particularly among NU, Muhammadiyah and PKS, as individuals are fighting for real estate for this new market.

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.

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).

The speaker during the Wednesday forum on October 14, 2009 was Ms. Melanie Nyhof, a doctoral candidate from Pittsburgh University, and the moderator was Roy Alan Brango Tolentino, an ICRS-Yogya student. Ms. Nyhof presented her paper entitled “Allah’s shape is like the sky: Children’s Understanding of God)

In the discussion, she examined the foundation of religious and supernatural concepts which should not be taken for granted; it must be organized in cognition. The focus of Ms. Nyhof’s research was on Indonesian children’s development in examining the concept of God; children with Moslem and Catholic background. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, she accounted and narrated the concept of God according to Indonesian children based on age, psychology, culture and religion. Ms. Nyhof stated that most researches related to children’s development on the concept of God are based on Christianity.

The opening Wednesday Forum which was attended by about 30 participants for this semester held on September 9, 2009 was marked with a presentation entitled “Evolution and Creation in the Muslim World: Ambiguities in the Moslem World”? delivered by Dr. Zainal Abidin Bagir who is the director of CRCS.

The main argument presented by Dr. Bagir was the Theory of Evolution that has not been considered important in the world’s religious agenda, and the opposition to Darwin’s Theory which emphasizes on the issue of Creation in the holy book, either Qur’an or Bible. Dr. Bagir also argued that the interpretation of other anti-evolutionism is also part of the politics of identity now. Anti-evolutionism movement is spreading in many countries and in many religious communities, such as Hindus, Jews and Christians all over the world like in Latin America, Northern Europe, Australia, even in Asia such as Asian Indian, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Sri Lanka and Hong Kong.

Christians must relate to non-Christians with love and respect, engage in a humbler dialogue, and recognize the truth and holiness imparted by the Holy Spirit to all religions. This was one of the viewpoints mentioned by Mega Hidayati during the Wednesday Forum held on June 3, 2009. The title of her presentation was “A Muslim View of Inter-Christian Dialogue.”

Based on her experience doing sandwich program at the Union Theological Seminary in New York, Mega saw that in Christianity there are many different views. For instance, in the evangelical debate, there are two dominant and different views which are exclusivism and inclusivism. She said that the exclusivists position Jesus Christ more as above all beliefs, while the inclusivists, including pluralists, deny the unique divinity or authority above everything.

Wednesday Forum this week provides a topic “A New Trans-yanic Buddhism in the Making?” that will be articulated by the speaker, Prof. Asanga Tilakaratne. We invite you to join this forum. Some information about the forum can be read as follows.

Date: Wednesday, 10 June 2009
Time: 12.30 pm – 2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue: Room 306, UGM Graduate School Teknika Utara, Pogung
Speaker: Prof. Asanga Tilakaratne

Abstract:

This paper examines the impact of globalization on religion. The particular emphasis in this study is on Buddhism, which has been confined to its localities for centuries and now has started traveling. Due to extensive physical encounters among various Buddhist traditions naturally there have been many interchanges of ideas, practices, techniques, methods and even ideas. It appears that a trans-yanic Buddhism, which goes beyond the traditional categories such as Hinayana, Mahayana and Vajrayana, is in the making.

When we talk about Islamic state, there are many interpretations related to that concept. According to Salem Ghandour, the guest speaker during the weekly Wednesday Forum on April 13, 2009, the ideas with regard to Islamic state in reference to the Qur’an and Hadith are narrow-minded. The Prophet Muhammad himself during his time did not claim of establishing an Islamic state. This narrow-mindedness is greatly influenced by Arabic countries, especially by the imams from al-Azhar in Egypt.

To show the differences between interpretations, Salem begun the forum by asking “what Islamic state is”? to two participants. The first participant answered that Islamic state is a state that holds Islamic law in its system. Substantially, Indonesia is an Islamic state, he said. The second participant emphasized more on governance that dominates pluralism under authority of Islamic state.

The conflict in Poso has caused segregation within its society which will be indicated with the existence of territories or boundaries based on certain religions. In relation with the segregation, Izak Y. M. Lattu, a CRCS alumnus who is currently working at Satya Wacana Christian University, said that the existence of the Youth Center in Poso is effective in building openness and peaceful relationship among the Poso youth. Through its implementation, positive impacts are expected to happen in the near future. Since its establishment, one of its positive impacts is bridging the segregation.

Our topic discussion of Wednesday Forum this week is “A Muslim View of Inter-Christian Dialogue”, that will be articulated by the speaker, Mega Hidayati, M. A. We invite you to join this forum. Some information about the forum can be read as follows.

Date: Wednesday, 6 June 2009
Time: 12.30 pm – 2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue: Room 306, UGM Graduate School Teknika Utara, Pogung
Speaker: MEGA HIDAYATI, M. A.

Abstract:

The diversity of religions and of Christianity in the world calls for respect and cooperation. Interreligious and intrareligious dialogues can be two of the paths to respond on this calling. Indeed, both kinds of dialogues are not easy especially related to conflicting truths as we can find in immense writings and experiences.

During the April 29, 2009 Wednesday Forum, Agus Tridiatno Yoachim, a first year ICRS-Yogya student, spoke about the Sacred Heart of Jesus Temple in Ganjuran, Bantul; a place where Catholic Christians go for pilgrimage. The place is teemed with water which is considered as a medium of God’s blessing to his people. The water flows from a wellspring. The pilgrims relate the water to their faith to Jesus Christ. Through the water, their hopes will be answered and their diseases will be healed too.

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 Dr. Nelly van Doorn-Harder (Religion Dept., Wake Forest University, North Carolina) as the speaker who will talk about “Protest through Pictures: Gendered Forms of Coptic Christian Visual Culture.” Some information about this forum can be read as follows.

Date: Wednesday, 5 May 2010
Time: 12.30 pm – 2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue: Room 306, UGM Graduate School Teknika Utara, Pogung
Speaker: Dr. Nelly van Doorn-Harder

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 Dr. Wening Udasmoro (Core Doctoral Faculty, ICRS-Yogya) as the speaker who will talk about “To Veil or not to Veil: Struggle and Resistance in French Inter-Culturalism”. Some information about this forum can be read as follows.

Date: Wednesday, 14 April 2010
Time: 12.30 pm – 2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue: Room 306, UGM Graduate School Teknika Utara, Pogung
Speaker: Dr. Wening Udasmoro

The lecture-presentation which was delivered by Prof. Dr. Carolina Lopez C. during the Wednesday Forum held on April 21, 2010 was “Moving beyond Violence: Potential Applications of Cognitive Restructuring Theory for Conflict Transformation.” And Faqiudin A Qodir acted as moderator.

For her opening, Prof. Lopez introduced the Center for Dialogue & Human Wellbeing (CDBH) and their involvements in various types of dialogue-related work such as Peace Education, Conflict Transformation Work, Healing of Historical Memories to name a few. After that, she explained that in doing their job an analytical tool is utilized for the entire process which is known as Ideological-Structural Analysis Micro-theory that explores the “formatting”? of memory stores in the brain, and how these are activated leading to habitual violent pattern of response to particular inputs. According to her, in conflict situations where violence has become normativized, ISA-based workshops offer the participants the possibility of consciously choosing peaceful alternatives responses to the stimuli which provoked violence behavioral outputs on their part.

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. Carolina Lopez C. (Centro de Diálogo y Bienestar Humano Tecnologico de Monterrey & Centre for Civilisational Dialogue University of Malaya) as the speaker who will talk about “Moving beyond Violence: Potential Applications of Cognitive Restructuring Theory for Conflict Transformation.” Some information about this forum can be read as follows.

The theme for the March 31, 2010 Wednesday Forum was “Matthew’s Contradiction”? which was delivered by Ahmad Saber, an ICRS-Yogya student held again at Rm. 306 at the Graduate School Building. Dr. Robinson Rajagukguk acted as moderator.

In his presentation, the speaker, simply called Saber by friends and colleagues at ICRS and CRCS, discussed the various contradictions he and the Christian scholars found in the Bible, most especially in the New Testament.

Saber said that countless books have been published by Christian scholars on the topic of the various contradictions in the Bible. However, he said, most of these books have gone one of two different routes, either: reconcile every single discrepancy through abstraction and so forth, and when they are presented with two conflicting versions of one story in the Bible they simply choose the one they personally prefer and claim the other was a scribal error, or claim that Jesus was no more than a legend and a myth, and that the Bible, the apostles, and even Jesus himself were only figments of someone’s imagination. Saber, on the other hand, did not go with any of these routes. He, however, took a different route which is that Jesus was indeed a true prophet of God but that His message was corrupted by those who came after him for personal gain.

The decision of the Indonesian Court Constitution on the Judicial Review of UU No. 1/PNPS/1965 is about to be given this month. The review process is still hotly going on, and in March, the situation in the court was colored by the clash between pro and contra groups. During the review process, CRCS also took part by writing a position paper to the problematic law.

The position paper that had already been sent to the Court was written by CRCS team consists of Zainal Abidin Bagir, Suhadi Cholil, Mustaghfiroh Rahayu, Ali Amin, Endy Saputro and Budi Ashari. Several months ago, the team followed and criticized the review process.

The theme of the CRCS-ICRS Wednesday Forum held on March 24, 2010 was “Sanctification or Subordination? Traditional Jewish Marriage and Alternatives within Rabbinic Literature” presented by Melanie Landau from the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation at Monash University. Dr. Siti Syamsiyatun acted as moderator. The forum cum videoconference was conducted at the Conference Room at the Faculty of Law, UGM.

Ms. Landau discussed the traditional elements of Jewish marriage, two legal authorities or modification to Jewish marriage and the new interpretation to traditional marriage; she also included the aspect of the acquisition of the woman by the man, as elaborated in ancient and medieval rabbinic texts.

The theme for the March 31, 2010 Wednesday Forum was “Matthew’s Contradiction” which was delivered by Ahmad Saber, an ICRS-Yogya student held again at Rm. 306 at the Graduate School Building. Dr. Robinson Rajagukguk acted as moderator.

In his presentation, the speaker, simply called Saber by friends and colleagues at ICRS and CRCS, discussed the various contradictions he and the Christian scholars found in the Bible, most especially in the New Testament.

Saber said that countless books have been published by Christian scholars on the topic of the various contradictions in the Bible. However, he said, most of these books have gone one of two different routes, either: reconcile every single discrepancy through abstraction and so forth, and when they are presented with two conflicting versions of one story in the Bible they simply choose the one they personally prefer and claim the other was a scribal error, or claim that Jesus was no more than a legend and a myth, and that the Bible, the apostles, and even Jesus himself were only figments of someone’s imagination. Saber, on the other hand, did not go with any of these routes. He, however, took a different route which is that Jesus was indeed a true prophet of God but that His message was corrupted by those who came after him for personal gain.

Date: Wednesday, 7 April 2010
Time: 12.30 pm

Date: Wednesday, 9 December 2009
Time: 12.30 pm

The speaker during the Wednesday forum on October 14, 2009 was Ms. Melanie Nyhof, a doctoral candidate from Pittsburgh University, and the moderator was Roy Alan Brango Tolentino, an ICRS-Yogya student. Ms. Nyhof presented her paper entitled ?Allah?s shape is like the sky: Children?s Understanding of God)

In the discussion, she examined the foundation of religious and supernatural concepts which should not be taken for granted; it must be organized in cognition. The focus of Ms. Nyhof?s research was on Indonesian children?s development in examining the concept of God; children with Moslem and Catholic background. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, she accounted and narrated the concept of God according to Indonesian children based on age, psychology, culture and religion. Ms. Nyhof stated that most researches related to children?s development on the concept of God are based on Christianity.

Traditional research suggests that children?s view can fuse the natural and supernatural. Children perceived God like a man, sometimes god is like a sky and parents. Ms. Nyhof calls it ?God as an anthropomorphic? where God can be interpreted concretely like human. It is opposite to the traditional theology where God is constructed like an alien and abstract. This recent research indicates that some abstract property and characteristics of God may actually be really understood by young children. When Ms. Nyhof revealed her findings, it showed that there are degrees in children?s perspective seeing God, from the very abstract to the very concrete one. Even though God is seen from the perspective of Anthropomorphic, but God still has special mental power.

The respondents of the research were children aged 3 to 12 old years, both with Christian and Moslem background. There was an interesting finding that Moslem children?s perception of God is more abstract than the Christian children?s perception of God. It might be because of the embodiment of Jesus Christ which helps them imagine who God really is, or sometimes Christian children state that God is their parent, whereas Moslems children don?t have real reference and shape of God like Jesus.

In the qualitative research, Ms. Nyhof?s tentative research emphasized more on the open-ended interview with the main question about the outward appearance of God, where God is and how does he / she look like? What is heaven, soul, and after life from the children?s perspective.

She interviewed sixty-six (66) children, fifty-five (55) of which are students from Islamic schools. When Melanie asked where God is, most of the respondents answered that God is in the sky, heaven, in the seventh sky. A few children responded that God is in the heart or everywhere. When she asked what God is doing? She was answered: watching human and the universe, sitting and sleeping etc. When Melanie asked how does God look like? The children told her that Allah is bigger than the sky, than a building, bigger than a rocket.

Overall, it seems that children are not confused on the concept of God, even if adults view children as individuals who still cannot distinguish between the mental, physical and biological appearance of God.

Several responses, comments and questions were addressed to Ms. Nyhof after her presentation.

One of the attendees asked what is supposed to be done when children ask about the existence of God and how does God look like, because most Indonesian parents are confused to answer it. Another comment which arose was that the concept of God is not only influenced much on religious background, but also on cultural background. Besides those question and comment, there were several people who criticized Ms. Nyhof, because for them she did not explain the sex or the gender of God according to the children?s perspective, the difference of urban and rural children, and children who have Muhammadiyah and NU background in seeing God etc.

The interesting discussion ran for more than one and a half hour, which was informally continued after the forum.

Ms. Melanie Nyhof earned her master degree from the University of Pittsburgh. She received several awards of honour and fellowship, like the Intercultural Research Qward, Fulbright Award, Commission and Religion Theology Project Grant, and the North American Science and Religion Travel Grant. She has been living in Yogyakarta for more than ten months. Her research will conclude at the end of this year.

(HAK)

The opening Wednesday Forum which was attended by about 30 participants for this semester held on September 9, 2009 was marked with a presentation entitled ?Evolution and Creation in the Muslim World: Ambiguities in the Moslem World? delivered by Dr. Zainal Abidin Bagir who is the director of CRCS.

The main argument presented by Dr. Bagir was the Theory of Evolution that has not been considered important in the world’s religious agenda, and the opposition to Darwin’s Theory which emphasizes on the issue of Creation in the holy book, either Qur?an or Bible. Dr. Bagir also argued that the interpretation of other anti-evolutionism is also part of the politics of identity now. Anti-evolutionism movement is spreading in many countries and in many religious communities, such as Hindus, Jews and Christians all over the world like in Latin America, Northern Europe, Australia, even in Asia such as Asian Indian, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Sri Lanka and Hong Kong.

According to the presentation, Anti-Darwinism also appears in the majority of Islamic countries, like in the Middle East and North Africa. Thus, the movement of anti-evolutionism has been globalized with various religious backgrounds. The most striking reference that firmly opposed to the idea of anti-evolutionism comes from anti-Darwinism, a Turkish, Harun Yahya.

The book of Harun Yahya was published with luxurious appearance. This has a good format, printed in quality paper with interesting covers. In addition, his book was translated to Urdu, English, Russian, French and Indonesian languages. The thoughts of Harun Yahya is not only in book form but it can also be found on websites in Indonesian language and all his thinking were quoted by various news agencies of Islam in Indonesia. On the other hand, Dr. Bagir also showed VCDs of Harun Yahya attacking Darwinism, Materialism and Marxism which are also sold widely by street vendors in several cities in Indonesia. Harun Yahya spreads this idea and it affects Biology lessons in classes. School teachers accept the idea and teach in the classroom.

Dr. Bagir argued that in his point of view, the emergence of the notion of anti-evolutionism is not simply against the idea creationism, but also the idea of materialism and progression of evolution proposed by Darwin. And almost all evolutionists believe in the existence of historical linearity and rationality of thought. Therefore, the opposition to evolutionism was not only the interpretation of religious issues, but also because of the emergence of politics of identity between Western and Eastern powers. In addition, the idea that evolutionism had been recorded by Darwin in his Origin of Species in 1859 was a new discourse for the majority of Muslims, so it does not acquire a serious place for open discussion. Considering that this is a new idea, no wonder then that in the literature of Qur?an there are various different interpretations which are contradictory and ambiguous in responding to the idea of creationism.

In the question and answer session, Sita, a CRCS alumna, commended on the idea that Darwinism is also used as a tool of colonialism by assuming that the people of the colonized countries have not passed the stage of evolution as a linear and advanced as countries in Europe, therefore they deserved to be enlightened and educated through a system of colonialism. Responding to this, Dr. Bagir said that it is true that anti-Darwinism ideas are more important because of the politics of identity. This is evident in a research conducted by Scott, Miller and Okamoto (2006) which indicates that the rejection of Darwinism in Europe and America now jumped two times higher than before. It demonstrates the strength of fundamentalism, conservatism and a strong belief by an individual against a Godly idea. This can be concluded that there was a positive relationship between being more religious by the rejection of the theory of evolution. And the criticism of Darwinism is more decisive because the follower of social Darwinism applies it in colonialism, fascism and the last is terrorism.

There was also a biology student who said that in her department (Facultas Biologi) at UGM, there are two standpoints, they who believe in the theory of evolution and those who do not agree with the theory, therefore it is not a surprise if students are guided by two different versions of books. Responding to the fact, Dr. Bagir said that although Darwin’s book is very rational, the books of Harun Yahya show the impression that it can be easily understood by the readers, those are colourful and interesting. Many people who oppose to the theory of evolutionism are more based on politics of identity and also because they read on Harun Yahya who often times quotes various verses of the Koran. The opponents of the theory of evolutionism do not really know and understand the thoughts of Darwin, so there is too much misinterpretation to the theory because the assumption is often expressed in rejecting Darwin’s theory which are part of the reflection on religiosity.

And at the end of the discussion, Dr. Bagir concluded saying, ?you could still be a Muslim or a good Christian even if you accept evolution.?

(HAK)

Christians must relate to non-Christians with love and respect, engage in a humbler dialogue, and recognize the truth and holiness imparted by the Holy Spirit to all religions. This was one of the viewpoints mentioned by Mega Hidayati during the Wednesday Forum held on June 3, 2009. The title of her presentation was ?A Muslim View of Inter-Christian Dialogue.?

Based on her experience doing sandwich program at the Union Theological Seminary in New York, Mega saw that in Christianity there are many different views. For instance, in the evangelical debate, there are two dominant and different views which are exclusivism and inclusivism. She said that the exclusivists position Jesus Christ more as above all beliefs, while the inclusivists, including pluralists, deny the unique divinity or authority above everything.

Besides exclusive and inclusive views, for Mega there are also progressive perspective, radical particularism and Pentecostal. She mentioned that each of them has perspectives and / or claims which are different with each other, especially when it is related to Christian life and other communities or adherents.

Because of their different perspectives and / or claims, Mega questioned each of them in relation to dialogue which is needed to be built within them. For example, for the evangelical, who can tell us exactly which one is true and which one is false? What is the measurement for this? For the progressive, as progressive Christians, if Christians believe in Jesus as God incarnate, and if in fact your belief is just actually a metaphor, where will Christians turn to? What will this do to Christianity? Does this presume that Christianity is ultimately a metaphor for a moral life and nothing more?

Based on the above-mentioned argument, Mega saw that we tend to be more intolerant of the other within than the other outside. Therefore, intra-Christian dialogue is needed to bring peace and reconciliation among Christians, and all people from different faiths. Related to this statement, in reference to Mahmoud Ayoub, one of problems or obstacles in Christian-Muslim dialogue is the ?inability to accept other faith on their own terms?

After her presentation, one participant responded. The responder said that there is a mistake in seeing Christian life and give categories as mentioned above. He continued saying that there are no such things as evangelist, pluralist, exclusivist, progressivist etc. which are applied in any Christians. He said that someone can be an exclusivist, inclusivist, or a progressivist etc all at the same time because of the teachings and experiences s/he understands.

The contexts or existences of Christians have also to be considered because they create different atmospheres for dialogue or relation, especially when there are classes or other fundamental differences among them. Relations or dialogue within Christian academe, for example, influence discourses and attitudes which are built within them. This will be different from other people who build dialogue in their daily or ordinary life with other Christians or other adherents.

[MEGA HIDAYATI is an ICRS student who earned her master?s degree from CRCS UGM. Her research (thesis) was on Human Finitude and Interreligious Dialogue: A Discussion on Hans-Georg Gadamer?s Thoughts. Mega just finished her Sandwich Program, a semester studied at Union Theological Seminary, New York City, New York. She was involved with the conference on Gender, Post-Colonialism and Interfaith Movements, New York, October, 24-25, 2009. She also spoke on several workshop and group discussion on interfaith dialogue.]

Abstract of the presentation can be seen on this link:

https://crcs.ugm.ac.id/news.php?news_id=180

(JMI)

Wednesday Forum this week provides a topic “A New Trans-yanic Buddhism in the Making?” that will be articulated by the speaker, Prof. Asanga Tilakaratne. We invite you to join this forum. Some information about the forum can be read as follows.

Date: Wednesday, 10 June 2009
Time: 12.30 pm ? 2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue: Room 306, UGM Graduate School Teknika Utara, Pogung
Speaker: Prof. Asanga Tilakaratne

Abstract:

This paper examines the impact of globalization on religion. The particular emphasis in this study is on Buddhism, which has been confined to its localities for centuries and now has started traveling. Due to extensive physical encounters among various Buddhist traditions naturally there have been many interchanges of ideas, practices, techniques, methods and even ideas. It appears that a trans-yanic Buddhism, which goes beyond the traditional categories such as Hinayana, Mahayana and Vajrayana, is in the making.

In this paper I start with recording some historical instances of efforts to find the universal ?core? of Buddhism. I specifically refer to Henry Steel Olcott?s efforts in this direction. Then I look at some organizational efforts to form ?world? Buddhist organizations transcending traditional boundaries. Finally I will examine some more recent efforts such the establishment of Bhikkhuni order with combined effort of both Theravada and Mahayan as examples of what I call trans-yanic Buddhism.

About the speaker:

ASANGA TILAKARATNE is a Professor of Pali and Buddhist Studies at University of Colombo, Colombo, Sri Lanka. He has been teaching subjects related to philosophy, logic and critical thinking and Buddhist philosophy since 1986. He earned his Master?s degree in Western Philosophy from University of Hawai?i at Manoa, USA (1984-1986). He studied from the same university and earned his Doctoral degree in Comparative Philosophy in May 1992, with the research entitled ?Transcendence, Ineffability and Nirvana: An Analysis of the Relation between Religious Experience and Language According to Early Buddhism. His publication includes: (1)Minis Getalu Pilibanda Bauddha Vigrahaya (in Sinhala) (Human Problems from a Buddhist Perspective), 1979 (State Literary award for the best publication of the category of Buddhism for 1979). (2) Nirvana and Ineffability: A Study of the Buddhist Theory of Reality and Language pp. xi + 169. Postgraduate Institute of Pali and Buddhist Studies, Colombo, Sri Lanka. 1993. (3). Beyond the Metaphysics of Common Sense. Edited with Arjuna de Zoysa, Y. Karunadasa, and Cahmpika Ranawaka. 1998. A joint Publication of Vidyartha, Colombo and Postgraduate Institute of Pali and Buddhist Studies, Colombo.

Registration:

The forum is free of charge and on a first-come-first basis.

Contact Person:

Elis Z. Anis (ICRS): elis236.andri@yahoo.com,elis@ugm.ac.id; Lina Pary (CRCS): lina_pary@yahoo.com; Mustaghfiroh Rahayu (CRCS): mth.rahayu@gmail.com.

(JMI)

The conflict in Poso has caused segregation within its society which will be indicated with the existence of territories or boundaries based on certain religions. In relation with the segregation, Izak Y. M. Lattu, a CRCS alumnus who is currently working at Satya Wacana Christian University, said that the existence of the Youth Center in Poso is effective in building openness and peaceful relationship among the Poso youth. Through its implementation, positive impacts are expected to happen in the near future. Since its establishment, one of its positive impacts is bridging the segregation.

This youth center was founded on November 2004 initiated by the Consortium for Assistance & Recovery toward Development in Indonesia (CADRI). Today, there are already eight (8) centers located in some places in Poso.

There are many activities the Poso youth, aged 15 to 30 years old, are engaged with offered at the center. Primarily, the programs of the center aim to enhance social cohesion, promote dialogue and bridge interaction among the youths who are from different backgrounds. In each program, the youths are positioned as main actors, and their creativities produced many creations and fields of work.

According to Izak, the Center is run by the youths and is considered as seed for massive trust in Poso. Those who are involved in the activities acknowledged that their views to others, who were considered as enemies, have been changed because of the activities; from hostility to friendly. They considered the sufferings they dealt with as their common ground in struggling for a peaceful and strong relationship.

Some participants who attended the Wednesday Forum questioned the youths? behaviors outside the center. They suspected that maybe their good relationship must be conditioned; showing a good relationship only during activities. They also questioned how the center prepares the youths to be the agents of change especially to the segregation.

Responding to the questions, Izak said that he has not done further research on the youths? behavior outside the programs. For him, the youths meet each other beyond the boundaries or territories. By doing so, this could motivate the people to not enhance the segregation, and this is also part of center?s effort in preparing the youths to be the agents of change.

The experience of center presented above could be a good example for other places to follow. Of course this is not only for places with existing conflicts, but also for places which are safe or peaceful, this could be an effort to enhance social life; a preventive effort to evade conflict.

In this case, the involvement of people from every element, including the government, is required to strengthen a massive and sustainable effort for goodness.

If we are to compare the youth Center in Poso to the youth Center in Bosnia which is the Jacje Youth Center, the success story of the latter is similar to of the former.

(JMI)

When we talk about Islamic state, there are many interpretations related to that concept. According to Salem Ghandour, the guest speaker during the weekly Wednesday Forum on April 13, 2009, the ideas with regard to Islamic state in reference to the Qur?an and Hadith are narrow-minded. The Prophet Muhammad himself during his time did not claim of establishing an Islamic state. This narrow-mindedness is greatly influenced by Arabic countries, especially by the imams from al-Azhar in Egypt.

To show the differences between interpretations, Salem begun the forum by asking ?what Islamic state is? to two participants. The first participant answered that Islamic state is a state that holds Islamic law in its system. Substantially, Indonesia is an Islamic state, he said. The second participant emphasized more on governance that dominates pluralism under authority of Islamic state.

For Salem, when we try to explain what Islamic state is, most of us use western-democratic lenses in which they are so different. Besides, if we merely refer to the two of Islamic laws, the Qur?an and Hadith, that is narrow-minded. The two laws only cover the contexts 1400 years ago and they do not talk about specific things as we experience nowadays.

However, Salem considered three religious interpretations which are considered to be touching the concept of Islamic state, those are: ijthisan, ijtihad, and jihad. Generally, these interpretations talk about how to consider and help people?s life.

In relation to the life of Moslems in America, Salem raised the issue of ?Rejectionism? which is popular in their communities. The basic idea of rejectionism is resistance to domination of al-Azhar thoughts in America, because Moslems in America think that the thoughts of al-Azhar are not relevant to their contexts. Imams in al-Azhar only emphasize Arabic traditions which are claimed as Islamic traditions. The emergence of Moslem youths in America is also part of the reason why rejectionism is present in America.

Based on this background, the Moslem communities in America, especially their imams and scholars, prioritize more on Islamic spirituality than traditions which have been dominated by Arabic countries. ?This is the most important thing,? Salem said. The idea of Islamic state is also not a substantial problem there.

At the end of his presentation, Salem showed a book entitled ?Islamic State? written by Now Feldmen. For Salem, Feldmen showed that the idea to have an Islamic state is a destructive myth. There will be much blood to shed just to implement that idea.

Salem added that the Prophet Muhammad himself during his time did not claim of establishing an Islamic state, he respected rules and pluralism that were held at that time. ?This should be done by us, as Moslems,? he continued.

With reference to the life of the Moslems in America and Salem?s point of view of Islamic state, self-criticism should be made in every Moslem community.

This is also a lesson for every Moslem community in other countries that have their own contexts and social responsibilities which are different from that of the Arabic communities which are mostly homogenous.

In Indonesia for example, with its diversity, is the concept of Islamic state urgent and needed? Of course we can guess various answers that will be given. So what?

(JMI)

Our topic discussion of Wednesday Forum this week is “A Muslim View of Inter-Christian Dialogue”, that will be articulated by the speaker, Mega Hidayati, M. A. We invite you to join this forum. Some information about the forum can be read as follows.

Date: Wednesday, 6 June 2009
Time: 12.30 pm ? 2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue: Room 306, UGM Graduate School Teknika Utara, Pogung
Speaker: MEGA HIDAYATI, M. A.

Abstract:

The diversity of religions and of Christianity in the world calls for respect and cooperation. Interreligious and intrareligious dialogues can be two of the paths to respond on this calling. Indeed, both kinds of dialogues are not easy especially related to conflicting truths as we can find in immense writings and experiences.

On September-December 2009, I took a class on Dealing with Diversity Evangelical/ Pentecostal and Mainline Perspectives on Religious Pluralism at Union Theological Seminary New York taught by Paul F. Knitter. This course focused on how to promote an Inter-Christian dialogue about how Christians can engage in inter-religious dialogue. The main discussions were about the position of Jesus as Savior, Christian uniqueness, biblical foundation, and the position of non-Christians.

As the only Muslim in the class, I learn much from this inter Christian Dialogue. I found that the Mainline and Evangelical/ Pentecostal Christians can learn each other about how to live faithfully and responsibly in pluralistic societies in terms of religion which in turn bring me back to my own religious tradition.

Thus, based on my experience in this class, I will share my understanding of Mainline and Evangelical/ Pentecostal Christian perspectives on religious pluralism and inter Christian dialogue between the two. Then, I convey a Muslim view of this dialogue.

About the speaker:

MEGA HIDAYATI is an ICRS student who earned her master?s degree from CRCS UGM. Her research (thesis) was on Human Finitude and Interreligious Dialogue: A Discussion on Hans-Georg Gadamer?s Thoughts. Mega just finished her Sandwich Program, a semester studied at Union Theological Seminary, New York City, New York. She was involved with the conference on Gender, Post-Colonialism and Interfaith Movements, New York, October, 24-25, 2009. She also spoke on several workshop and group discussion on interfaith dialogue.

Registration:

The forum is free of charge and on a first-come-first basis.

Contact Person:

Elis Z. Anis (ICRS): elis236.andri@yahoo.com,elis@ugm.ac.id; Lina Pary (CRCS): lina_pary@yahoo.com; Mustaghfiroh Rahayu (CRCS): mth.rahayu@gmail.com.

(JMI)

During the April 29, 2009 Wednesday Forum, Agus Tridiatno Yoachim, a first year ICRS-Yogya student, spoke about the Sacred Heart of Jesus Temple in Ganjuran, Bantul; a place where Catholic Christians go for pilgrimage. The place is teemed with water which is considered as a medium of God?s blessing to his people. The water flows from a wellspring. The pilgrims relate the water to their faith to Jesus Christ. Through the water, their hopes will be answered and their diseases will be healed too.

Historically, the existence of the temple was started by the Schmutzer family who were into sugar industry in Ganjuran. They bought sugarcane field and a sugar factory called Gondang Lipoero. They built a Catholic church in Hindu style in 1924, and then build the Sacred Heart of Jesus Temple, a monument to worship Jesus Christ; the construction of the temple was from 1927 to 1930.

In 1988, when a priest named Romo Gregorius Utomo became the bishop in Ganjuran, an effort to reinterpret and renew the temple was made. The temple was considered a symbol of God?s love and it has God?s blessing (berkah dalem). In 1997, the people started to do pilgrimage again. In 1999, Bapak Y. Suparno found a wellspring in the temple. They named the spring Tirta Perwitasari which is taken from the name of Bapak Perwita who was the first person who experienced healing when he used the water from the spring. Since that time, the water is an important element to the pilgrimage.

For Agus, the water in the temple has the power to heal and answer the hopes of the pilgrims. He himself experienced the blessing after his pilgrimage and after using the water. The power of the water is related to Jesus? power, they believed. Thus, every pilgrim who wants to have blessing always has to pray to Jesus Christ. The figure of Jesus is represented by a statue where pilgrims pray.

This tradition looks like another kind of paganism. So, when Agus was asked about this, he knows that there were debates about this thing among Catholic leaders. He said that half of them thought that the tradition is paganism, and the others thought that it is not a problem.

The tradition is not paganism as long as Jesus Christ is the center of worship, and the water is believed as a medium for His blessing after praying to Him. Agus added, whatever the medium, including the statue and water, the most important thing is how the medium can make them closer to God.

Agus realized that he does not know exactly what makes the water unique for the pilgrims, whether the place and some chemical in the water that could heal some diseases or God?s blessing. If it is really caused by blessing, can some water outside the sacred place heal diseases? What about the other people whose prayers were done by others? ?The answers to these questions are still pending for research,? Agus said.

By doing research about Javanese and Hindu traditions connected to the pilgrimage would be helpful for Agus to obtain a comprehensive portrait of the phenomena of the pilgrimage. Javanese and Hindu traditions in defining the water and in using statue for worship clearly influenced the pilgrimage. In fact, we still do not know whether this tradition is practiced by the Catholics outside Java who do not have Javanese and Hindu culture.

(JMI)

Our topic discussion of Wednesday Forum this week is “Jewish Resistance to Conversion in Fourteenth Century Spain”, that will be articulated by the speaker, Kristine T. Utterback, Ph. D. We invite you to join this forum. Some information about the forum can be read as follows.

Date: Wednesday, 20 May 2009
Time: 12.30 pm ? 2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue: Room 306, UGM Graduate School Teknika Utara Pogung
Speaker: Kristine T. Utterback, Ph. D

Abstract:

Jews, Christians and Muslims co-existed more or less amicably on the Iberian Peninsula, in what is now Spain, from about the eighth to the thirteenth century, a situation often called convivencia (living together). By the middle of the thirteenth century, however, convivencia was breaking down, and Jews came under increasing pressure to convert to Christianity: in 1391 a pogrom throughout Spain fatally weakened the Jewish communities there; in 1492 King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, whose marriage united the two largest kingdoms of the peninsula into Spain, required Jews to convert to Christianity or leave the newly unified country.

The eventual destruction of Judaism in Spain may give the impression of the inevitability of Jewish disappearance from the region, but it was anything but inevitable. Jews did not sit idly by and wait for the dissolution of their communities through conversion. They no doubt assumed that this was simply another threat to Jewish survival, and they employed resistance tactics that had worked before. This essay examines some of the tactics that Jews in the Kingdom of Aragon, now northern Spain, used to resist conversion to Christianity. These tactics included various sorts of polemical writings, appeal to support from the king and attempts to rejudaize converts, that is, bring them back to Judaism. The Jews eventually failed, but between the mid-thirteenth and mid-fourteenth centuries they had no reason to expect failure, and their tactics indicate a community concerned but far from defeated.

About the speaker:

KRISTINE T. UTTERBACK, PhD, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and History, University of Wyoming Visiting Fulbright Scholar, General Education Centre, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong.

Registration:

The forum is free of charge and on a first-come-first basis.

Contact Person:

Elis Z. Anis (ICRS): elis236.andri@yahoo.com,elis@ugm.ac.id; Lina Pary (CRCS): lina_pary@yahoo.com; Mustaghfiroh Rahayu (CRCS): mth.rahayu@gmail.com.

(JMI)

Date: Wednesday, 20 May 2009
Time: 12.30 pm

Interfaith dialogue in Indonesia has been experiencing developments since its rise in 1960?s. In its developments the dialogue can be categorized in three categories based on the actors: government, civil community organization and academe. This argument was articulated by CRCS research team when they researched on ideas and practices of interfaith dialogue in Indonesia. They presented their research findings in Wednesday Forum, April 5, 2009.

Interfaith dialogue in Indonesia was initiated by Mukti Ali, the Minister of Religious Affairs, in 1969. This was motivated for building dialogue in national and international level in the 1960s. In Indonesia, there was an initiative to build dialogue which was only a response to local conflicts which involved religious communities after 1965. It started from this background that emerged dialogues that had been institutionalized by the government, civil community organizations and the academe.

During the forum, the researchers presented the seven levels or situations in the dialogue. The first level is called ?dialogue of life? where people from different backgrounds share their daily experiences as ?human community? with common concerns. The second is called ?social analysis and contextual ethics? a situation where they try to understand the realities of life socially and ethically. The third level is understood as ?study of my faith resources? where people try to learn the religious traditions present in the community. The fourth level is the ?the Ultimate? where they all together join interreligious community and build a situation where they share their religious experience in order for them to be enriched. One step higher is the fifth level which is the ?interreligious theology? where they experience enrichment at the level of theology in interpretation and orientation. The sixth level is the ?dialogue of action? which is highly emphasize; here, the participants are empowered with perspectives related to issues on social and gender justice, human rights and ecology. The last level is ?intra-religious dialogue? which shows self-criticism and ?my faith is enriched and renewed? (transformed).

From the seven levels above, the researchers also found that actors too are categorized as they have different spirits with regard to dialogue. The dialogue that is organized by the government tends to ?top-down.? Dialogue is used as an instrument to overcome problems by building harmony and diplomacy. Unlike the government initiative, civil society organizations emphasize more on ?bottom-up? approach. The dialogue is not only done by interfaith organizations but also by other organizations.

The dialogue itself is also organized by civil society organizations that can be categorized: Interfaith organizations (Eg.: Interfidei [1991], ICRP [2000], eLaIeM [2000]), NGOs of religious-social-democratic studies/ advocacy (Eg.: LKiS [1993], Percik [1996], PSAP [2001], WI [2004]), Feminist movements (Eg.: Mitra Wacana [1996], Fahmina [2000], Kapal Perempuan [2000]), Religious council organizations (Eg.: PGI [1950], KWI [1955], MUI [1975]).

Meanwhile dialogue which is being organized by the academe is focused on higher education. Dialogue happens mostly among the academicians. There are some aspects on this dialogue: student body, lecturers, and curriculum/pedagogic methods.

Through this research, people could map the development and shape of the interfaith dialogues in Indonesia. The categories above could be compared to Diana L. Eck?s three interfaith dialogue arenas which are: academic, religious and public.

(JMI)

[The research team consists of J.B. Banawiratma (co-instructor of ?Inter-religious Dialogue? course at CRCS), Zainal Abidin Bagir (CRCS), Fatimah Husein (co-instructor of ?Inter-religious Dialogue? course), Suhadi (CRCS), Novita Rakhmawati (CRCS student), Budi Asyhari (CRCS), Ali Amin (CRCS), and Mega Hidayati (ICRS student). Visit https://crcs.ugm.ac.id/news.php?news_id=160 to see their abstract]

Wednesday Forum this week will have an interesting theme “Can a New ‘Islamic State’ Succeed?”. Our speaker in this forum is Salem Ghandour. We invite you to join this forum. Some information about the forum can be read as follows.

Date: Wednesday, 13 May 2009
Time: 12.30 pm ? 2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue: Room 306, UGM Graduate School Teknika Utara Pogung
Speaker: Salem Ghandour

Abstract:

Can a new ?Islamic State? succeed? To tackle this question, one has to look at what the traditional Islamic State was and why it worked so well for so many centuries until it ultimately collapsed. Only then can one understand why the idea is so popular today. Most importantly, one should be able to identify the major challenges that will face the new Islamic State.

In a first part, I will highlight that the quasi-total absence of political justice in the modern Muslim states to establish themselves as legal states in the twin senses of being justified by law and governing through it. Such structural failures help explain the surprising renaissance of Islam not only as faith but a powerful political force.

The call for an ?Islamic State? is therefore first and foremost a call for law: a legal state that would be justified by law and govern through it. Indeed, it was the abandonment of law as an organizing political force that doomed the old Islamic empires.

Finally, the greatest challenge facing a new ?Islamic State? is about identifying who is in charge of specifying the meaning of Shari?a and by what authority. In the old Islamic State, it was the scholars, and their authority derived from the Shari?a itself. But who is it to be now? Indeed, if Islamists take the reins of government but cannot manage to institutionalize the balance of powers and restore the rule of law, we are all in for a rough ride.

For now, the Islamist promise of the rule of law offers the only prospect for meaningful political justice for many Muslims. It it too, fails, the alternative could be much worse.

About the speaker:

SALEM GHANDOUR, 24, born of Syrian/French/ American parents in France, attended international schools (elementary through high school) developing fluency in Arabic, English and French as well as semi-proficiency in German and Spanish. Insistent on keeping his Syrian roots alive and aware of a widening gap between Islam and West, Salem decided he should leverage his faith, linguistics and multi-culturalism to void the increasing problems between the latter civilizations. He enrolled in general studies in Political Science in France before transferring to the USA, the University of Michigan, to pursue diplomatic studies specializing in Political Science, Near Eastern Studies and Energy Policy.

In 2005, Salem was selected by the US Department of State Eurasian Bureau (Washington, D.C.) as Diplomatic Intern at the US Embassy in Paris working on Public Diplomacy issues as well as working with the Cultural Affairs section.

In 2007, in another nomination by Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Karen Hughes, Salem was invited to tour Malaysia and Indonesia part of the Citizen Dialog Program aiming to dispel myths, stereotypes about Islam in America as well as American Foreign Policy. Salem is now a US Department of State Fulbright Fellow in Malaysia studying the environmental and social impact of converting Palm Oil to Biodiesel. Salem will also be focusing on drawing from the Malaysian economic story as an exportable model of development for the troubled and impoverished Middle East. He is also currently a US Embassy Speaker engaging issues such as Islam in America, US Foreign Policy and International Relations.

Salem’s extra-curriculars include Rugby, when in 2007, he was selected part of the University of Michigan rugby team. In France, Salem was also an avid Judoka, winning twice (respectively Silver and Bonze medals) regional heavyweight championships.

Registration:

The forum is free of charge and on a first-come-first basis.

Contact Person:

Elis Z. Anis (ICRS): elis236.andri@yahoo.com,elis@ugm.ac.id; Lina Pary (CRCS): lina_pary@yahoo.com; Mustaghfiroh Rahayu (CRCS): mth.rahayu@gmail.com.

(JMI)

Date: Wednesday, 13 May 2009
Time: 12.30 pm

During the April 08, 2009 Wednesday Forum, Dr. Elaine Kay Swartzentruber emphasized the importance of post-colonial criticism in reading the holy or religious texts. Some religious texts, especially the Holy Bible which is influenced by colonial power, have to be read carefully to make the readers or Christians not trapped in colonial perspectives which are not relevant nowadays.

Swartzentruber explained that there are many perspectives in understanding post-colonial theory since its emergence 25 years ago. By citing R.S. Sugihartarja?s point of view, she understood that

Postcolonial discourse is not about the territorial ejection of imperial powers or about learning, Caliban-like, the art of cursing the empire. Rather, it is an active interrogation of the hegemonic systems of thought, textual codes and symbolic practices which the West constructed in its domination of colonial subjects. In other words, post-colonialism is concerned with the question of cultural and discursive domination. (R.S.Sugirtharajah, 1998)

Post-colonial theories were introduced to biblical studies in 1990s. Through post-colonial, the Bible is seen as part of imperialism and colonialism in Jewish imagination and Western colonialism. Historical contexts of production, redaction and canonization of Christian texts have to be considered in reading them, including history of interpretations. Furthermore, implementations of the texts in today?s contexts by using other relevant resources are the main purpose of this post-colonial hermeneutic.

Before reading the texts, people should first release the spirit of marginalizing other people to consider the ordinary people?s perspectives and issues with regard to nationalism, identity, ethnicity, gender, state power and colonial domination.

An example for this hermeneutic is the story of a woman in Mark 7: 24-30, that woman has to be seen as a foreign woman who has no identity unlike Jesus and the people around Him. She approached Jesus without a protection from a male and during that time it was dangerous. There is a possibility that the woman is from a higher class than Jesus. The woman was not marginalized by Jesus but rather was protected by Him. At the same time, Jesus did not try to convert her faith. In the story, the woman was changed because she was brave in breaking the boundaries of the norms existing that time, and Jesus justified what she did by healing her child.

In the hermeneutic presented, readers have to be careful in reading a religious text. People have to be aware about colonial interests in the text.

This hermeneutic justifies ‘eisegesis’ approach that makes the texts speak to meet the readers? need, not only what the texts want to convey based on its contexts (exegesis).

The function of the texts to the readers is to make the texts relevant for the people these days and for people to be liberated from colonial interests and impacts.

Hermeneutic is actually the Christians? need to live in facts; that Christians are not part of the Western colonialism but rather to live in their own contexts.

(JMI)

Swartzentruber explained that there are many perspectives in understanding post-colonial theory since its emergence 25 years ago. By citing R.S. Sugihartarja

‘Symbol and belief’ is our main topic in Wednesday Forum this week based on theme “Water in the Catholic Pilgrimage Place: the Case of Water in the Catholic Temple in Ganjuran Bantul”. We invite you to join this forum. Some information about the forum can be read as follows.

Date: Wednesday, 29 April 2009
Time: 12.30 pm ? 2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue: Room 306, UGM Graduate School Teknika Utara Pogung
Speaker: Agus Tridiatno,Yoachim

Abstract:

One characteristic of catholic pilgrimage places is the existence of spring or well (Jv: sendang). It is usually believed that in the pilgrimage places happened miracles related to the spring such as health recovery. Then, many people came there for getting health recovery or other hopes.

In Christianity, water is symbol of baptism, new life, and purification. Of course, the existence of spring in the Catholic pilgrimage places is the sign of new life, hope, and purification.

This study tries to explore the meaning of water in the pilgrimage place, especially in the Catholic temple in Ganjuran Bantul, a famous Catholic pilgrimage place in Yogyakarta. How the pilgrims understand water in the pilgrimage place? Why the pilgrims wash their faces, and even whole bodies there? Why they believe that they will get health recovery by doing that?

About the Speaker:

AGUS TRIDIATNO, YOACHIM is now the first year student of ICRS-Yogya.. He is a lecturer of religion subject in Universitas Atma Jaya Yogyakarta. He is also the member of Liturgical Commission of Semarang Arch Diocese (Keuskupan Agung Semarang). His publications are Understanding Patriotism in Gaudium et Spes, Ateneo de Manila University, 1998 (masteral thesis); Masalah-Masalah Moral, Yogyakarta: Penerbit Universitas Atma Jaya Yogyakarta, 2000;”Perkosaan terhadap Istri: Perlu Reformasi Hukum” in Menggugat Harmoni, Yogyakarta: Rifka Annisa, 2000;”Primus inter Pares. Menangkal Diktatorisme dan Disintegrasi” , Jurnal Isip, 2001(2):1-11; “Memperkarakan Tradisi Gereja: Teolog Feminis Sandra Marie Schneiders”, Melintas ,2002 (55):27-47; “The Tolerance of the Catholics toward Other Religions and Believes: Case Study on the Catholics in Yogyakarta”, Proceedings of International Seminar. Globalization, Religion and the Media in the Islamic World: Intercultural Dialogue, Penerbit:MKU Universitas Atma Jaya Yogyakarta, 2003; ?Memelihara Kesatuan dengan Menghormati Keragaman? dalam buku Josep J. Darmawan (ed), Multikulturalisme. Membangun Harmoni Masyarakat Plural, Yogyakarta: Universitas Atma Jaya Yogyakarta, 2005. His articles were also published in Bernas and Kedaulatan Rakyat, Yogyakarta.

Registration:

The forum is free of charge and on a first-come-first basis.

Contact Person:

Elis (ICRS): elis@ugm.ac.id; Lina(CRCS): lina_pary@yahoo.com; Mustaghfiroh Rahayu(CRCS): mth.rahayu@gmail.com

(JMI)

Date: Wednesday, 29 April 2009
Time: 12.30 pm

This week Wednesday Forum will provide a discussion topic about music and religion entitled “Selawatan as Musical Reflection of the Islamic Law Interpretation Phenomenon: a Musicological Studies of Islamic Religious Music in the Province of DIY”. We invite you to join this forum. Some information about it can be read as follows.

Date: Wednesday, 22 April 2009
Time: 12.30 pm ? 2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue: Room 306, UGM Graduate School Teknika Utara Pogung
Speaker: Drs. Andre Indrawan Amin, M. Hum, M.Mus.St, L.Mus.A.

Abstract

This study concerns with an Islamic musical tradition, the selawatan, practiced in almost all traditional Muslim areas of the DIY Province. By utilising ethnomusicological approach, data collected through field research in some mosques, slamic boarding schools, and people in their surounding, within Yogyakarta city and three districts of the province: Sleman, Bantul, and Gunung Kidul. Music as well as Islamic rulings on it, that currently seems to be addressed to music in the Western world, has been a controversial issue within Muslim societies since the early day of Islam. Through discussion on the selawatan as a kind of musical work that was considered a ?non-music? of the Islamic vocal arts by some early relgious scholars, this study tries to uncover the relationship between the selawatan and some Muslim?s believe on the prohibition of music as an ongoing reality of the Islamic law interpretation phenomenon. Problems discussion of this study involving three steps: (1) textually uncovers musicological characteristic of the selawatan to obtain evidences that it is a kind of Islamic religious music, (2) con-textually observes its social as well as cultural functions to understand it from ethnomusicological perspectives that music is a social process, and (3) conceptually uncover a speculative relationship between the selawatan and Islamic religious law to understand the reason why the traditional Muslim practice the selawatan musically.

About the Speaker

ANDRE INDRAWAN is currently a teaching staff at Music Department, the Faculty of Performing Arts, Indonesia Institute of the Arts Yogyakarta (known as ISI Yogyakarta). He received his undergraduate degree in musicology from ISI Yogyakarta in 1986. In 1991 he did a master studies in Gadjah Mada University and graduated with cum laude status in 1994. To complete this study he did a field research about a group of traditional plucked instruments in Northern Sumatera province in 1993. In 1999 he deepen his music studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia and received his master?s degree in musical performance and instrumental teaching in 2000. He then received a scholarship for a preliminary ethnomusicological research on the Islamic music within the university up to 2002. Now, he is being interested in some religious music of the traditional Muslims in the province of DIY.

Registration:

The forum is free of charge and on a first-come-first basis.

Contact Person:

Elis (ICRS): elis@ugm.ac.id; Lina(CRCS): lina_pary@yahoo.com; Mustaghfiroh Rahayu(CRCS): mth.rahayu@gmail.com

(JMI)

Date: Wednesday, 22 April 2009
Time: 12.30 pm

Wednesday, 1 April 2009. The topic discussed during the Wednesday Forum on April 1, 2009 was about Sufism and Women which was presented by Najiyah Martiam, a CRCS alumna.

Martiam stated that Sufism is a world full of affable thoughts that point to women. This is the result of her thorough research on Sufism. She had interviewed three female Sufis and one male Sufi in Yogyakarta, and some Sufis in Turkey.

For Martiam, Ibn Arabi (1165-1240) and Jalaluddin Rumi (1207-1273), who were prominent Sufis in the past, stated that women are important figure in performing Sufism. Ibn Arabi said that if a man wants to be a Sufi, he should transform into a woman first. His point of view here relates to his perspective in viewing the Divine as feminine. According to Jalaluddin, ?A woman is a ray of God.? She is not just an earthly beloved; she is creative, not created. When a woman controls her feelings and overcomes sensual desires, she leaves the men behind on the path of God and attains truth faster than men. These two male Sufis showed their great care to women in relation to God.

What about female Sufis in viewing women and God? To answer this question, Martiam presented the result of her research with the three female Sufis in Java she interviewed who were Umi, Ibu Heni and Mbak Ati Hidayati.

Martiam sees that there are differences between female and male. She said that female spiritualism is more integrative or holistic. There is an intrinsic unity in all forms of being called ?life force? or ?life energy.? The experience of union with the Divine is accessible to everyone here and now. God is here not there. There is no dichotomy between body and mind. The body is the main resource of spirituality and power.

By interviewing those Sufis mentioned, Martiam does not intend to make men behind women, or to make women forward, but she intends to show that in this world the equality or balance is needed. She does not talk about dichotomy between men and women. Beyond that, masculine and feminine energies in every human being have to be equal or balance. According to Martiam, patriarchal culture which prioritizes masculinity has caused inequality or imbalance in the world that is believed as main cause of domination of ratio and men?s superiority to women. Therefore, feminine energy that represents feeling and women?s existence in the world has to be improved until equality will be accomplished.

This frame, Martiam said, is interesting to be counted on in problems of gender inequality and social problems which are based on masculinity. This also shows that the discourse of metaphysic is adequate to be considered in searching solutions of today?s problems. Even Fritjof Capra, a physicist, in his book entitled ?the Turning Point? shows that Physics and History reveal that the phenomena in the world are related to both energies.

(JMI)

There will be an interesting topic in Wednesday Forum this week. CRCS research team for inter-religious dialogue will lead us to discuss about ideas and practices of inter-religious in Indonesia. Zainal Abidin Bagir and J. B. Banawiratma, as part of the team, will be speakers in this forum. We invite you to join this forum. Some information can be read as follows.

Date: Wednesday, 15 April 2009
Time: 12.30 pm ? 2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue: Room 306, UGM Graduate School Teknika Utara Pogung
Speaker: CRCS Research Team (Presenters: Zainal Abidin Bagir and J. B. Banawiratma)

Abstract:

This research is motivated by the fact that compared to many other countries, (institutionalized) inter-religious dialog has had quite a long history in Indonesia. We understand such ?inter-religious dialogue? broadly in terms of encounters of people of different faith, but limited our attention to its institutionalized form. The idea and practice of inter-religious dialog in Indonesia started with the Ministry of Religious Affairs in 1960s. In addition, starting 2001, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sponsored dialog with other countries in the regional and international levels. Partly as a disappointment to the way dialog was becoming part of government?s way of controlling the relations between religious communities, starting in late 1980s inter-religious dialogue was promoted by many non-governmental organizations (some NGOs were even established to focus on dialog). Most recently, we noted that dialog has been part of the academia: starting late 1990s, courses on dialog are offered and academic programs and centers made dialog as part of their academic interest?CRCS and ICRS-Yogya are two of the latest examples on this.

Our main questions were: what have happened in those three domains of dialog?governmental institutions, NGOs, and the academia?and what motivate them? In this research, we did not intend to document everything that have happened, but tried to find their varieties. The presentation will describe such varieties of dialog, analyze them and give some recommendations as to the course of dialog in the three domains in the future.

Research Team:

The research team consists of J.B. Banawiratma (co-instructor of ?Inter-religious Dialogue? course at CRCS), Zainal Abidin Bagir (CRCS), Fatimah Husein (co-instructor of ?Inter-religious Dialogue? course), Suhadi (CRCS), Novita Rakhmawati (CRCS student), Budi Asyhari (CRCS), Ali Amin (CRCS), and Mega Hidayati (ICRS student).

Registration:

The forum is free of charge and on a first-come-first basis.

Contact Person:

Elis (ICRS): elis@ugm.ac.id; Lina(CRCS): lina_pary@yahoo.com; Mustaghfiroh Rahayu(CRCS): mth.rahayu@gmail.com

(JMI)

Date: Wednesday, 15 April 2009
Time: 12.30 pm

Religious texts and post-colonialism is our main topic this week in Wednesday Forum. The speaker in this forum is Dr. Elaine Kay Swartzentruber. We invite you to join this forum and discuss more about that topic. Other information about Wednesday Forum this week can be read as follows.

Date: Wednesday, 8 April 2009
Time: 12.30 pm ? 2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue: Room 306, UGM Graduate School Teknika Utara Pogung
Speaker: Dr. Elaine Kay Swartzentruber

Abstract:

Theorist Edward Said has defined criticism as ?life enhancing and constitutively opposed to every form of tyranny, domination and abuse, its social goals are non-coercive knowledge produced in the interest of human freedom? (1991-29). Said?s own critical perspective has been generative of a set of theories known as postcolonialism. What happens when we use some of the insights of postcolonial criticism to read and interpret religious texts? What new critical insights might be introduced into our understanding of particular religious texts, religious practice and relationship between different religions?

In this presentation we will read a religious text from the Christian scriptures (Mark 7: 25ff.) through a postcolonial critical lens asking how such a lens might differ from traditional or liberation perspectives and how such a lens might open new arenas of inter-religious dialogue.

About the speaker:

Elaine Kay Swartzentruber comes to CRCS from the United States. She received her Ph.D in Religious Studies with a certificate in Women’s Studies from Emory University in Atlanta Georgia (1999), her MA from Chicago Theological Seminary (1991) and BA from the University of Colorado (1988). Before coming to Indonesia in 2007, she taught at Emory University and at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. Her research and writing interests are in gender, subjectivity and religious community, interreligious dialogue, peace studies, postcolonialism and feminism in religious studies.

Registration:

The forum is free of charge and on a first-come-first basis.

Contact person:

Elis (ICRS): elis@ugm.ac.id; Lina(CRCS): lina_pary@yahoo.com; Mustaghfiroh Rahayu(CRCS): mth.rahayu@gmail.com

(JMI)

For the past two months of this semester, the students of CRCS were busy having two field trips. On February 12-13, they together with Prof. Dr. Irwan Abdullah and Dr. Mark Woodward conducted a mini-research project in Klaten. The research focused mainly to the Yaqowiyyu Celebrations in Jatinom, a small village in Klaten. The project was part of their class in Research Methodology of Religion and in Indigenous Religion & Society. The last field trip that they did is dialoging interfaith dialogue in Salatiga? as also part of another course.

On March 14, the students had a productive field trip to Salatiga along with their professors (Prof. Banawiratma and Dr. Fatimah Husein ) for their ‘Inter-religious Dialogue’ class. The class visited two institutions that promote interfaith dialogue which are Percik and Sekolah Alternatif Qarryah Tayyibah (Alternative Junior and Senior High School). The objective of the trip was for the students to reflect to and compare theoretical experiences to actual practice as far as inter-religious dialogue is concerned. Percik is a non-governmental organization which holds interfaith dialogue as one of their programs. The organization had a network with other organizations or institutions that have the same program or purpose with them. Through networking, the organization has built a kind of collaborative program besides its own program. Based on their explanation regarding its interfaith program, they started it by raising the discourse of pluralism and interfaith dialogue to the community. The organization?s kind of interfaith dialogue is not confined with purely religions or in religious terms but it also advocates issues on politics, economy, society and culture etc.

On the other hand, the interfaith dialogue practiced at Sekolah Alternatif Qarryah Tayyibah is different from that at Percik. As a community-based academic institution, the interfaith dialogue exercised in the school starts with democracy in their educational system; the school also promotes educational liberation. The school has been criticizing the educational system of Indonesia which for them prioritizes more on school fees, administrative requirements and examinations. They also criticize the student learning process which is that of following what the school or teacher says to the students. Here, the term ?teacher? is not used, they would rather use the term ?friend? to refer to the person helping and assisting the students of what they want to learn. The students decide for the curriculum of the school. The students are given the freedom to know what they want to learn as long as they will be held responsible for it, as long as it does not break any laws or rules of the society and harm life. When a student finds a subject that interests him/her or that which supports some needs of the community, he/she looks for a person in the school who could facilitate him/her with information and skill according to his/her needs. Proudly to say, some of the students have already authored books and written drama scripts, produced films, some have even created their own information technology. The school has been long accommodating guests here and abroad, religious and non-religious; and guests learned a great deal of new experiences from them. This is done to build and maintain interfaith dialogue.

For the CRCS students, the visit gave them a great deal of new insights and perspective in life. What is engraved in their minds is the question ?Can they, if not equal, do far better than the two organizations? Or at least express or promote the same spirit academically or practically??

(JMI)

Date: Wednesday, 8 April 2009
Time: 12.30 pm

In Wednesday Forum this week we will discuss about Sufism world related to gender issue in Islam? under a topic ?Women and Sufism: Considering Women?s Perspective of Truth?. Najiyah Martiam will be the speaker of this interesting topic- who was student at CRCS.

We invite you to join this forum. Some information can be read as follows.

Date: Wednesday, 1 April 2009
Time: 12.30 pm ? 2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue: Room 306, UGM Graduate School Teknika Utara Pogung
Speaker: Najiyah Martiam, M. A.

Abstract:

The spiritual dimension of Islam is well represented by Sufism. Its doctrines emphasize the spiritual dimension of human beings so that it does not look at the flesh or the corporeal. It views man and woman as the same entity before God who have the same rights and capacity to walk on the Divine?s path and reach intimacy or communion with Her. Even some Sufis implicitly have admitted the natural potency of the feminine in spirituality. It is very different from most institutionalized religions, which mostly regard women as the second creation who lack faith and reason, therefore, they become the subject of evil. In short, Sufism provides the possibility to overcome the patriarchal construct that emphasizes gender hierarchy on the basis of biology.

Although the doctrines provide the possibility to surpass patriarchal consciousness, this does not guarantee that all Sufis are immune from sexism. Some female Sufi writers found this tendency in the Sufi literatures and Sufi orders. Sha?diyya Shaikh gives one example of how some Sufi still associate womankind with the destructive attractions of the commanding soul or al-nafs al-ammārah. Rkia Cornell, acknowledged how male Sufis in the Islamic Middle period had a low opinion of women. In their view, most women are deficient in their knowledge and practice of Islam. Therefore, women cannot speak authoritatively for either Islam or Sufism. This low judgment is derived from the fact that during the monthly periods and child bearing women are prohibited from praying and fasting. In their opinion anyone who is deficient in religion is also deficient in faith. Although there was Rabi?a in the history who reveals woman?s capacity in the spiritual path, some people still consider her as a trope rather than a real person.

Using a phenomenological approach this research tried to explore religious experiences of three Sufi women in Java and their view on gender and religious truth.

About the speaker:

Najiyah Martiam earned her master?s degree from CRCS UGM. Her fields of interest include science, religion, spirituality/ Sufism, and sexuality. Some of her publications are: Sayang Otak (love your Brain), Kompas 2006. Dewasa itu Apa sih? (What is Maturity?), Kompas 2006. Bad Mood, Kompas 2006.

Registration:

The forum is free of charge.

Contact person: Elis Z. Anis (ICRS): elis236.andri@ yahoo.com; Lina Pary (CRCS) : lina_pary@yahoo. com; Mustaghfiroh Rahayu (CRCS): mth.rahayu@gmail. com

This week Wednesday Forum provides the discussion with the topic “REPORTING ISLAM: CASE OF LOCAL NEWSPAPER IN ARIZONA”. The Speaker is Ali Amin M. A. We invite you to join this forum. The time, place, and brief information about this forum are here inturn:

Date: Wednesday, 18 March 2009
Time: 12.30 pm ? 2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue: Room 306, UGM Graduate School Teknika Utara Pogung
Speaker: Ali Amin M. A

Abstract:

This paper will discuss the representation of Islam in an American news paper The Arizona Republic. It will focus on what most The AZ Republic covered about Islam during 2005-2006 related to some major events in that period such as London bombing, on going war in Iraq, immigrant protests in France, Bali bombing two, conflict Israel-Palestine, tension with Iran, and Danish cartoon. It will concern on the recurrent language, text, and image in this news paper. The aim of this study is to identify the representation of Islam in American media testing the hypothesis that Islam and Muslims? coverage in Western media is usually negative, or biased with certain ideological orientation. This also will identify whether Western media especially The AZ Republic is Islam-phobic. In order to examine the hypothesis systematically, I will apply both quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative approach is used in order to achieve certain patterns of The AZ Republic when covering about Islam relating to the major events by examining the recurrent language, text, and image of Islam and Muslim. All on- line news and articles in this period January 1, 2005- March 30, 2006 containing the words of Islam and Muslim are selected, classified, and percentaged based on its focus such as terrorism, women in Islam, social culture, domestic and international affairs. Also, I will conduct qualitative content analysis by using principals of critical discourse analysis (CDA) such as investigating the sociopolitical background of the discourse and and focusing on dominance relations by elite groups and institutions as they are being enacted, legitimated or otherwise reproduced by text and talk (Dijk, Teun A. van. 1993). This leads to determine the level of subjectivity, objectivity, or neutrality of the news and articles also highlight the complexities involved in constructing Islam and Muslim on The AZ Republic.

About the speaker:

Ali Amin currently is the academic coordinator of CRCS. He has graduated from CRCS in 2005 and obtained his second Master degree from Arizona State University in 2008 majoring in religious studies. He has received grants from Fulbright for his two years of education in the United States. He has conducted a few researches from a communal conflict to religion and popular culture in Indonesia. Amin has joined the CRCS since July 2008.

Books and Articles: Representing Religion in Indonesian Movies 2000-2006 , Master thesis, Arizona State Univ, 2008; Agama dalam Film Horor Indonesia 2000-2006 , Journal of Ma’arif Institute, Jakarta , published January-February 2008; Nia Dinata and Yasmin Ahmad : Framing Islam and Multiculturalism in Malay Movies, a research proposal presented at Young Southeast Asian Scholars Workshop, AMAN, Bangkok Thailand , February 1-4, 2008; Defining Religion in Indonesian Films 2000-2006 , a paper presented in American Academy of Religion Annual Conference , Nov 15 th to 18 th , 2007 , San Diego , United States; The Representation of Islam and Muslim in Local American Newspaper : The Arizona Republic , presented in Annual Conference of Middle East , and Central Asia Association, MECA, September 15 th -17 th , 2006, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States; Intra-Religious Persecution among Muslim Societis in Indonesia; Case study of Ahmadiyah Persecution in Kuningan West Java , MA Thesis in Religion Cross Cultural Studies, Graduate School of Gadjah Mada University , Yogyakarta, Indonesia, 2005.

Registration:

The forum is free of charge and on a first-come-first basis. If you want to be speaker in Wednesday Forum, please contact us.

Contact person:

Elis (ICRS): elis@ugm.ac.id; Lina(CRCS): lina_pary@yahoo.com ; Mustaghfiroh Rahayu(CRCS): mth.rahayu@gmail.com

Date: Wednesday, 18 March 2009
Time: 12.30 pm

Religious terrorism has been shocking many people in Indonesia and other countries. Some of us question what actually causes the some religious people committed to that action. This can be answered in our forum this week which discusses about “Psychology of Religious Terrorists: Theoretical & Methodological Reflections”. Dr. Tomas Lindgren is the speaker in this forum who will lead us to discuss more about that interesting topic. We invite you to join this forum. Some information about this forum can be read as follows.

Date: Wednesday, 11 March 2009
Time: 12.30 pm ? 2.30 pm (free lunch)
Venue: Room 306, UGM Graduate School Jln. Teknika Utara Pogung YKT
Speaker: Dr. Tomas Lindgren

Abstract:

To be known later

About the speaker: Dr. Tomas Lindgren is an Associate Professor of Psychology of Religion, Department of Religious Studies UMEO University, Sweden. His educational background is Th.D. in University of Uppsala (History of Religions, Biblical Studies); M..A. in Ume? University (Psychology of Religion, Psychology, Philosophy); and M. Div. in University of Uppsala (History of Religions, Biblical Studies). His main research interests include: Cultural Psychology. Cognition & Religion. Social Constructionism. Narrative Psychology. Religious Violence. Mysticism. Religion and Culture in Southeast Asia. He has published a book entitled Lindgren, Tomas (2001). B?n som akt och erfarenhet. En religionspsykologis k studie av b?nens uttryck, f?ruts?ttningar och funktioner i en muslimsk och kristen kontext [Prayer as Act and Experience. A Psychological Study of the Expressions, Prerequisites and Functions of Prayer in a Muslim and Christian Context]. Uppsala: Uppsala universitet.

Registration:

The forum is free of charge and on a first-come-first basis. If you want to be speaker in Wednesday Forum, please contact us.

Contact person: