Thursday, 20 July 2023, the Open Examination of the Faculty of Cultural Sciences Graduate Program UGM for the Doctoral Promotion of Ajar Pradika Anantra Tur was held. His dissertation entitled “A Study on Linguistic Features, Motivations, and Perceived Interplays of Personal Names of Yogyakarta’s Kraton Soldiers’ Offspring” is the result of research on the adaptation of the flexible mental attitude of palace soldiers in representing Javanese tradition to the globalisation era with a case study of naming trends. He graduated with an outstanding remark.

SOAS is partnering with Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) to solicit contributions to Volume III of the anthology series The Creative South: Buddhist and Hindu Art in Medieval Maritime Asia.

The workshop aims to maintain the Southeast Asian Arts Academic Programme’s (SAAAP) strategic goal of setting standards for anthologies together with regional partners, including universities, museums, and conservation bodies, and to engage Alphawood alumni in expanding local to global appreciation of art and culture related to ancient to pre-modern cultural architecture in Southeast Asia.

The workshop will be co-organised by SAAAP and Vice Dean of Faculty of Arts UGM Dr. Mimi Savitri, M.A. (SOAS alumni), with support from Emma Natalya Stein, curator at the National Museum of Asian Art, Smithsonian, Washington, who is negotiating an exhibition on Javanese Tantric mandalas. The exhibition will ultimately provide an international exhibition experience for invited Alphawood alumni.

Some of the highlights, including from Alphawood alumni, will be streamed. These will later be edited and widely distributed via the SOAS-SAAAP page (https://www.soas.ac.uk/about/schools-and-departments/school-arts/department-history-art-and-archaeology/southeast-asian).

More details on how to access the event online will be shared soon via https://www.soas.ac.uk/about/event/yogyakarta-summer-programme-2023

The Faculty of Cultural Sciences UGM together with “Kanisius Media” held a book launch presentation of a group of writers and artists from Uzbekistan on 5 July 2023. The books that launched in the presentation including scientific, artistic and journalistic works of such artists as Gavhar Matyokubova, Professor Rano Sayfullaeva from UzMU, poet Minhojiddin Mirzo, doctor of philology Hulkar Hamroeva, members of the Writers’ Union of Uzbekistan, Shahodat Isakhanova, Gulbahor Jumaeva, Umida Khushvaktova, the late poet Azam Oktam and talented writer Asror Allayorov.

At the launch of these books, Rozalia Emmi, manager of the publishing house “Kanisius Media”, admitted that the people of Indonesia, especially Yogyakarta, are not very familiar with Uzbek culture and literature. 

“For the first time in the history of our publishing house, we published books by scientists and artists from Uzbekistan. Now we send these packages to islands not far from our city. In the process of preparing creative and scientific works for publication, we became very interested in the literature and art, special traditions of the Uzbek people.”

As the host representative of the presentation and book launch, Dr Mimi Savitri was very pleased with the launch of books on Uzbek literature and culture. She said that there are many similarities between Indonesian culture and Uzbek culture. 

“Now we plan to use these books widely in our literature and art classes. In the future, we expect that our cooperation relations will continue and that Uzbek students will also study at our university.”

On 4-16 July 2023, the Faculty of Cultural Sciences UGM together with ISI Yogyakarta and Victoria University Australia held a collaborative programme involving students from each university. This programme is broadly divided into two main activities, film-making projects and field trips. As a final product, each group composed of students from each campus will produce short films that will be screened at the end of this program. 

The Joint Programme opened in the Multimedia Room, 2nd Floor, Margono Building, Faculty of Arts UGM on July 4, 2023. The session was opened by Dr Greg Aronson (representative of Victoria University), Dr Mimi Savitri, M.A. (representative of the Faculty of Cultural Sciences UGM) and Silvia Anggreni Purba, S.Sn., M.Sn. (representative of ISI Yogyakarta). The programme on the first day included cultural classes from ISI and UGM lecturers and a project presentation by Mr Kiernan and Mr Greg (Victoria University). It then closed with dinner and a group photo at the University Club UGM. 

Moreover, University of Victoria students participated in Indonesian language classes at Wisma Bahasa. Also included in the program are trips to the Borobudur Temple, Makan Raja-Raja Imogiri and Parangtritis Beach. While the schedule listed only three destinations, students from the University of Victoria and students from FIB UGM and ISI Yogyakarta explored other sides of Yogyakarta. During this exploration session, participants also worked on their film projects. 

The end of this programme was marked by Joint Programme participants screening films. The film screening was held on 16 July 2023 with the title “Cultural Odyssey” and also became the closing / farewell night for the participants of this programme. As a result of this event, FIB UGM, the University of Victoria, and ISI Yogyakarta have formed an exciting partnership and hope that it will remain that way for a good time. 

On 17 July 2023, the Bachelor of Arabic Literature and Master of Middle Eastern Cultural Studies held an Expert Lecture in Conference Room 1. This event was conducted online and offline. There were several lecturers and speakers at the Expert Lecture including Prof. Dr. Sangidu, M.Hum. (Head of the UGM Department of Intercultural Studies), Dr Noureldin Elsayed Marouf Abdalrahman Shafei (Managing Director of the Alsun Foundation for Arabic Studies), and Prof. Dr Mohamed Mohamed Emam Dawood (Suez Canal University, Ismalia Egypt). The Dean of the Faculty of Cultural Sciences UGM, Prof. Dr Setiadi, S.Sos., M.Sc. also attended this lecture.