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

Salut, Mahadaya!

The faculty of Cultural Sciences UGM is delighted. On 9-15 June 2023, the Department of French Language and Literature of the Faculty of Arts, Universitas Brawijaya held the “Humanities Studies Competition of French”. This opportunity was not missed by Mahadaya from French Literature. There are three representatives from FIB including Jasmine Nabila, Meitri Lathifah and Agata Aubrey. They competed in two different categories, poetry reading and translation.

The three representatives from the French Literature Study Programme of FIB UGM managed to win the championship podium with the following details.

1. Jasmine Nabila (1st place in French Poetry Reading)
2. Meitri Lathifah (1st place in Translation)
3. Agata Aubrey (2nd place in translation)

Congratulations, winners!

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.

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.”