During the 3rd graduation period held on April 24, 2024, four students from the Master’s Program in American Studies graduated. All four are 2021 cohorts of the Master’s Program in American Studies, namely: Diah Prima, Ratu Nadhirah El Sarah, Krisna Sujiwa, and Riza Rahayu Muludi. The discussions in the theses of these four graduates reflect a diversity of topics ranging from political issues, popular culture, social problems, racism, etc. Broadly speaking, the students’ thesis interests in the study program are grouped into two; namely social issues and literature.

Diah Prima’s thesis is titled: American Influence in Japanese Imagination: A Study of Semiotics on Furudate’s Haikyuu!!. This study discusses the influence of America in Japan and the extent of American influence on Haruichi Furudate’s manga Haikyuu!!. Haikyuu!! itself revolves around the theme of volleyball, a sport introduced by America. In addition, there are other aspects that are also American influences in this manga, such as fashion, hairstyle, technology, and cheerleading. Nevertheless, there are still some limitations to American influence in Haikyuu!!, such as politeness, which is deeply ingrained in Japanese culture and remains unaffected by American culture.

Next is Riza Rahayu Muludi’s thesis titled Constructing the Pursuit of Happiness in the Pursuit of Happiness (2006): Roland Barthes’ Semiotic Analysis. This study aims to see how the pursuit of happiness constructs the lives of Americans in the film The Pursuit of Happiness. The pursuit of happiness is part of the American Dream, which means that every American has the right to their happiness. As seen in the film, the character Chris Gardner has his own happiness in achieving success. Furthermore, other characters besides Gardner also have their own happiness.

Ratu Nadhirah’s thesis, which graduated with Cumlaude honors, is titled Representing Islam in American Superhero Series of 2022. This thesis discusses how Islam is represented in superhero series. Conflicts related to Islam in the Western world, especially in the United States, have been ongoing long before the events of September 11, 2001 (9/11). However, the negative representation of Islam worsened after 9/11. This event promoted stereotypes that spread widely through the mass media, forming a set of characteristics used to identify Muslims, such as thick beards, heavy accents, Arab appearance, the use of hijabs, and more. Nonetheless, in 2022 Marvel Studios released its 7th television series titled Ms. Marvel, featuring the first Muslim superhero as the main character in the history of American superhero series.

Lastly, Krisna Sujiwa’s thesis, titled Freedom of Speech in Transnational Dialogue: a Critical Discourse Analysis of Daryl Morey’s Tweet about the Hong Kong Protest, discusses how a tweet from Daryl Morey, an executive of an NBA basketball club, caused issues between the NBA, America, and China, which eventually led to significant problems for the NBA.

These studies are expected to provide an overview of how research is conducted in the Master’s Program in American Studies, as well as what topics or issues can be researched in the field of American Studies. Furthermore, these studies are also expected to serve as references for future research.

The Journal Management Team of the Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Universitas Gadjah Mada held a Mid-Year Monitoring & Evaluation of Journal Management & Accreditation Preparation which was held on Wednesday, June 19, 2024 at 9 am to 1 pm in Room R. Soegondo 709, Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Universitas Gadjah Mada. On the agenda, the Journal Bureau of FIB UGM discussed matters regarding FIB journals that have been indexed by Garuda national, projected targets in 2025 so that all FIB journals are SINTA accredited, plans for Scopus resubmission poetics in 2024 and the end of 2025 Humanities, and appeals to new journals to keep running consistently. In the discussion led by the FIB UGM Journal Bureau, journal managers highlighted the importance of expanding the reach and quality of their publications to meet national and international accreditation standards. 

The projected target to achieve SINTA accreditation by 2025 was the main focus, with concrete efforts to increase the indexation of journals on the Garuda platform. The poetic planned to resubmit to Scopus within this year and focused on the Humanities by 2025 was a crucial strategy in reaching global markets and increasing the visibility of research in the humanities. The call for new journals reflected a commitment to fostering sustainability and quality in publication management, as well as ensuring that all publications remain relevant and impactful in the discipline of cultural sciences. This discussion was an important milestone in strengthening the role of FIB UGM’s scientific journals in supporting academic and intellectual advancement at the national and international levels.

Social media is an online platform where users can share content, communicate with other users, and participate in community activities. Some examples include Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X, and LinkedIn. There were 139 million active social media users in Indonesia in January 2024. This number is equivalent to 49.9% of the population in the country. Not only personal use, but a number of institutions also use social media to introduce their institutions more widely to many people, one of which is the Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Gadjah Mada, the Faculty has several social media accounts such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Facebook. They often share their activities on these platforms and reap various responses from other users.

Recently, social media was shocked by Tiktok FIB UGM content about students of the Master of Linguistics study program who were presenting presentations in their respective regional languages. This was considered unique by netizens and received a positive response. They think that this is interesting and can preserve local languages. Until now, the content has been shared everywhere such as on Tiktok, Instagram, and X by well-known accounts such as indozone, undercover.id, fyifact, and many more. Many praised the skills of each presenter and did not forget the psycholinguistics course lecturer who had taken the initiative to give this assignment. To see the video and want to follow other daily activities, follow our social media accounts at fib.ugm!

The Merdeka Student Exchange Program is an initiative that allows university students to study at universities in Indonesia for one semester. It aims to enhance their learning experience and strengthen unity in diversity. PMM targets to involve 204 recipient universities and accept 15,505 students as participants of this program. One of the universities that received the program is of course Gadjah Mada University. There are many students who have exchanged to this campus and not a few who managed to qualify to study at the Faculty of Cultural Sciences. The students came from various universities from all over Indonesia, and some even came from abroad, namely 2 students from Hankuk University, South Korea.

After almost 6 months of PMM students studying, they will finally be released to return to their respective universities after completing the Final Semester Examination. Therefore, the Faculty of Cultural Sciences took the initiative to organize a farewell event for them. The event was held at Teras Langit Turi on Thursday, June 13, 2024 and was attended by 24 students and a number of lecturers representing each study program. They gathered at 4pm at the Faculty of Cultural Sciences and departed together using the bus that had been prepared for them. After traveling for about half an hour, they arrived at the venue. There they were served various drinks, food, snacks, and heavy meals. While eating the dishes, they were invited to share their respective experiences during college. They captured the moment together before going home.

Linguistics study program is one of the master level study programs at the Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Universitas Gadjah Mada. The vision of the study program is to become a linguistics study program with superior quality, national insight, active and responsive to language problems and linguistic development, and able to become a reference study program in the Asia Pacific region in 2025. To achieve this vision, one of the missions carried out by the study program is to educate linguistics graduates with a master’s degree who are able to apply the linguistic knowledge they have obtained to solve various social problems and are able to dialogue and partner with foreign scholars in an effort to establish mutually beneficial intercultural cooperation. This is evidenced by the requirement for students to use their respective regional languages when presenting in Psycholinguistics courses.

Psycholinguistics is a field that studies how humans create and use language. Psycholinguistic theory views language as a means of conveying information, focusing on the view that language is the result of human habits. In essence, psycholinguistics seeks to explain how language structures are formed, used and understood in the process of communication. From this focus, a psycholinguistics lecturer at the Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Drs. Tatang Hariri, M.A., Ph.D., took the initiative to utilize the condition where his students come from various regions to introduce their respective native languages. This aims to be a direct example of how different languages occur and so that local languages are preserved and not lost.