There is a question that initially sounds simple but is difficult to answer: who has the right to tell women’s stories?

That question led Sofiana Martha Rini and her two colleagues, Priyo Joko Purnomo and Mulya Atmana Dwiyana WNA, much deeper. What began as an assignment for a prose course eventually developed into a paper presented at The 2nd International Conference Bali Gender Studies Forum (BGSF) 2026.

The paper, titled Walking in Her Shoes: Gender and Ethics of Representing Women in Post-Reform Indonesian Novels (2000–2025), went on to receive the Best Paper award at the conference, organized by Yayasan Bali Sruti on August 28–29, 2026, online.

For Sofiana, the paper did not suddenly emerge from a research desk piled high with books and theories. It began with a sense of unease.

One of the things that prompted it was Sofiana’s reading and reconsideration of the works of Panji Sukma. From there came questions about representation: how women are written, who writes them, and whether women’s experiences can truly be represented in their entirety by someone else.

The questions did not disappear after a single reading.

“The point is that we have to recognize that representation is difficult to make completely free from bias,” Sofiana said.

She even carried this concern into other discussions, including during a summer school, where she discussed representation and the boundaries one encounters when attempting to tell an experience that does not belong to oneself with Ramayda Akmal, a lecturer and literary writer, as well as Prof. Arnez.

From there, a topic that initially stemmed from a single work expanded into a broader question: how are women represented in Indonesian literature after the Reformasi era?

Together with her two colleagues, Sofiana did not stop at one or two novels. They read 21 Indonesian novels published between 2002 and 2025, written by both male and female authors from different literary backgrounds and ideological orientations.

One of the theoretical frameworks informing their analysis was Stuart Hall’s concept of representation. Within this framework, representation is not merely about making something visible or presenting something so that it can be seen. Rather, it is a process through which meaning is produced.

The question therefore shifted: who constructs meaning about women? From whose perspective are women’s experiences told? And who has the authority to represent women?

To examine these questions, they employed several theoretical tools, including Laura Mulvey’s concept of the male gaze, as well as the concepts of focalization and non-narratorial commentary in Mieke Bal’s narratology.

Their reading of dozens of female characters across the 21 novels revealed an interesting pattern.

Women increasingly appear at the center of stories. But being at the center of a story does not automatically mean being at the center of power. Women may speak. But who determines what that voice means?

In a number of novels, Sofiana and her team found that women were still largely positioned around male characters.

There are women who speak, feel, love, and even make decisions. Yet their voices remain within narrative structures determined by male characters.

They found one example in Ayat-Ayat Cinta by Habiburrahman El Shirazy. Aisha has her own voice and emotional experiences. However, the way readers come to understand those experiences remains closely connected to Fahri’s position as the center of the story.

Another pattern emerges when women become the main characters.

Yet once again, being a protagonist does not necessarily mean possessing authority.

In their reading of several novels, women may become the focus of the narrative, while decisions about how their bodies, experiences, trauma, and lives are interpreted can still be controlled by a larger narrative structure.

At this point, Sofiana identified an important distinction between agency and authority.

Women may possess agency—the ability to choose, act, refuse, and even resist. But that does not necessarily mean they possess the authority to determine how their own stories are understood.

Then comes another question: what happens when women write about women?

This question brought their research to its next stage. Does representation automatically become more ethical when women are the ones writing it? Their answer turned out to be more complicated than that.

Sofiana and her team also examined works written by female authors. In these works, they found that women could indeed appear with more diverse voices, experiences, and concerns.

But for them, the author’s gender is not the only measure. The issue is not simply who holds the pen. More important is how the text produces meaning about women and the extent to which it recognizes the limits of its authority when speaking about someone else’s experience.

That is why the conclusion of their paper feels more like a question deliberately left without closure:

Can we ever fully walk in her shoes?

Perhaps not. And precisely because of that, Sofiana and her team argue, literature needs to recognize that no one can ever completely walk in another person’s shoes.

The ethical task is not to pretend that one has arrived at or fully understood that experience. It is to recognize the limits.

Interestingly, the paper that eventually brought Sofiana the award began with something very close to everyday student life: a course assignment.

The paper originated as an assignment for a prose course. After completing it and reading it again, Sofiana and her two colleagues realized that there was an idea within it that could still be developed.

They then revised the paper and submitted it to the BGSF call for papers.

Yayasan Bali Sruti has long worked to develop publications in the fields of academic literacy, social and cultural studies, women and children, language, and public policy. The organization also has publication lines for conference proceedings and book chapters. Sofiana and her team’s paper was eventually presented online on August 28.

Their presentation time was also limited—only about six minutes.

Six minutes to bring 21 novels, several theories, concerns about representation, and questions of authority before an international forum.

In the end, it was that paper that brought Sofiana and her team the Best Paper award. The recognition came not simply because of the number of novels they had read or the theories they had employed. There was a longer journey behind it: a course assignment that did not remain merely an assignment, a concern that continued to occupy their thoughts, and a question that they carried all the way into the conference room.

Who has the right to tell women’s stories?

Sofiana herself does not offer a simple answer. Perhaps there is none.

Because the further she reads, the clearer it becomes that the question of representation is not merely about who gets to speak. Whenever someone speaks about another person, there will always be a part of that experience that can never completely belong to them.

 

Author: Khotibul Umam

SLEMAN — The Malam Inisiasi for new students of the Master’s in Literature Program at the Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Universitas Gadjah Mada (FIB UGM), offered more than an introduction to academic life. It became a space where students came together, got to know one another, and expressed themselves through a diverse range of artistic performances.

Held under the theme “Antara Kata dan Kita: Sebuah Cerita yang Ditulis Bersama,” the event took place on August 28–29, 2026, at Pondok A. Salam, Kalimasada, Sleman, and brought together new students of the Master’s in Literature Program for the 2026/2027 Academic Year.

The evening opened with remarks from Head of the Master’s in Literature Program Prof. Dr. Aprinus Salam, S.S., M.Hum., followed by a session on UGM’s philosophy and institutional values delivered by Prof. Drs. M. Mukhtasar Syamsuddin, M.Hum., Ph.D. of Arts.

Students were also introduced to several academic initiatives within the program, including Academic Student Networking (ASN) and International Dissemination.

The artistic performances became one of the evening’s highlights. Rather than relying on elaborate staging or formal performance facilities, the students created an intimate and spontaneous setting where they could share their talents, ideas, and personal experiences.

Alya performed Nadin Amizah’s “Bertaut,” while Deni presented a musical interpretation of his own poetry. Chaca took the audience through a personal story in an English-language storytelling performance.

Adit, Nurdin, Riki, and Veto presented a theatrical piece addressing a range of social issues, including environmental and political concerns, accompanied by poetic verses. Fajri followed with a poetry reading, while Eloi brought the performances to a close with a dance.

The range of performances underscored the many ways literature and art can be expressed—not only through writing, but also through voice, music, movement, the body, and personal experience. For the students, the simple stage became a space to introduce themselves while sharing their perspectives and creativity.

Reflecting on the event, Aprinus Salam described the students’ performances through the idea of “radical art” and “zero-rupiah art.”

For Aprinus, radical art is art that is free from political and economic agendas. It is created simply as an act of artistic expression and as an affirmation of friendship and community.

One of its defining characteristics, he argues, is the absence of monetary exchange. The artists perform without payment, while the audience attends without paying. Art, in this sense, is not created for profit or accumulation, but for the sake of expression itself.

Art can also become a way of strengthening solidarity within a community. It allows people to express friendship, affection, and a sense of belonging, while at the same time revealing something of their individual character.

“The courage to free oneself from that is itself a form of radicalizing life,” Aprinus wrote.

He further noted that art is often confined to designated spaces governed by administrative requirements and formal structures. When this happens, art—which can originally function as a form of resistance—can instead become commercial entertainment and a commodity.

Against this tendency, Aprinus sees zero-rupiah radical art as a form of authentic resistance. Poetry, prose, and literature can emerge without being shaped by commercial interests, external agendas, or institutional co-optation. What remains is the experience of art itself: admiration, wonder, and emotional resonance.

That spirit, he said, was evident in the performances presented by the new Master’s in Literature students during the Malam Inisiasi on August 28.

Aprinus acknowledged that putting on a performance requires preparation and practice. Yet technical skills alone cannot produce everything that makes an artistic performance meaningful.

“What cannot be trained is the ability to bring forth spirit, personal character, and profound feeling,” he wrote.

His reflection captures what made the evening distinctive. In the midst of an event welcoming students into their new academic community, art became a space for students to reveal their personalities, share their experiences, express their ideas, and build solidarity.

Malam Inisiasi thus became more than a welcoming event. Through performances created and presented by the students themselves, the evening turned into a shared stage where words, voices, bodies, and ideas came together—becoming, in its own way, a story written together.

Author: Khotibul Umam

On 8 September 2026, SMAN 1 Teras Boyolali visited the Faculty of Cultural Sciences (FIB) UGM as part of a Campus Tour for 11th-grade students. Around 150 students attended the visit, which took place from 09.00 to 10.00 WIB at the Poerbatjaraka Auditorium.

The event began with welcoming remarks from the Principal of SMAN 1 Teras Boyolali. He encouraged his students to actively ask questions while they had the chance to visit FIB UGM. “Come on, ask plenty of questions later while we are at UGM; when else will we get this opportunity,” he said.

Swety, representing the Public Relations team, presented the study programs available at FIB, which comprise 22 programs in total, including 11 undergraduate programs that high school students can choose in the future.

The event then proceeded to an interactive Q&A session. Three female students from SMAN 1 Teras Boyolali eagerly took the opportunity to engage directly with the speaker. They raised several insightful questions, ranging from scholarship availability and opportunities at UGM, various admission tracks, to the acceptance rate and competition percentage for admission to FIB UGM. Furthermore, they also explored information regarding career prospects and job opportunities for FIB UGM graduates in the future.

 

[Author: Humas FIB, Zaidan Abdurrahman]

Learning in the Second Language Acquisition course of the Master’s Program in Linguistics, Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM), provides students with an experience that goes beyond theoretical learning by giving them opportunities to directly observe and engage in the process of second language acquisition.

One of the highlights of the course is an intermediate conversation class involving international students who are learning Indonesian. In this activity, Master’s students enrolled in the Second Language Acquisition course take on the role of tutors, assisting international students in learning and practicing Indonesian.

The activity provides a learning space that connects academic perspectives on second language acquisition with actual language-learning practices. Through interactions between tutors and learners, students can observe how a second language is learned and used in authentic communicative situations. Concepts discussed in the course—including interaction, language environment, individual factors, language transfer, and the cognitive and social processes involved in second language acquisition—can be explored more concretely through this hands-on experience.

The Second Language Acquisition course covers major theories, approaches, and key findings in the field of second language acquisition. Students are encouraged to analyze the cognitive, social, and environmental processes that influence second language acquisition, while also examining the differences between first and second language acquisition. The course further explores individual factors such as age and motivation, as well as language transfer and its implications for language teaching.

The involvement of international students as Indonesian language learners provides an authentic context for Master’s students to understand that second language acquisition does not occur in a uniform manner. Learners may have different needs, strategies, responses, and patterns of linguistic development. These differences provide valuable material for students to connect theoretical concepts with actual phenomena observed in second language acquisition.

In addition to conversation practice, the course incorporates weekly active seminar discussions, critical reading and academic article reviews, case studies based on authentic acquisition data, the integration of second-language (L2) corpus data or recorded interlanguage data, and collaborative mini research projects. Indonesian is used as the language of instruction throughout the course.

Through this learning approach, students are expected not only to explain and evaluate major theories and their development in second language acquisition, but also to critically analyze acquisition data and connect second language acquisition theories with language teaching practices. The experience of serving as tutors in the intermediate conversation class provides an important form of contextual learning that deepens students’ understanding of the complexities of second language acquisition.

The activity also demonstrates that learning in the Master’s Program in Linguistics extends beyond mastering theoretical concepts. Students are encouraged to bring theory into real-world contexts, observe linguistic phenomena directly, and reflect on their observations as part of their academic development and research training in linguistics.

Author: Master of Linguistics Program

Yogyakarta — The night at Pondok A. Salam, Kalimasada, grew warmer during Unggunan Cerita, a session featuring writer Mahfud Ikhwan as part of the 2026 Literary Camp with Nature and the Universe. In an informal and intimate atmosphere, Mahfud shared stories from his writing journey, discussed his creative process and research, reflected on his fascination with popular culture, and offered his thoughts on literary criticism.

The session gave participants a glimpse into the “creative kitchen” of a writer who has spent years developing his work through persistence, research, and close attention to everyday life.

Mahfud began his literary journey with the novel Ulid Tak Ingin ke Malaysia (2009). His name became increasingly recognized through Kambing dan Hujan: Sebuah Roman (2015) and Dawuk: Kisah Kelabu dari Rumbuk Randu (2017). These works reflect his sustained interest in ordinary people, particularly rural communities and those living on the margins of mainstream society.

During Unggunan Cerita, Mahfud spoke at length about the way he works. Writing a novel, he explained, is not necessarily something that can be completed in a matter of months. Some projects take years—up to nine years for a single novel.

For Mahfud, every novel calls for its own treatment, working process, method, and research. There is no universal formula that can be applied to every book. Literary research, he noted, cannot simply be treated in the same way as academic or scientific research. Its approach depends on the story being written, the world the writer wants to create, and what the work seeks to convey.

He also referred to Haruki Murakami’s writing routine as an example of how a writer can cultivate creative discipline through repetition. Murakami is well known for combining regular running with a disciplined writing practice. For Mahfud, the example demonstrates that creative work also demands consistency and persistence rather than simply waiting for inspiration to arrive.

One of Mahfud’s most interesting suggestions was that writers should not necessarily begin a story with a grand idea or grand narrative. A story can instead emerge from something seemingly small: an incident, a scene, an exchange, or a compelling piece of dialogue.

Such small details can become an entry point into a much larger story. What matters is whether the scene or event can draw readers in, make them want to stay with the story, and leave them curious about what comes next.

This approach means that writers do not have to impose a grand idea on a story from the outset. A seemingly ordinary conversation or minor incident can grow into a complex fictional world when handled with care.

The same sensibility can be seen in Mahfud’s attention to forms of culture outside the established cultural mainstream. He is comfortable engaging with what he calls “low culture and entertainment”—forms of popular culture that are often dismissed or looked down upon.

The lives of ordinary people and communities on the margins, for instance, have become the raw material for his fiction. One example is Dawuk: Kisah Kelabu dari Rumbuk Randu, a novel about life in a rural community that went on to receive a prestigious literary award.

Mahfud’s fascination with popular culture does not remain merely a matter of personal consumption. Dangdut, Indian films, and football have all found their way into his writing.

His interest in football, for example, inspired the novel Bek: Sebuah Novel (2024). His love of Indian cinema became the subject of the essay collection Aku dan Film India Melawan Dunia (2017). His fascination with dangdut and other forms of popular culture later found expression in Kepikiran Dangdut dan Hal-hal Pop Lainnya (2024).

These works demonstrate that literary material does not always have to come from what is considered “high culture.” Everyday life, popular entertainment, social habits, and things that are often dismissed as trivial can all become sources of literary creativity.

For Mahfud, it is precisely in such seemingly ordinary spaces that stories can retain a strong connection to concrete human experience.

Toward the end of the session, the conversation turned to literary criticism. Mahfud explained that good criticism serves a purpose far beyond simply judging a work or pointing out its weaknesses.

He compared literary criticism to singing practice and singing off-key. A singer may not realize that a particular note is slightly out of tune. In much the same way, a writer may not be aware of everything taking place within their own work.

“There are things that even the writer does not know or realize.”

Literary criticism, therefore, can reveal possibilities that remain invisible to the writer. With the right perspective, theory, and method, criticism can become a productive way of reading a work more closely and thoughtfully.

For Mahfud, literary criticism should not be reduced to what is increasingly associated with arguments on social media: sniping at others, trading personal attacks, or creating noise without a clear intellectual basis.

Mahfud has also practiced criticism himself through his book Melihat Pengarang Tidak Bekerja (2022). The book reflects his own approach to criticism: staying close to the literary work while examining authorship and the creative process from a critical perspective.

Ultimately, Unggunan Cerita became more than a conversation about writing techniques. From the long gestation of a novel to his enthusiasm for dangdut, Indian cinema, and football, Mahfud showed that a writer’s creative kitchen can be found almost anywhere.

Stories can grow out of villages, marginal spaces, football fields, Indian films, dangdut stages, or even a seemingly insignificant line of dialogue. What matters is how a writer observes, processes, researches, and gives form to what they encounter.

Under the night sky of Kalimasada, Unggunan Cerita offered a reminder that literature does not always emerge from grand ideas. Sometimes, it begins with something small that someone takes the time to notice—and then patiently works on for years.

 

Author: Khotibul Umam