"Exploring Indonesia’s Cultural Heritage through its Ancient Manuscript Traditions" 

Chair: Dr Natalie Pearson

Abstract: 

Indonesia is heir to an extraordinarily rich cultural heritage, as demonstrated by the iconic monuments of Borobudur and Prambanan, wayang shadow-puppet traditions, and millennia-old practices of seafaring. A crucial source of Indonesian heritage is its thousands of manuscript texts, which have been long neglected in discussions of what it means to be Indonesian. The study traditional manuscripts, once considered a fusty and technical discipline pursued only by Orientalist scholars, has in recent years come to be at the forefront of conversations about cultural identity in Indonesia. Official recognition of the most important Indonesian manuscripts, through UNESCO’s Memory of the World Programme, is only the beginning of what can be seen as a renaissance of manuscript culture in the country. This keynote talk will explore the many ways that Indonesia’s manuscript texts, written in archaic languages and scripts, are being made accessible through digitisation, documentation, research, translation, and professional conservation. No longer the sole prerogative of the state, the treasury of manuscript culture is increasingly nurtured by local communities, cultural activists, NGOs and heritage stakeholders across the world. Specifically, the talk will discuss the various projects currently underway to open up Indonesian manuscripts to a wider audience, such as the DREAMSEA and British Library digitisation projects, grassroots advocacy by the Masyarakat Pernaskahan Nusantara (MANASSA), and the research and training agenda of the Kawi Society. The committed engagement of younger Indonesians to preserving, developing, and creating new ways of caring for manuscripts is an exciting trend in which ancient manuscripts continue to carry relevance and value far into the future. These texts point to the myriad of ways that Indonesians have negotiated complex identities and relationships across the seas, over the span of many centuries. As such, they offer us an invaluable gateway into Indonesia’s cultural heritage.

Speaker Bio: Dr Aditia Gunawan is a librarian at the National Library of Indonesia specialized in Sundanese, Old Sundanese and Old Javanese texts and manuscripts. His research focusses primarily on the evolution of Indonesian religions, especially Hindu asceticism and its influences in modern society. He has published extensively on Indonesian traditional texts and manuscripts, with an expertise in Javanese palm-leaf manuscripts of the 15th–16th centuries. He has completed a Master in Texts and Linguistics at the INALCO, Paris (2016), with a thesis entitled Bhīma Svarga: Study of a text in Old Javanese and its manuscript transmission and a Doctor of Philosophy at the EPHE (2023), with a thesis entitled Sundanese Religion in the 15th century. He is also engaged in the Indonesian manuscript digitization programme DREAMSEA (Digital Repository of Endangered and Affected Manuscripts in South-East Asia), serves as managing editor of the journal Manuskripta, is active as Secretary-General of Indonesian Association of Manuscripts (Manassa), and is President of the Kawi Society, an interdisciplinary group of researchers on classical Indonesian culture. He is passionate about advocating for his native language, Sundanese, as a bridge between ancient societies and Indonesia’s future.

" 'Korea', Korean Studies and Global Futures" 

Session chair: Assoc/Prof Jo Elfving-Hwang

Abstract:

In this keynote address I take inspiration from the conference theme of “Asia Futures”: for reasons to be explained in my talk, I will use the year 2039 as a starting point for an exploration of life on the Korean peninsula in a not-so-distant future. What will changes there mean for the practice of Korean Studies as a scholarly discipline? Certainly, enormous, unprecedented demographic shifts have been baked into the South Korean system, and we can already develop an unsettling portrait of their social and economic ramifications. Similarly, and all too literally, continued warming is baked into the earth’s climate, and we know that Korea's torrid summers will increase in duration and intensity, although the extent of severity remains a question mark. Greater uncertainty attends expectations about the peninsula’s status as a hotspot geopolitically: is it fair to assume that instability will grow in an increasingly multipolar world? And can all these potential trends lead, conversely, to a cooling of interest in South Korean popular culture? Will the Korean language continue to find its current favour among university students? I plan to encourage colleagues to put on their thinking caps—or perhaps better, baker's hats—with me and to envision as vividly as we can what Korea and Korean Studies might be a decade and a half from now. My hope in delivering this keynote is that even if we wind up with many cooks, we will not spoil the broth but rather have engaging, thought-provoking debate.

Speaker bio:

Associate Professor Stephen Epstein is a member of the Asian Languages and Cultures Programme at Victoria University of Wellington. His research focuses on contemporary Korean society and popular culture, and he has translated several works of Korean and Indonesian fiction. Recent books include the co-edited volumes The Korean Wave: A Sourcebook, (Academy of Korean Studies Press, 2016, with Yun Mi Hwang) and Popular Culture and the Transformation of Japan-Korea Relations (Routledge, 2021, with Rumi Sakamoto), and a translation of Intan Paramaditha’s novel The Wandering: A Red Shoes Adventure (Harvill Secker, 2020). He has also co-produced two documentaries on the Korean underground music scene (Our Nation: a Korean Punk Rock Community, 2001; Us and Them: Korean Indie Rock in a K-pop World, 2014) and served as the 2013-14 president of the New Zealand Asian Studies Society.

Over the course of his career, Stephen Epstein has had dual specializations in the ancient Mediterranean and in contemporary Korea. His primary intellectual activities, however, start from a fascination with language and a desire to explore the experience of daily life in other cultures. 

"Imagining a Future that Embraces Diversity: Competing Models of 'Developmental Disability' in Japan"

Session chair: Dr Laura Dales

Speaker Bio:

Lynne Y. Nakano is Professor and Chair of the Department of Japanese Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), and Co-Director of the Gender Research Centre, The Hong Kong Institute of Asia Pacific Studies, CUHK.  Lynne has researched, written and presented extensively on people located at the margins of Japanese society including volunteers and elder care recipients, single women and young people with disabilities. She is the recipient of several multi-year grants that compare Japanese society with Hong Kong and China including one that studies women primary earners in Osaka and Hong Kong. Based on her findings that single women seek financial knowledge and management skills, Lynne is the founder of the Women’s Empowerment through Financial Literacy (WEFL) Programme that provides financial training to single women and other marginalized groups. Lynne is author of Making Our Own Destiny: Single Women, Family, and Opportunity in Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Tokyo published by University of Hawaii Press in 2022.

"Australia’s China Studies: disciplinary diversification, thematic shifts and a future of “studies of, outside and without China”/caught in geopolitics?"

Session chair: Assoc Prof Yu Tao

Abstract

Despite seven decades of history of China/Chinese Studies in Australia and all the scholarly achievements it has made across various disciplines, there has been a dearth of literature on the community and its China-themed output, i.e. “who writes what?”. This presentation intends to fill that gap by creating and analysing datasets on attendees to and presentations made at the Chinese Studies Association of Australia (CSAA) biennial conferences as of 2023. What do bibliometric and thematic analyses of CSAA presentations indicate about the community’s focus of academic interest and, more recently, its shifting trends? If this expansion beyond the 1950s and 1960s interest in predominantly literature, philology, and linguistics can be established, then to what disciplines and what research themes?

A further question to be explored in the presentation is whether Australia’s China studies community, in line with its widening academic interest, has been better engaged in public debates and policy-making in relation to China. Datasets on the community’s contributions to Australia’s major public policy platforms and attendance at China-themed parliamentary hearings/enquiries are created and analysed for that purpose.

The presentation finally looks into the future of this community, by examining challenges and difficulties resulting from being increasingly “caught in geopolitics.”  How has the community suffered in funding support from universities and government as sensitivity in any China research or Chinese engagement grows? If the sharp increase of China-themed ARC grants over the past few years indicates a longer-term trend, will the community, combined with obstacles in fieldwork and bilateral scholarly exchange, now have to face a future of “studies of China, but outside and without China”?

Speaker Bio:

Dr. Mark Yaolin Wang is a distinguished human geographer, currently serving as a Professor in the School of Geography, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences and Director of the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Melbourne. Mark also serves as the President of the Chinese Studies Association of Australia.

Mark's extensive research and scholarship focus on various facets of China's development, environmental issues, and urbanization. His recent publications delve into critical topics, including poverty alleviation resettlement, land acquisition, South-to-North water diversion, and the global impact of China, significantly contributing to the understanding of the complex and ongoing transition in China.

In addition to his academic roles, Mark actively participates in the scholarly community as the Associate Editor of Chinese Geography Science. He also serves on the editorial boards of prestigious journals, including Geographical Research, International Development Planning Review, Geographical Research Forum, Chinese Geographical Science, Scientia Geographica Sinica, and Journal of Asian Energy Studies.

Mark earned his Ph.D. in Geography from the University of British Columbia, a M.Sc. in Human Geography from the Northeast Institute of Geography and Agro-ecology, Chinese Academy of Science, and a B.Sc. in Geography from Shanxi Normal University.

"Why the Judiciary Remains Loyal to Myanmar’s Military Regime"

Session chair: Dr Marnie Feneley

Abstract:  

Across Asia, the military is a powerful actor – from Thailand and Pakistan to Indonesia and Myanmar. Since the coup of 2021 in Myanmar, there have been widespread defections from the civil service as a sign of protest against military rule. But what explains the absence of defections in the apex courts, the High Court and Supreme Court? In this talk I draw on over a decade of work with judges in Myanmar to explain how and why judges remain loyal to the military.

Speaker bio:

Melissa Crouch is Professor in the Faculty of Law & Justice at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. Her research focuses on comparative constitutional law, law and society and law and religion with reference to Southeast Asia. She is currently the president of the Asian Studies Association of Australia

"Transnational Migrations and Anxious Citizenship from the Margins"

Chair: tbc

Abstract:

What is it that propels life to continue to revolve around heavily fortified borders and migrations across and beyond South Asia? Despite the attendant risks, border-crossings—contiguous and non-contiguous—demonstrate how transnational worlds of mobility and national citizenship are perennially in the making. My keynote is an anthropological reflection on emergent political topographies and the ambiguities and anxieties that surround citizenship and the unfinished business of nation building in the twenty-first century. I will draw upon my decade long ethnographic and archival research along the India-Bangladesh borderlands and recent fieldwork with Indian migrants in Australia to recast gendered and economic understandings of citizenship and transnational futures.

Bio:

Malini Sur is Associate Professor of Anthropology and the Director of Higher Degree Research at the Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University. Her research and teaching relate to global and local challenges facing transnational migration and mobility. A/P Sur’s book Jungle Passports: Fences, Mobility, and Citizenship at the Northeast India-Bangladesh Border (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021) was awarded the President’s Book Prize from the South Asian Studies Association of Australia, Bernard S. Cohen Prize (honourable mention) and Choice Outstanding Academic Title (2022). She has co-edited Transnational Flows and Permissive Polities (University of Amsterdam Press, 2012) and special issues in Society and Space, City, and the Economic and Political Weekly. She has published in Cultural Anthropology, Comparative Studies in Society and History and Modern Asian Studies. Her work also features in Public Books New York, New Books Network, Conversations in Anthropology, The Polis Project and the ABC.

A/P Sur is currently leading three research projects in Australia on transnational health migration, collaborative museums, and rice eating and metabolism. She is completing a documentary film on the Parramatta/Burramatta River. Her research has been funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC), Dutch Research Council (NWO), Ministry of Education Singapore and awards from the Tata Trusts. She has served as the President of Australian Anthropological Society in 2023.

Play, Trolls, Money, Justice: Transgressions on the Singaporean internet

Session chair: TBC

Abstract:

Scholars of Singapore society have long theorized about 'Singaporean Exceptionalism', whether through the institution of political control for continued incumbent rule, the soft power of socio-cultural policies for citizen management, or the selective deployment of national identity and pride. This talk turns to digital spaces to interrogate the place of social media pop cultures in Singapore. The internet has opened new frontiers of connectivity and dialogue between otherwise highly policed users in semi-authoritarian media regimes like Singapore. While alternative journalism news sites, political blogs, and digital estates belonging to opposition political parties have been subject to compulsory licensing schemes in recent years, internet celebrities, Influencers, meme factories, and disparate networks of citizens have been adept at flirting with transgressions for productive ends: Call outs, public shaming, vigilante trolling, staged scandals, exposés, meme marketing, and their cousins of creative internet vernacular have appeared to glide under the radar, or interest, of state control. Drawing on interconnected projects on the Singaporean internet celebrity rooted in anthropological framing, and deploying traditional and digital ethnography between 2008 and 2024, this talk provokes thinking about what constitutes the 'Singaporean internet', the pathways and value of transgressions, and the power dynamics when cultures of play, trolls, money, and justice transcend platforms and generations.

Speaker bio: 

Professor Crystal Abidin is a world-leading expert in the field of influencer cultures and internet celebrity studies, including a portfolio developing the field of social media pop cultures in the Asia Pacific region. She has authored over 100 articles and chapters in the field, and her books include Internet Celebrity (2018, Emerald Publishing); Microcelebrity Around The Globe (with Brown, 2018, Emerald Publishing); Instagram (with Leaver & Highfield, 2020, Polity Press); Mediated Interfaces (with Warfield & Cambre, 2020, Bloomsbury Academic); tumblr (with Tiidenberg & Hendry, 2021, Polity Press). Her forthcoming books are TikTok and Youth Cultures (Emerald Publishing) and Provoking Online Drama (Bloomsbury).

Crystal's research has won international accolades, with notable awards including WA Young Tall Poppy Science Award (2022), The Australian Top 40 Early Career Researchers (2021), ABC TOP 5 Humanities Fellow (2020), Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia (2018), and Pacific Standard 30 Top Thinkers Under 30 (2016). Crystal is Director of the Influencer Ethnography Research Lab (IERLab), Founder of the TikTok Cultures Research Network (TCRN), and Professor of Internet Studies at Curtin University. She is also Editor-in-Chief of Media International Australia and serves on the Safety Advisory Council for TikTok AUNZ. Crystal can be reached at wishcrys.com and @wishcrys.