Academic Year 2023-2024

In September 2023, the Indonesian Studies Program cosponsored the "Southeast Asian Language Council Symposium on Reading Materials" at UCLA for 34 Southeast Asian language instructors from the US and Southeast Asia who presented reading lessons that they developed for intermediate and advanced proficiency levels. The symposium was an important step in professionalizing the process of materials development for Southeast Asian language teaching and fostering collaborative relationships among the US-based and Southeast Asia-based language instructors.

In 2023-2024, we hosted talks with Johana E. Prawitasari (Universitas Kristen Krida Wacana) on shifts in Javanese cultural psychology following the massive 20026 earthquake in Yogyakarta and Central Java, Michael Ewing (University of Melbourne) on Javanese language practices related to address and reference, and Lin Hongxuan (National University of Singapore) on Islam, Marxism, and the making of the Indonesian Republic. We also cosponsored events with Arnoud Arps (University of Oxford) who discussed the Indonesian War of Independence in Dutch and Indonesian popular culture and with Sylvia Tiwon (UC Berkeley) as part of a workshop on Indigeneity in Southeast Asia.

The Indonesian Studies Program cosponsored the "International Symposium on Research and Teaching of Endangered and Marginalized Languages in East and Southeast Asia" in May 2024 and 4th Annual Virtual AIFIS-MSU Conference on Indonesian Studies: "Indonesia Ascendant?" in June 2024.

Three undergraduate students were awarded the Julia and Ken Gouw Centennial Scholarship to study abroad at Ngurah Rai University in Bali, Indonesia in Summer 2024.

Academic Year 2022-2023

In May 2023, the Indonesian Studies Program and UCLA Association for Indonesian Americans cohosted the panel "Animating Southeast Asia: Perspectives Behind the Historic Production of Raya and the Last Dragon" which featured Steve Arounsack (CSU Stanislaus), Emiko Saraswati Susilo (actress, Çudamani), Fawn Veerasunthorn (Walt Disney Animation Studios), Scott Sakamoto (Netflix), and Juliana Wijaya (UCLA). Raya brought together artists, storytellers, academics, and cultural practitioners with decades of experience in the U.S. and across Southeast Asia. At the panel at UCLA, key members of the cultural and creative team discussed the challenges and lessons learned from creating the film.

We also cosponsored the UCLA Association of Indonesian Americans 2nd Annual Culture Night: Take a Breath in May 2023 and the AIFIS-MSU 3rd Annual Virtual Conference on Indonesian Studies: "The Promises and Dilemmas of Indonesia" in June 11-15, 2023.

In Summer 2023, 3 UCLA undergraduate students received the Julia and Ken Gouw Centennial Scholarship to participate in a study abroad and volunteer program at Ngurah Rai University in Bali, Indonesia.

Academic Year 2021-2022

The Indonesian Studies Program cosponsored the UCLA Association of Indonesian Americans 1st Annual Culture Night: Noise of Silence in May 2022 and the American Institute for Indonesian Studies-Michigan State University (AIFIS-MSU) 2nd Annual Virtual Conference on Indonesian Studies: "Emerging Discourses and Collaborations in a New Age" in June 2022. 

We cosponsored the "Asian Performing Arts on Screen and on Stage Symposium" in May 2022, featuring two performances from Indonesia - "Wayang Kulit: Balinese Puppet Performance" featuring I Nyoman Wenten (UCLA) and I Nyoman Catra (Visiting Fellow, College of the Holy Cross) and "Sparkling Surabaya" featuring Rattana Phoonkasem (Kamneodvid Science Academy). 

In Summer 2022, we awarded the Indonesian Studies Small Grants to 3 graduate students.

Academic Year 2020-2021

In Fall 2020, Indonesian Studies Program co-hosted the Los Angeles Indonesian Film Festival for the fourth consecutive year. The festival featured two panels with filmmakers who discussed Indonesian filmmaking and movie marketing in the “new normal” brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic and a discussion with actor Gading Marten and actor-producer Dian Sastrowardoyo of the new Indonesian movie on Netflix, Crazy Awesome Teachers.

We cosponsored the 2020 New Wight Biennial Online Exhibition “One More, with Feeling…On Non-Alignment and Non-Polarity” organized by UCLA Department of Art. The exhibit explores how the Non-Alignment Movement, born out of the Bandung conference in 1955 to address the struggle against colonialism, is articulated in the aesthetic, social, economic and political gestures of contemporary art today.  The exhibit was accompanied by ‍a series of weekly virtual panels where participating artists were in conversation with one another.

In Spring 2021, the Indonesian Studies Program also cosponsored the UC Berkeley-UCLA Virtual Conference “Ethnic and Community Identity in Southeast Asia," a Asia Society at the Movies screening of Impetigore (Indonesia, 2019) and conversation with director Joko Anwar, actress Christine Hakim, and producer Shanty Harmayn, and a webinar with UCLA faculty, Helga Leitner and Eric Sheppard, on their research on urban development in Jakarta.

In Summer 2021, we supported 7 graduate students through the Indonesian Studies Small Grant.

 Academic Year 2019-2020

In 2019-2020, UCLA Indonesian Studies Program co-hosted the Los Angeles Idonesian Film Festival for the third consecutive year. The 5-day festival in October 2019 was a collaboration with Indonesian Bruin Students Association at UCLA and Association of Indonesian Students at USC and featured film actors, Dian Sastrowardoyo and Bayu Skak, author Leila S. Chudori and filmmaker Angga Dwimas Sasongko. We also organized a colloquium with visiting scholar, Elisabeth Ida Mulyani (Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Belgium), on her work as an artist and researcher on the subject of Indonesia 1965.

We interviewed Dr. Juliana Wijaya about the transition to teaching Indonesian language remotely at UCLA in Spring 2020 due to COVID-19. We celebrated the establishment of the Association for Indonesian Americans at UCLA and collaborated with the new student organization to launch a summer speaker series titled "Exploring Indonesian American Stories" featuring talks by performers Ayu Larassanti and Emiko Susilo (Cudamani), author Innosanto Nagara (Design Action Collective) and Adam de Boer (artist and Fulbright scholar) and Katherine Bruhn (Ph.D. candidate, UC Berkeley), and Teta Alim (Buah zine).

Finally, we featured the research of two graduate students who received an Indonesian Studies Small Grant for Summer 2020 and a spotlight on a UCLA alumna, Dahlia Setiyawan, who shares her global approach to teaching high school history.

Academic Year 2018-2019

 In 2018-2019, the Indonesian Studies Program hosted two public talks on Indonesia featuring historian Tony Reid (Australia National University) on his novel on 17th Century Java and political scientist Thomas Pepinsky (Cornell University) on populism and national identity. We co-hosted the Los Angeles Indonesian Film Festival in December 2018 with Indonesian Bruin Students Association. We collaborated with the UCLA Department of Ethnomusicology to fund a new Music of Java gamelan course.

We organized an international conference on "The Empowerment of Women in Contemporary Indonesia" in February 2019 in collaboration with the Indonesian Women Alliance. The two-day conference featured keynote addresses by which featured Parwati Surjaudaja, President Director of OCBC NISP Bank and Sonita Lontoh, Global Head of Marketing of Hewlett-Packard and 17 panelists from across the U.S., Europe, Australia and Southeast Asia, many of whom were students and scholars from Indonesia.

Indonesian Studies Program also cosponsored a roundtable on Indonesian Food and the Early Modern Period in April 2019 featuring three leading Southeast Asian Studies scholars - Barbara Andaya (UH Manoa), Leonard Andaya (UH Manoa) and Peter Lape (U Washington) - as part of the Program on Early Modern Southeast Asia (PEMSEA).

For Summer 2019, the program awarded 5 travel grants for students conducting research in Indonesia and 3 undergraduate scholarships for students to attend the two-week cultural immersion and volunteer study abroad program at Ngurah Rai University.

Academic Year 2017-2018

This year, the Indonesian Studies Program invited 2 visiting scholars, Faiza Mardzoeki and Maxwell Lane, to give a series of talks on Indonesian politics, society, literature, and the arts. We partnered with UCLA Center for Global Management, Asia Foundation, and Pacific Council on International Policy to host Mari Pangestu, former Indonesian Minister of Finance, at UCLA for a lecture on creative economy and opportunities for innovation in Indonesia. Furthermore, we co-hosted a panel on women empowerment in Indonesia as part of the Los Angeles Indonesian Film Festival in December 2017.

In collaboration with Gamelan Cudamani, we cosponsored workshops on Balinese gamelan and dance in February 2018. We also organized a two-day symposium on Malay and Indonesian linguistics in May 2018, which brought more than 20 scholars from across the United States and from Southeast Asia.  

In Summer 2018, we awarded travel grants to six graduate students to conduct research in Indonesia. We launched the inaugural year of the Julia and Ken Gouw Undergraduate Centennial Scholarship for Study Abroad in Indonesia. The scholarship allowed three undergraduate students to attend a two-week cultural immersion and volunteer program in Bali, Indonesia at Ngurah Rai University. The Center signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Ngurah Rai University to strengthen this collaboration in the coming years.