Today I attended a talk/discussion called “Recapturing & Reconfiguring Contemporary Islam in SE Asia: Contemporary Islam Indonesia: Cultural Reconfiguration in Performing Arts.”
I do not know that much about Islam in Indonesia, so it was an interesting discussion. Unfortunately it was only 1 1/2 hours long, so some of the speakers were not able to finish their talks and other people did not get a chance to talk at all. I think a better idea would have been to have an all day event. But still, the speakers were very interesting and I was able to say hello to Dr. Cathy Asher. Cathy was my adviser for one of my undergrad degrees, the one in art history and is a super nice lady. She teaches some great classes (I have taken both undergrad and grad classes with her) on Islamic art and has a few fantastic books out on Islamic art in India.
The speakers include:
Diyah Larasati, Assistant Professor, Dance Program, University of Minnesota
Gadis Arivia, Founder of (Asia Women’s Journal of Indonesia)
Catherine Asher, Professor of Art History, University of Minnesota
Sumarsam, Professor of Music, Wesleyan University
Soeprapto Soedjono, Professor of Fine Art, Indonesian Institute of the Arts, Yogyakarta
Giancarlo Casale, Moderator, Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of Minnesota
I was also able to purchase U of MN student art from a vending machine. I could not resist the skull coaster for $1.00! But sadly it got stuck and would not fall (yes, I even tried to shake the vending machine). So I ended up leaving my business card and it was given to a instructor in the art department who rescued it and kindly sent me an email. I will pick it up tomorrow.
