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The Journey of the LSC Presenters: Gaining Critical Awareness as Southeast Asians Literary Scholar

THE SPEAKERS

There were several literary experts invited as the keynote speakers in this seminar. Let me mention their name and their wonderful title(s). Well, they are Prof. Dr. Melanie Budianta from University of Indonesia, Jakarta, Prof. Lily Rose Tope, Ph.D. from the Philippines, Paulus Sarwoto, Ph.D. from Sanata Dharma University Yogyakarta, Anne Ensomo, M.A. From the Philippines, and Tony Day from Singapore. Sekartiyasa Kusumastuti and I, Vania Williany, also joined the crowd as one of the presenters of the parallel sessions. We will present our paper related to our research about postcolonial issues in Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s novel, This Earth of Mankind. There were about 36 other parallel speakers who will present their research and share their knowledge about literature together.

 

THE OPENING CEREMONY

The event was warmly opened by two young energetic Master of Ceremonies, Mr. F.X. Risang Baskara and Ms. Karlina Denistia. In the opening speech, the Dean of Faculty of Letters, Dr. F.X Siswadi said that this conference was aimed to embrace more advanced literary theories in approaching the context of literary texts. Thus, literary texts would not be seen merely as a text in ‘vacuum space’ without any context relating to the political and cultural contexts of the society. In short, LSC was the event where we, as literature scholars, can discuss to enrich our view in literature realm with other literary South East Asian scholars. Yes, it’s indeed correct! Seeing the enthusiasm of the presenters and participants in this seminar, I am sure that there will be so much knowledge grabbed in each session! Uhm, Sekar and I couldn’t wait to see both plenary and parallel sessions!

 

PROF. DR. MELANIE BUDIANTA: THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN INDONESIA

The aim of this conference was eagerly received by the first keynote speaker of the conference, Prof. Dr. Melanie Budianta, from University of Indonesia, Jakarta. At that moment, she presented her nice research about English Literature Teaching in Indonesia. Firstly, she admitted that there were several problems regarding the arrangement of curriculum in Indonesian English Literature’s teaching. However, she was sure that those serious problems could be overcome by creating an association to make more suitable parameter of English Literature’s curriculum in Indonesia. She mentioned that the initiation to hold literary conference like LSC is a form of the scholars’ responsibility to cooperate together to find the best parameter of English Literature’s curriculum in Indonesia. Furthermore, the international association to our neighborhoods in South East Asia, she claimed, is necessary to make the turning point of literature teaching more into the South East Asian context of literary texts. Of course, the teaching methods in each campus, she said, should be made sufficient with the needs of the students, the capacity of the lecturers and the institution’s vision. The characteristic of education institution shouldn’t be standardized because it even would give more colors to each campus scholar, Prof. Budianta explained.

 

PROF. LILY ROSE TOPE AND TONY DAY: THE CONTEXT OF SOUTH EAST ASIAN LITERATURE

Prof. Dr. Lily Rose Tope, from Philippines also said that the challenges in celebrating South East Asian literature are actually the opportunities to spread awareness that as citizens of South East Asian’s, scholars should put more concern into their identity represented in South East Asian’s literary texts. Some interesting examples were shown as the evidence of how South East Asian’s literature is trying to discover the society’s voices and represent them in the works. Finally, as the speaker who ended the seminar, Tony Day, who is also a professor of South East Asian literature and co-editor of the book Clearing A Space, concluded that the hybridity of postcolonial studies in the mapping of South East Asian’s literature is important to celebrate the diversity of ‘South East Asian Englishes’ in world literature. He clearly stated that Nyai Ontosoroh character in Pram’s Buru Quartet was such a sufficient example in explaining the process of hybrid, “to be” an Indonesian.

 

OUR PRESENTATION TIME!

This is te second day of the seminar (18/10). After having ‘enlightened’ by both plenary and parallel sessions, the time had come to Sekar and I to present our paper. The ‘masterpiece’ of our own is entitled Redefiniton of Identity in Postcolonial Society as Seen through Women Characters in Pramoedya Anata Toer’s This Earth of Mankind. The title sounds promising, doesn’t it? At the beginning, we were very nervous. But then, we were reassured by the participants which gave their full attention to us while we were presenting our paper. Within our research, we discussed three women characters in Pramoedya’s novel, named Annelies, Magda Pieters and Nyai Ontosoroh. Our main focus was that we would like to deeply depict how the portrayal of those three women represented their struggle to redefine themselves in the eyes of patriarchal and colonial society. Two postcolonial theories, the ‘Adopt, Adapt, Adept’ theories from Peter Barry and the hybridity theory from Homi K. Bhabha were applied to elaborate the problems. Some insightful suggestions came from the audience. Tony Day, one of the audiences asked us our reason why we would like to choose the women characters as our focus of the study. Sekar answered that we would like to see how the three women as the subaltern class of society struggle to make their identity of themselves. Then, Tony Day suggested us to look more to the portrayals of women as the symbol of the ‘Third Space’ itself. He said that we should elaborate that point deeper. Ah yeah, that’s true, Sir! Thank you for your critical suggestion. Overall, though there were still some inaccuracies in our paper, especially in terms of making the analysis of the theories and elaborations, we still got appreciations from the audience. Tony Day said that our power point was so far the best power point he had ever seen during LSC Seminar. Glad to hear that!

 

 

AND, THE TIME FLIES….

Finally, all of the seminar sessions in LSC should be ended on Friday (18/10) at 4 p.m. All of the presenters and participants took their pictures together in front of the LSC stage, Driyarkara Room, fourth floor of the Rektorat Building. While remembering my journey in joining the LSC seminar, as both participant and parallel session’s speaker, I though that it was really an amazing story. I can’t believe that I can reach such rare opportunity like this: being one of seminar’s speakers, cooperating with a great partner, Sekartiyasa Kusumastuti, discussing postcolonial issue in front of many people, including some international scholars. Thank God, Sekar and I could finish our parallel session very well. Anyhow, I personally thought that LSC seminar have enlightened my awareness in literature, especially in literary theories. After joining this seminar, I am encouraged to always being curious, to discover relevant new issues and to write it in literary research, of course, in better analysis.

 

SOME COMMENTS FROM MY FRIENDS

I also have some friends, the students from Sanata Dharma University, English Letters Department batch 2010, who joined as the participants of the seminar. Three of them are really enthusiastic in telling their experiences after joining LSC. One of my friends, named Winda Anugrah, expressed her gratitude for being one of participants of this conference. “By joining this seminar, I can gain experience to meet several experts and professors of Literature. This experience motivates me to learn English deeply, especially in the realm of Literature. Overall, I realize that literature isn’t a boring subject,” she said. The similar story also experienced by Gabriel Gradi. “I was excited. The conference has enriched my knowledge. And what I value most is it gave me a chance to learn and discuss about postcolonial world. I also met many people who dedicate themselves to such subject and I was incredibly lucky for that,” Gradi explained. Meanwhile, Erlyn Theresa Nugroho, shared her experience, “I got new understandings from the keynote speakers. I hope those knowledge can be useful to me in finishing my final Undergraduate Thesis.”

However, both Erlyn and Winda suggested that the committee in next year’s LSC seminar should be more selective in deciding the invited speakers in parallel sessions. “Only some of the presentations in parallel sessions were good… I mean, I only could grab some information from the parallel speakers,” Erlyn said. “Hopefully, the LSC committee will be more selective in choosing the sufficient parallel presenters, so that the parallel speakers in next year LSC are much better in mastering their materials of presentation,” Winda added.

All in all, LSC seminar has opened our view to deeper understandings and insights in literary studies! Yeah, to me, writing literary analysis is really challenging but fun! Ah, can’t wait to see the LSC next year! See you in LSC 2014! J

 

 

By: Vania W. - Sasing 2010

 

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