The Chinese Filipino as Creative Writer/The Chinese Indonesian as Activist
Date & Time: February 4, 2020, Tuesday, 13:30-18:00
Venue: Big-Sized Room, Fourth Floor, University Library (Main Library) on the Main Campus of Kyoto University
(no. 18 on this access map: https://www.kyoto-u.ac.jp/en/access/main-campus-map.html)
Abstract:
Two of the most prominent Sino-Southeast Asian intellectuals from the Philippines and Indonesia, Charlson Ong and Dédé Oetomo, trace their biographical, intellectual, activist, and artistic trajectories and discuss their respective views and advocacies on behalf of the ethnic Chinese in their countries and Southeast Asia more generally. They also tackle the issues and challenges that ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia are confronting in the wake of the rise of Mainland China, the political, economic, and cultural implications of such a rise, and the ongoing transformation of the regional system.
Discussants: Miyabara Gyo and Igra Anugrah
Moderators: Kitamura Yumi and Caroline Hau
About the speakers:
Charlson Ong has published four collections of short fiction and three novels, including An Embarrassment of Riches, Banyaga: A Song of War, and Blue/Angel White Shadow. He has won the Philippine National Book Award, the Philippine Centennial Literary Award, the Gawad Balagtas (Lifetime Achievement Award) from the Writers’ Union of the Philippines, the Southeast Asia (SEA) Write Award from Thailand, and a Filipino Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (FAMAS) Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for “Tanabata’s Wife,” a film he wrote and co-directed. He teaches Creative Writing at the University of the Philippines.
Dédé Oetomo is Adjunct Lecturer at the Faculty of Business and Economics, Universitas Surabaya; Faculty of Social and Political Sciences and Faculty of Humanities, Universitas Airlangga; and the Postgraduate Program, Universitas Katolik Widya Mandala Surabaya. He is a scholar, educator and activist in research, education and advocacy in the fields of language and society, HIV & AIDS and sexuality, mainly at GAYa NUSANTARA Foundation (www.gayanusantara.or.id) and APCOM Foundation (www.apcom.org) and the Coalition for Sexual & Bodily Rights in Muslim Societies (CSBR; www.csbronline.org). He finished his doctorandus in English language teaching at the Surabaya and Malang Teachers Colleges (1975, 1978) and his Master’s and Doctorate in linguistics and Southeast Asian studies at Cornell University (1982, 1984).