Our Research Group, New Directions in the Study of Javanese Literature, has been engaged in both intra-group activities, and outreach events aimed at the academic community and in some cases the general public.

The main focus of our intra-group activities is the group’s weekly reading sessions. Each group member is responsible for three sessions in which he/she leads the group in reading a text of choice. Our illuminating discussions have ranged from script usage to poetic meters to ideas of authorship, and of course the texts’ contents including, for example, Islamic mystical poetry and a history of particular forms of dance. Furthemore, our bi-weekly seminars are the forum for group members to present their larger project for their IIAS fellowship, brain storm about the books they plan to produce and receive feedback from others.

In addition to its individual and collective research projects, our Group aims to raise awareness of our field of study, broadly defined to include Javanese literature but also Indonesian languages, cultures, history and arts, to the academic community and beyond. As of beginning of December, 2018,  we organized ten outreach events.