English Department of Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University hosted a public lecture on Thursday, October 19th, 2017. This public lecture took place on the first floor of Prof. R. H. A. Soenarjo, SH. Building and featured two speakers: Dr. Katrin Bandel, a German lecturer who is teaching in the master’s program of Sanata Dhrama University, Indonesia and also a writer and artist, and Prof. David Reeve, Ph.D., a professor at the University of South Wales, Australia. This event started at 08.30 WIB and was opened with art performance by English Department students. It was then followed by a welcoming speech by the Head of English Department, Dr. Ubaidillah, M. Hum., and the Dean of Faculty of Adab and Cultural Sciences which was represented by the Vice Dean of Academic, Dr. Maharsi, M.Hum. He said that the selection of the two speakers for this event was indeed fantastic. He expected that the students could take the two speakers as their role models and learn from them to improve and enrich their knowledge.

The first session was facilitated by Dr. Katrin Bandel with Danial Hidayatullah, M. Hum as the moderator. She sought to explore an alternative perspective in seeing religion and sexuality in contemporary Indonesian literature. In this first session, Dr. Katrin Bandel discussed how sexuality and religion became the trending topics in contemporary Indonesian fiction (post-reformation), not in the quantity, but the works that became popular publicly. Those works are divided into two main themes: works about sexual liberation and Islamic fictions that bring da'wah messages. Katrin as a lecturer specified her study in critical literature especially towards “Sexual Freedom.” She also emphasized the urgency of raising the marginalized topic. Based on some books she referred to, Dr. Katrin Bandel concluded that the rural community is described as the community that is always being trapped on the various difficult problems depending on the local context. Those works try to represent those complexities realistically without demanding nebulous values. Religious institutions and some religious practices tend to be highlighted as a critical problem. A character is described to find the meaning of life not through the institution, but through the personal spirituality, positive activity, and in the unique figure without high social status.

The next session was a question and answer (Q&A) session and the public lecture ended with a group photo session. Before this session started, the event was interspersed with music performance by English Department students. This second session started at 11.00 WIB. It was facilitated by the second speaker, Prof. David Reeve with Dr. Witriani, M. Hum as the moderator. The main discussion that Prof. Reeve delivered was “Transports of Delights: Public Transportation (Bus Angkot) in Minangkabau, Popular Culture and The Value of Popularity”. In his presentation, Prof. Reeve explained his research result about the existence of public transportation (bus and angkot) in Minangkabau that has its own local culture designed differently. Those public transportations have their particular names and fantastic decoration. However, their existence has been decreasing along with the existence of TransPadang, Kredit Murah Motor, and online transportation. These local cultures of public transportation (angkot and bus) are endangered.

At the end of the session, the speaker closed his presentation with an interesting closing sentence that said: “technology always wins”. In the Question and Answer (Q&A) session, the speaker conferred three books to the best three outstanding questions. This public lecture finished at 12.30 WIB and closed by presenting souvenir and group photo session with the speakers.