Six International Speakers were Invited to Commemorate 61st Anniversary of

Diponegoro University by Master and Doctoral program of History

SEMARANG, UndipNewsletter- November is one of the busiest month for Diponegoro

University. There are various events were held simultaneously, range of sport, cultural to
academic event. Those events were held in order to commemorate 61st Anniversary of
Diponegoro University, Semarang 1st November 2018

Master and Doctoral program of History also enliven the anniversary by inviting six
international speakers. They are Prof. Dr. Matthew C. Santamaria Maglaan (University of the
Philippine Diliman), Dr. Maitrii V-Aung Twin (National University of Singapore), Dr.
Donna Brunero (National University of Singapore), Ismail Fajar Alatas, Ph.D (New York
University), Dr. Diotama Chattoraj (University of Brunei Darussalam), and Dr. Xu Xiodong
(Guangxi Normal University, China). The seminar was begun with keynote speech by Rear.
Admiral Dr. Amarulla Octavian, S.T., M.Sc., D.E.S.D.

Under the theme, “Maritime Conflict and National Integration in the Indo-Pacific Region”,
the speakers were underlining some crucial issues. An anthropologist and a historian, Ismail
Fajar Alatas, Ph.D addressed the issue under the title “Seascape: Rethinking Cultural
Geography and Maritime History”, the presentation was an attempt to think theoretically and
methodologically about the sea as a cultural space, that is, as a space of cultural formation,
conflict, and integration. He explicitly argued that cultural geography pushes us to think
about space and spatial production critically, and not to take it simply as given.

The religious integration was interesting topic for many scholars, it was proven by the
consistency of Dr. Maitrii V. Aung-Thwin to portrait about the Building a Sacred
Infrastructure: Transnational Maritime Network and Religious Integration in Contemporary
Southeast Asia. Dr. Maitrii, this research explores the making of the Lumbini Pagoda from its
inception as an act of donation to its eventual construction and sanctification in 2010. “By the
making of this building we can understand the communities whose encounters complicate
and stretch our understanding of religious networks in Southeast Asia and the broader Indo-
Pacific.