Ariel Heryanto, MA (Michigan), PhD (Monash)

On leave in 2012
Associate Professor, School of Culture, History & Language

Email: ariel.heryanto@anu.edu.au

Biographical statement

Ariel Heryanto is Associate Professor of Indonesian Studies and currently Head of Southeast Asia, The School of Culture, History and Language. He held the position since 2009 when he joined The Faculty of Asian Studies, ANU. Previously he was convener of Indonesian Program of the Asia Institute, The University of Melbourne. His first two degrees (Sarjana Muda and Doktorandus) were in Education from Universitas Kristen Satya Wacana, Indonesia. He gained his MA degree in Asian Studies from the University of Michigan (USA), and PhD degree in cultural anthropology from Monash University.

Research interests

Ariel is the sole Chief Investigator of two Discovery ARC grants (2009-2012) on identity politics, Indonesian popular cultures and media. His interests revolve around issues of cultural signifying practices, especially the everyday politics of identity and representation. He is interested in the study of semantic history (key words), discourse analysis, media, popular culture, ethnicity, nationality, hybridity, and diasporas. Although Indonesia is the country he knows best, he is keen on comparative studies especially among the neighbouring countries in Southeast Asia.

Recent publications

• "Upgraded Piety and Pleasure: The New Middle Class and Islam in Indonesian Popular Culture", in A. N. Weintraub (ed), Islam and Popular Culture in Indonesia and Malaysia, London: Routledge, (2011) pp. 59-82.
• Pop Culture Formations Across East Asia, (co-editor), Seoul: Jimoondang, 2010
• Popular Culture in Indonesia: Fluid Identities in Post-Authoritarian Politics, (editor), London & New York: Routledge, 2008
• State Terrorism and Political Identity in Indonesia: Fatally Belonging, London: Routledge, 2006
• "Entertainment, Domestication, and Dispersal: Street Politics as Popular Culture", in E. Aspinnal and M. Mietzner (eds), Problems of Democratisation in Indonesia: Elections, Institutions and Society, Singapore: ISEAS, (2010) pp. 181-198.
• "The bearable lightness of democracy", in T. Reuter (ed.), The Return to Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia, Monash Asia Institute, Clayton, (2010), pp. 51-63.
• "Pop culture and Competing Identities", in A. Heryanto (ed), Popular Culture in Indonesia: Fluid Identities in Post-Authoritarian Politics, London: Routledge, (2008), pp. 1-36.
• "Citizenship and Indonesian Ethnic Chinese in Post-1998 Films", in A. Heryanto (ed), Popular Culture in Indonesia: Fluid Identities in Post-Authoritarian Politics, London: Routledge, (2008), pp. 70-92.
• "Can There Be Southeast Asians in Southeast Asian Studies?", in L.J. Sears (ed.) Knowing Southeast Asian Subjects, Seattle; University of Washington Press, (2007), pp. 75-108.
• "Then There were Languages: Bahasa Indonesian was One Among Many" in Disinventing and Reconstituting Languages, S. Makoni and A. Pennycook (eds), Clevedon: Multilingual Matters (2006), pp.42-61.

Career highlights

Since 1998, Ariel has been deeply involved in a series of trans-national initiatives for building a region-based Southeast Asian studies. Over the past 30 years he has published more than 600 opinion columns for the Indonesian major print media on culture, arts, language, politics, law, ideology, gender, religion, history, education, nationalism, racism, and social classes, as well as reviews of books, films and theatre performances.