Robert Hefner Concludes Film in Indonesia
Professor Robert Hefner traveled to Yogyakarta, in Java, Indonesia, from May 10 to May 21. Professor Hefner was putting the final touches on his three-year documentary film project, “Indonesian Pluralities: Social Resources for Citizen Belonging in Contemporary Indonesia.” The project was funded by the Henry Luce Foundation in New York and co-produced with Zainal Abidin Bagir of Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The film project created seven full-length documentaries on topics as varied as Muslim women, conservative and progressive; Christian-Muslim reconciliation in post-conflict Maluku (in eastern Indonesia); the Chinese minority and citizenship in Indonesia; religious responses to the Covid pandemic; and Indonesia’s quest for inclusive citizenship. Indonesian versions of the films have been shown in some 300 locations across Indonesia; English-language versions are also now available in the U.S.
Professor Hefner also gave a talk on “Leadership and Civic Peace in Troubled Times” at the Interfidei Institute for Inter-faith Dialogue in Yogyakarta as well as a talk on religious governance and freedom at a conference on “Religious Harmony vs. Religious Freedom in Indonesia” at the Center for Religious and Cross-Cultural Studies on the campus of Gadjah Mada University.
Robert Hefner has directed 19 research projects and organized 18 international conferences, and authored or edited nineteen books. He is the former president of the Association for Asian Studies. At CURA, he directed the program on Islam and civil society since 1991; coordinated interdisciplinary research and public policy programs on religion, pluralism, and world affairs; and is currently involved in two research projects: “The New Western Plurality and Civic Coexistence: Muslims, Catholics, and Secularists in North America and Western Europe”; and “Sharia Transitions: Islamic Law and Ethical Plurality in the Contemporary World.” Read more about Professor Hefner on his faculty profile.