Please come by the ICOC 2025 Registration and Information desk to collect your name badge.
Location: Superfloor, Mezzanine Level (Melbourne Connect, 700 Swanston Street, Carlton) - outside Forum 1
The cafe and coffee cart will also be available for teas and coffees (Note: only electronic or card payments accepted)
For wifi, join network name MelbConnectGuest (no password needed)
To keep ICOC free and open to all, this conference is not catered.  Participants are responsible for purchasing their own food and drinks.
Link for prayer room/mosque locations

Note this event is not located at Melbourne Connect.
Location: Yasuko Hiraoka Myer Room 106 located on level 1 of the Sidney Myer Asia Centre.

The study of history often depends on access to archives. But this raises questions about who has access, and which materials are deemed significant. As Jacques Derrida wrote in Archive Fever (1995), “[T]here is no political power without control of the archive, if not memory. Effective democratisation can always be measured by this essential criterion: the participation in and access to the archive, its constitution, and its interpretation.”
  
  This roundtable session unites Indonesia-focused researchers from institutions in Indonesia and Australia to explore how archives can reveal lesser-known histories. Projects represented include:
  
  • Global Encounters & First Nations Peoples: A research project examining interactions between Australia’s Indigenous peoples and ocean voyagers over the past millennium.
  • Queer Indonesia Archive: A digital archiving project that collects, preserves and celebrates the lives and experiences of queer Indonesia.
  • Monash Herb Feith Indonesian Engagement Centre: A research centre fostering collaborations between Monash researchers and Indonesia.
  • The MAREGE Institute: A research and cultural centre investigating encounters between Makassan sailors and Australian Indigenous communities since the 15th century.
  
  The panel will expand on the concept of the historical archive to encompass oral histories, ephemera, family records, linguistic and archaeological evidence, and botanical and genetic data. Presenters will address challenges in translation, cultural differences, and digital methods for accessibility, aiming to engage communities with hidden histories. 

To keep ICOC free and open to all, this conference is not catered. Participants are responsible for purchasing their own food and drinks. A coffee cart will be available at Melbourne Connect for coffee purchases.

To keep ICOC free and open to all, this conference is not catered.  Participants are responsible for purchasing their own food and drinks.

Note: Melbourne Connect does not permit outside food or drink except those purchased from their cafe, coffee cart or food stand on the superfloor (mezzanine level)

Some ICOC lunch specials can be pre-ordered from The Atlantic Group:
Pre-order via this link https://qr.meandu.app/afl3vnz or purchase at the counter (subject to availability)
- Nasi goreng with satay chicken skewers ($14)
- Spicy tofu stir-fried noodles with vegetables | VEGAN ($14)

Please ensure you are back in time 10 minutes before the start of the next session

This panel asks what the production and circulation of archetypes in Indonesian print culture reveals about the co-construction of gender roles, sexual norms, nationalism, and modernity. Nik Setiadarma traces the formation of the ‘sentimental man’ in domestic texts published in the 1910s–20s. Devoting attention to space and affect, they argue that male writers configured domesticity as a site of fantasy. Bronwyn Beech Jones analyses the decision to stage a theatricalised Minangkabau literary tale about retribution in 1928. She probes why writers in a women’s periodical framed the protagonist as their ‘warrior’ forebear. Ravando’s paper assesses gendered discourses about intellectualism, focusing on how journalists highlighted certain aspects of doctor Thung Sin Nio’s work from the 1920s–60s. The final paper examines constructions of modernity in 1968 to contextualise novels that centred ‘tante girang’ (cougar). Rima Febriani unpicks how these works frame sexual adventures as pedagogical fantasies for rebellious young men.

Chairperson: Patriot Mukmin
This panel explores how colonial institutions and cultural apparatuses have shaped knowledge production and representation in Indonesia, from the Dutch colonial period to the aftermath of 1965. The first two papers examine the colonial politics embedded in museological and pedagogical practices. One investigates the exhibition design of Gallery 1.17 “The Dutch East Indies” at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, revealing how the display of artifacts reinforces narratives of imperial authority and colonial knowledge. Another analyzes the role of Dutch-founded institutions—such as the Bataviaasch Genootschap and Technische Hoogeschool te Bandung—in structuring arts education and recontextualizing cultural objects, with long-lasting impacts on Indonesian artistic discourse. These studies uncover the colonial agency behind the shaping of visual and historical consciousness. Closing the panel, the third paper turns to post-1965 Indonesia, showing how contemporary artists like Dadang Christanto and Maharani Mancanagara reclaim narrative agency through artworks that confront historical trauma, memory, and human rights.

Our time together is coming to an end!  Gather together to say our goodbyes