‘In translation…’: Call for nominations Professor Teeuw Award 2015

After 25 years, the Professor Teeuw Foundation now publishes its final open call for nominations for the Professor Teeuw Award. Linked to a KITLV-symposium on ‘Translation’, the Foundation intends to award two candidates. Regardless of what nationality the nominees have, the Foundation will select two Award winners: one based in Indonesia and the other based in the Netherlands. We invite anyone who would has a good idea, to submit candidates who excel through their work in what we here call: ‘cultural translation’. Both persons and institutions can be nominated. The Professor Teeuw Award consists of a bronze medal as well as a financial reward of € 5000,-.

Cultural translation
What do we mean by ‘cultural translation…’? Please interpret this concept as narrow or as broad as you wish. Translation is about transmitting texts from one language to the other; it is about transposing a complicated text into a more easily accessible text, ‘hertalen’ as it is called in Dutch. But ‘translation’ may also refer to transformation across media: think of poems translated into paintings, of a novel turned into a movie, a theatre play, or art work; it may apply to fashion that translates historical experiences into modern life style; to black and white photographs that provide the basis for 3D-installations. We leave the interpretation of ‘cultural translation’ thus to those who would like to answer this call by drawing attention to the achievements of a possible candidate, with one restriction: the translation should refer to a process in which Indonesia and the Netherlands somehow are involved (and this, again, can be interpreted as narrow or as broad as at stake).

Submitting proposals
Motivated nominations for the Professor Teeuw Award 2015 should be sent by email or mail before 12 June 2015 to:
Professor Teeuw Foundation
P.O. Box 95581
2509 CN Den Haag
The Netherlands
E-mail: [email protected]

Contact person: Pim ten Hoorn (Secretariat)
Tel: +31 (0)70 383 95 50
Mob: +31 (0)6 223 44 851

Nominations of candidates have to come with the following information:
1 A brief explanation your interpretation of the concept of ‘cultural translation’ in the work of the candidate at stake, as well as in which ways this refers to Indonesian/Dutch exchange.
2 A full CV of the candidate, with clear references or annexes that provide the jury with access to the works concerned.

The submissions will be discussed by an Indonesian-based and a Netherlands-based committee independent of the Board of the Professor Teeuw Foundation. Based on the committees’ proposals, the Professor Teeuw Foundation will decide. Moreover, together with the KITLV, we organize the ceremony in the context of an academic seminar, titled ‘In translation…’. This event will be organized at the Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) in Yogyakarta in the week of 24 August 2015 (date to be fixed).

Professor Teeuw Award
Hans Teeuw was Professor of Indonesian Language and Literature at the University of Leiden from 1955 – 1976. Many know his name from the famous Bahasa Indonesia/Dutch dictionary. In 2012 Professor Teeuw passed away, aged 91 year. The Professor Teeuw Foundation was launched in 1991, under the auspices of the learned society KITLV, at the occasion of Professor Hans Teeuw’s retirement from the Dutch Government funded Indonesian Studies Programme. Hans Teeuw played a crucial role in this Programme, which ran between 1975 and 1992. The Professor Teeuw Foundation thus honoured Professor Teeuw for his work, and through the Professor Teeuw Award, expresses its appreciation of the many shared, mutual and diverging cultural initiatives, in which Indonesian and Dutch culture meet, influence and merge. The Foundation has awarded the Professor Teeuw Award irregularly, each time alternating between an Indonesian and a Dutch nominee. By awarding creative people for their achievements, it has intended to contribute to the continuation of a network of exchange, beyond the boundaries of language and history. With the Fund nearing its end, this final call for nominations comes with confidence in the future of Indonesian Dutch cultural exchange.

Previous nominations
Since the start, thirteen laureates have been awarded. The first Professor Teeuw Award, in 1992, was for Goenawan Mohamad, the famous Indonesian writer, poet and journalist who also founded the journal Tempo. After Goenawan, the Dutch historian Harry Poeze, at the time also Editor-in-Chief of the KITLV Press, received the Award in 1994.

In 1996 writer, poet and philosopher Y.B. Mangunwijaya was awarded. Two years later, in 1998, the Award was received by Ellen Derksen, Director of the Pasar Malam Besar in The Hague (now Tong Tong Fair). In 2000 the Award was for to the Jakartan anthropologist and journalist Mulyawan Karim; in 2002, F.X. Suhardi Djojoprasetyo was awarded. He worked since 1975 as a teacher of Javanese dance and gamelan in the Netherlands. In 2004 the Award was for Ajip Rosidi, writer and journalist in Indonesia, who, over a period of more than 40 years, has made an invaluable contribution to the study, publication, documentation and promotion of Indonesian literature in the broadest possible way.

In 2007 the Professor Teeuw Award has been presented in the Netherlands as well as in Indonesia. The Award was given to laureates who have contributed to the cultural relationships between Indonesia and the Netherlands in the field of architecture and the study of architecture. In the Netherlands the Dutch architect and architecture-historian Cor Passchier shared the award with the Dutch anthropologist Freek Colombijn. In Indonesia three laureates were selected to receive the Award: the architects Han Awal, Wastu Pragantha Zhong and Soedarmadji J.H. Damais.

In 2011 the Dutch musician Elsje Plantema received the Award for her dedication to gamelan music, both playing, teaching and conducting the gamelan orchestra Widosari, while also founding the ‘Gamelan House’ in Amsterdam.

Call for nominations Professor Teeuw Award 2015 (PDF document) …>>