Wednesday 14 October 2026

On Wednesday 14 October, Esther Captain, Endowed Professor of Intergenerational Impact of Colonialism and Slavery at the Faculty of Humanities, appointed by the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, will deliver her inaugural lecture, titled Ruptures and links: Crossing generations and oceans in the history of slavery and colonialism.

Tuesday 20 October 2026

The 1950-1957s period marked Indonesia’s first democratic period. The dust of the National Revolution had, however, far from settled. Subversive groups, many with a criminal outlook, roamed Java’s and Sumatra’s countryside continuing the revolution. 

Tuesday 27 October 2026

The rise of populism has been accompanied by a profound crisis of trust in experts and intellectuals. The standard response in Southeast Asia and beyond, such as fact-checking, denouncing fake news, and doubling down on nuanced critique, appears to be insufficient or even counterproductive. Exasperated by a public that seems to ignore their corrections, scholars often retreat into a defensive posture, blaming populist manipulation or public ignorance. This response fuels further distrust of the scholarly class and misses a deeply uncomfortable possibility: rather than scholarly rigor being the antidote to power or political interests, it may also be its most sophisticated enabling instrument.