FIB Holds Public Lecture on “Popular Culture and Pop Islam”
The Faculty of Cultural Sciences held a public lecture with the theme “Popular Culture and Pop Islam” on Thursday, November 11. This public lecture presented an scholar from the University of Pittsburgh, United States, Prof. Andrew N. Weintraub. More than 350 participants from the academic community of the Faculty of Cultural Sciences Unpad and invitations from outside attended the online public lecture.
This public lecture is part of the Popular Culture (Budaya Populer) course in the Master of Cultural Studies Program and the Cultural Studies (Pengkajian Budaya) course in the undergraduate program of the Faculty of Cultural Sciences Unpad. This public lecture was held in the framework of the 63rd Anniversary of the Faculty of Cultural Sciences, Universitas Padjadjaran. As also stated by Prof. Aquarini Priyatna, Dean of the Faculty of Cultural Sciences Unpad, this public lecture activity that presents professors from world-renowned universities is part of the Faculty of Cultural Sciences’s efforts to support the improvement of UNPAD’s ranking towards World 500.
Prof. Andrew is known as a scholar who focuses on Indonesian studies. The ethnomusicology professor’s research focuses on music and popular culture narratives. Due to Prof. Andrew’s intense research on popular culture in Indonesia, it’s no surprise that his command of Indonesian is very fluent. In the two-hour event, Prof. Andrew eloquently delivered his presentation on popular culture in Indonesian.
In the lively lecture, Prof. Andrew gave a very clear explanation of popular culture. He started from the most basic explanation, starting from the discussion of its etymology, then went into the dynamics of the development of the term popular culture. After that, Prof. Andrew moved on to a case study of popular culture in Indonesia, namely pop dangdut films starring Rhoma Irama from the 1970s to the 1980s. It was noted that there were 28 movies produced during that period.
Pop dangdut movies, as Prof. Andrew points out, are popular cultural expressions of moderate Islam. These movies are very popular among Indonesians. Despite film critics who viewed these pop dangdut films as aesthetically unpromising, these films actually dominated the Indonesian cinema world at that time. In fact, there were no imported films that could beat its popularity, even when based on profit. As stated by Prof. Andrew, in one of his interviews with Rhoma Irama, the key to the success of Rhoma’s pop dangdut genre films were action, love, humor, and songs. It is this formula that successfully binds the audience. The main character in this movie not only presents Islam in a popular way so that it is easily understood by the general public but also has in partial for minorities.
Many questions arose from the lecture participants, both delivered through written messages and verbally. In general, the participants were very enthusiastic about listening to Prof. Andrew’s presentation. This indicates that the themes of popular culture are always interesting to observe because they become the daily practice of society.
Writer: Muhamad Adji
Translator: Jauza Maryam Mumtazah
