UNAIR NEWS – The Master’s Program in Literary and Cultural Studies (MKSB), Faculty of Humanities (FIB), Universitas Airlangga (UNAIR), in collaboration with the MKSB Student Association, held a guest lecture titled “Taking a Closer Look at Art: Comic Artists’ Community in Kepanjen” on Tuesday (October 13, 2026). The event, which began at 10:00 a.m. at the FIB Hall (Rooms 3.2-3.4, New Building), featured researcher Prof Jan van der Putten from the University of Hamburg as the main speaker.
In his presentation titled “Besotted Indonesian Culture and the Local Wisdom Toothache,” Prof Jan van der Putten invited participants to trace how cultural symbols and local wisdom move across media, from ancient traditional rituals to popular comic panels.
One focus of the lecture was the transformation of cultural symbols. It traced the journey of buffalo and cow symbols, from the buffalo slaughtering tradition in Sihotang (Lake Toba) in 1939 and the Gilgamesh mythology of Mesopotamia, to the allegory of the heifer in the religious text Al-Baqarah, reinterpreted in Indonesian comic panels.
Comics as a popular archive were also discussed. Works by local comic artists such as Teguh Santosa and Ade Kamesywara were examined as a form of polymedial hermeneutics. Comics are no longer seen as “second-class” products, but as a creative arena and popular archive of social history that records how an era imagines itself.
The lecture also criticized the tendency to treat culture merely as museum artifacts or tourism commodities that lose their vitality and relevance in responding to everyday social problems.
Head of the Master’s Program in Literary and Cultural Studies at FIB UNAIR Prof Nur Wulan said the event gave students a new perspective on reading cultural dynamics. The program opened with the Indonesia Raya anthem and the Hymne Airlangga, followed by remarks from faculty leaders, and ended with an interactive discussion and the presentation of souvenirs. Through this guest lecture, MKSB FIB UNAIR continues to encourage critical interpretation of cultural heritage amid modernity and the digital era.
Author: MKSB FIB UNAIR
