Honouring Legacies and Celebrating New Research on Indonesia at ANU: The 2023 Tony and Yohanni Johns Lecture

On August 10th, the ANU Indonesia Institute hosted the 2nd Annual Tony and Yohanni Johns Lecture. This lecture series, which is already an important event on the calendar for ANU Indonesia scholars, honours both Tony and Yohanni Johns's enduring legacies for Indonesian teaching in ANU and all across Australia. It is made possible by the generosity of Emeritus Professor Anthony Reid, as well as Tony and Yohanni's friends and family.

Professor Ronit Ricci delivered this year’s address on ‘Situated Prophethood: Reading the Sĕrat Ambiya in 19th century Java.’ To a packed theatre, Prof. Ricci explained how a foundational Islamic corpus from Java depicts, both through script and images, the lives of the wali sanga - the nine 'saints' credited with bringing Islam to the island.

The lecture showcased Prof. Ricci’s deep knowledge of Islamic scripts from Indonesia and the Malay world, as well as her remarkable skills of translation. It was a fitting tribute to the legacies of Tony and Yohanni Johns, both of whom attended the lecture with their family. The evening was enjoyed by over 100 attendees from across Canberra, across disciplines, and across generations too.