Septemmy Lakawa

Visiting Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies and Theology 2015–16
WSRP Research Associate 2015–16
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Home institution

Jakarta Theological Seminary

Research project

Risky Dialogue: Muslim and Christian Women Practicing Interreligious Hospitality in the Aftermath of Religious Communal Violence in Indonesia

This book-length project examines a model of interreligious dialogue which places women at the center, accounts for the effects of trauma, and takes seriously the legacy of mission enterprises.

Course

HDS 3024: Trauma, Mission, and Interreligious Dialogue

Profile

Septemmy E. Lakawa teaches mission studies, contextual theologies, and feminist constructive theology at Jakarta Theological Seminary, the oldest ecumenical seminary in Indonesia. Her main research interests are on Christian self-understanding in the presence of religious differences; the changing contour of the interreligious landscape and the public and everyday character of interreligious dialogue shaped by women’s experiences and imagination; and trauma, theology, and interreligious aesthetics in the aftermath of religious communal violence.

Most recently, she served as the Director of the Graduate and Postgraduate Studies Program at Jakarta Theological Seminary from 2011 to 2015. She has published numerous articles and book chapters in and outside Indonesia related to her research interests. She is the winner of Müller-Krüger Award (2013) for her dissertation, "Risky Hospitality: Mission in the Aftermath of Religious Communal Violence" (Boston University, 2011). Since 2007, she has worked with several local congregations and her seminary, Jakarta Theological Seminary, to develop poetic and meditative dance as a form of doing Christian theological aesthetics in a multireligious context and she has incorporated this effort in her teaching and in some of her writings. From 2000 to 2003, she was the chief editor of Sophia, the first Indonesian Christian feminist theological journal.