Join Global Studies University for the second session of its Fall 2026 Faculty Seminar Series, featuring a lecture by Saarah Jappie, Senior Program Officer at the American Council of Learned Societies, where she works with the Mellon Mays Graduate Programs.
The seminar will be moderated by Dale Luis Menezes, Assistant Professor of History at The Asia Institute, GSU.
Abstract
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie; VOC) authorities oversaw the forced migration of thousands of people from the Indonesian archipelago to VOC outposts across the Indian Ocean world. Political convicts, exiled elites, and enslaved people working for the VOC and private settlers contributed to the development of new social and cultural formations away from home.
Under what circumstances were their lives remembered in their places of origin? How does forced migration feature in contemporary Indonesian accounts of the collective past?
This seminar explores these questions through the life of Shaykh Yusuf of Makassar, a renowned seventeenth-century Sufi scholar and political figure who was exiled to Ceylon and later the Cape of Good Hope for resisting VOC control in West Java. By tracing different versions of his biography over time, the lecture examines the processes of preservation, translation, and negotiation involved in commemorating histories of exile across different places and scales.
Speaker
Saarah Jappie is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research examines the afterlives of early modern exile and slavery in the Indian Ocean world through written culture, sacred geographies, and contemporary understandings of diaspora in Indonesia and South Africa.
Her writing has appeared in History in Africa, Indonesia and the Malay World, and The Chimurenga Chronicle, among other publications. She has also collaborated with researchers and artists on public-facing projects ranging from screenplays to public murals.
Jappie holds a Ph.D. in History from Princeton University. She is Senior Program Officer at the American Council of Learned Societies, where she works with the Mellon Mays Graduate Programs. She previously co-led the Transregional Collaboratory on the Indian Ocean at the Social Science Research Council, taught History at the University of the Witwatersrand, and held research affiliations at Barnard College and the University of Johannesburg. Read more.
Moderator
Dale Luis Menezes is Assistant Professor of History at The Asia Institute, Global Studies University. A historian of early modern South Asia and the Indian Ocean world, his research focuses on Goa and the Iberian presence in Asia. His work examines local governance, transoceanic commerce, commodities, labor, and global empire. He holds a Ph.D. in History from Georgetown University. Read more.
