Researcher of the Month, May 2025: Yan Kalampung

Yan Kalampung is a postgraduate researcher in the School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science and a member of CRPL. He recently returned to his homeland of Indonesia and is in the final stages of writing his PhD thesis.

Tell us a little about your research journey—how did you get to where you are right now?

As a first generation in this academic realm, I feel that the main colour of my research journey as a biblical scholar is about resisting alienation. Starting my higher education in an eastern Indonesian local Protestant seminary, namely Christian University of Indonesia in Tomohon, I saw how alienation works in biblical studies. At the time, and I argue it is still happening, being a biblical scholar is all about thinking like a “white” scholar. We spent most of our time studying all the required white European male biblical scholars. In such a desert of alienation, one professor, namely W. A. Roeroe, taught us how to resist by starting biblical scholarship not from a faraway standpoint in Europe but from our ancestors.

I remember when we studied the toledot (תּוֹלְדֹת—Hebrew for "generations" or "descendants") in the Old Testament. Instead of dwelling in the historical criticism discussion based on the opinions of European scholars, Roeroe instructed us to dig up our own ancestries. That moment makes me realise that I can learn about myself as a part of biblical scholarship. Fascinated by the small space of “being myself”, I then decided to concentrate on Old Testament studies and finished my bachelor of theological studies with a small research project on an introduction to Ecclesiastes with a focus on the Indonesian translation.

After finishing my undergraduate studies, I continued my Master's studies, still focusing on the Old Testament in Duta Wacana Christian University Yogyakarta, Indonesia. At that programme, I discovered many ways of doing contextual biblical studies with the perspective of Indonesian people. I completed my Master's degree in theological studies by researching Ecclesiastes and mysticism in the Indonesian context. During that period, I discovered that academically resisting alienation ignites my passion more than engaging in pastoral work. I then decided to be a full-time lecturer at a state university, namely the State Christian Institute in Manado (IAKN Manado), teaching biblical studies.

What are you currently, or about to start, working on?

As a governmental requirement of lecturers in Indonesia, I must acquire a PhD degree. Therefore, with the funding from the Indonesian government, in 2020 I started my PhD studies at the University of Leeds, UK. At this level, I am still doing research about Ecclesiastes. Honestly, I keep doing research about Ecclesiastes in hope that I will find an easier way of finishing my studies. But it turns out that I am wrong because I could use many different perspectives of interpretation. I then try a new way of reading Ecclesiastes using an Indonesian postcolonial perspective.

Like my friend always says, it’s not easy. Not only because I have to write in a foreign language and contextual biblical studies are quite uncommon in Western biblical scholarship, but mainly because the Indonesian perspective is not a popular stance. In England, a highly general category “Southeast Asia” is far more familiar than its country members. But despite all these challenges, I find that this is a satisfactory endeavour because, at the very least, I can introduce Indonesia to the foreign world in a study funded by Indonesian taxpayers.

My current PhD project is entitled “An Inter-Indonesian postcolonial trauma reading of the Book of Ecclesiastes”. In the research, I put Ecclesiastes in dialogue with three Indonesian writers, establishing a perspective I call the inter-Indonesian perspective because they reflect the diversity of Indonesia(s). Those writers are Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Felix K. Nesi, and Soe Tjen Marching.

As part of an endeavour to introduce the Indonesian perspective, besides my current PhD project, I also presented my research at academic conferences, especially at the European Association of Biblical Studies. “’Who is the Majority?’: The location of Minority Biblical Criticism in Indonesian context” (Syracusa, Italy – 2023) and “Indonesian Biblical Studies: An effort to forge an Indonesian way of reading the Bible” (Sofia, Bulgaria – 2024). I also had a chance to present my research about postcolonial trauma in the Indonesian context in UK’s the Society of Study of Theology, “‘An Image of a Wicked God’: Postcolonial Trauma and Anti-theodicy in Soe Tjen Marching’s Dari Dalam Kubur” (Warwick, UK – 2023). My latest journal article is about Spiritual Hermeneutics in Indonesian context published in Old Testament Essays.

In what way(s) do you feel your research examines the role of religion in public life and the relationship between the two?

Not only once someone in Indonesia talked to my face that biblical studies is useless. I cannot deny that accusation if the reality is that many Indonesian biblical scholars, using Frantz Fanon’s term, are still using “white masks”. As long as biblical scholarship is still championing the so-called “objective” alienating historical criticism, biblical studies are going to be useless.

In my long life resistance towards alienation, I believe biblical studies have to deal with public life. In my perspective, I agree with the perspective of double transformation from contextual theologies. In one way, biblical studies is present in the public space as a critical voice. However, it is crucial for biblical studies, as a discourse, to be open to the transformation of public life. I feel a bit encouraged by the current development of biblical studies at the global level. Although, on another overall gaze, contextual and postcolonial biblical criticism, like R. S. Sugirtharajah said, is “still at the margin”, but at least I can see that in some spaces, the double transformation is still happening. I hope that my lifework of biblical studies is still going to reflect that effort.