Marshall Clark lectures in Asian Studies and the popular culture, media and language of Indonesia at the School of International and Political Studies, Deakin University. His research examines representations of Indonesian masculinities in textual, digital and visual media. His publications include “The Subversive Mythologies of Pipit Rochijat, From the Suharto Era and Beyond”, Asian Folklore Studies, 65 (1) (2006); “Indonesian Masculinities: Images of Men in Indonesian TV Advertising”, RIMA, 38 (2) (2004); “Too Many Wisanggenis: Reinventing the Wayang at the Turn of the Century”, Indonesia and the Malay World, 32, 92 (2004); “Men, Masculinities and Symbolic Violence in Recent Indonesian Cinema”, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, 35 (2004).

Penelope Coutas (BEd/BAsianSt Honours) is a high school Indonesian language teacher from Perth, Western Australia.  The chapter “Fame, Fortune, Fantasi: Indonesian Idol and the new Celebrity” is a product of her Honours research at the Australian National University, Canberra, during 2005.  Penelope is currently studying towards a Doctorate of Education at Murdoch University, Perth, focusing on the use of new media technologies to facilitate the learning and teaching of Languages Other Than English.

David Hanan teaches Film and Television Studies at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. He has researched film in South East Asia since the early 1980s. His publications include Film in South East Asia: Views from the Region, Hanoi: SEAPAVAA and Vietnam Film Institute (as editor, 2001); “Political Documentaries and Essay Films by Garin Nugroho in Late New Order and Post-Suharto ‘Reformasi’ Indonesia”, Spectator: The University of Southern California Journal of Film and Television Criticism, 24: 39-49 (2004); “Political Documentaries about Aceh by Aryo Danusiri: Between Anthropology and Current Affairs”, Between Three Worlds Video and DVD - Monash Asia Institute Press, Melbourne (2005).

Ariel Heryanto is the author of State Terrorism And Political Identity In Indonesia: Fatally Belonging (Routledge, 2006) and co-editor of Challenging Authoritarianism in Southeast Asia; comparing Indonesia and Malaysia (RoutledgeCurzon, 2003). He is currently Convener of Indonesian Program, Asia Institute, The University of Melbourne. Previously he lectured in Indonesia and Singapore. His current research focuses on Indonesia’s contemporary pop cultures in the broader contexts of Asianisation and globalisation.

Rachmah Ida is a lecturer at the Department of Communications, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences Airlangga University in Surabaya Indonesia. Recently, she graduated with a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) through the Curtin Department of Media and Information for her thesis entitled: Watching Indonesian Sinetron: Imagining Communities around the Television, which discusses a common myth that lower class, less educated audiences - such as those living in the kampung - may believe too much of what they see on TV and not be able to distinguish fantasy from reality.

Edwin Jurriëns is Lecturer in Indonesian Language and Culture at the University of New South Wales college in Canberra. He is author of Cultural Travel and Migrancy: The Artistic Representation of Globalization in the Electronic Media of West Java (KITLV, 2004), and co-editor of Cosmopatriots: On Distant Belongings and Close Encounters (Rodopi, 2007). He can be contacted at: <e.jurriens@adfa.edu.au>.

Max M. Richter is currently lecturing in Anthropology at the University of Adelaide. He recently completed his doctoral thesis, titled Musical Worlds in Jogjakarta: Contexts, Genres, Identities, at La Trobe University in Melbourne. Max has been playing music for 30 years, been traveling to Southeast Asia for 20, and since 1996 has been academically engaged with Indonesia. His current research focuses on pop melayu and other popular music forms in Yogyakarta, Manado and Ambon in Indonesia, and Davao and Cebu City in the Philippines.

Vissia Ita Yulianto is an Indonesian independent scholar. Her latest publication is “The Representation of Women, Gender and Sexuality in Print, Broadcast, and Electronic Media; Comparing Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore” in S. Joseph’s (ed.) The Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures ( Brill Academic Publishers, 2007) and Pesona “Barat”: Analisa Kritis-Historis tentang Warna Kulit di Indonesia (The Allure of Whiteness: A Critical and Historical Analysis of Skin Colour Consiousness in Indonesia (Jalasutra, 2007). Her current research focuses on  women and comedy in Indonesian Post-totalitarian government. She can be contacted at: <vissia_ita@yahoo.com>.