The writing of history has conventionally depended on notions of a timeline. Whether it is explicit in the form of historical works, as in medieval annals, or implicit, as in the thematic organization of modern histories, the unitary timeline is present. Global traditions of historiography offer alternative ways of structuring historical time, such as genealogies, ages, and prophecies. Contemporary innovations and tools for history-writing have also generated new ways of organising our experiences of the past, as well as unique challenges for the preservation of knowledge in digital forms. However, most professional historians remain committed to a practical realist metaphysics with a unitary timeline at its center. This lecture considers the opportunities provided by these multiple temporalities and explores the possibilities of writing history beyond the timeline.

Wayan Jarrah Sastrawan is a lecturer of Indonesian history and language at the Australian National University in Canberra, where he is also director of the Indonesia Institute. He is a historian specialising in the premodern history of Southeast Asia, as well as a teacher of Indonesian and Old Javanese language. He is especially interested in using indigenous Southeast Asian sources to rethink how history is practised. He has written widely on Southeast Asian history in leading history and area studies journals. He has written for New Mandala, The Conversation, Inside Indonesia, as well as blogs of the British Library and Malay Heritage Centre. He has given public talks, seminars, and national radio interviews on his research, and he has an active outreach program on traditional and social media. He has previously held positions at the Ecole française d'Extrême Orient (Paris) and the University of Sydney.

Moderation:
Annca Pielenhofer