CEMS is pleased to welcome Dr Wayan Jarrah Sastrawan as a new member.

Jarrah is a historian specialising in the premodern history of Indonesia at the Australian National University. He is Lecturer and Convenor of the Indonesian language program in the School of Culture, History and Languages, and Director of the Indonesia Institute in the College of Asia and the Pacific at the ANU. He obtained his PhD from the University of Sydney in 2021. Jarrah’s active research projects focus on historical practices in precolonial Southeast Asia, historical temporalities in the early modern world, digital approaches to traditional Indonesian and Malay manuscripts, the epigraphical cultures of Indonesia, the processes of early state development in Indonesia, and religious transformations in early modern Southeast Asia. He is especially interested in using indigenous Southeast Asian sources to rethink how history is practised. Jarrah has written widely on Indonesian history in leading history and area studies journals, including History and Theory, Journal of Global History, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde and Indonesia. His book The Precarious Past in Premodern Java (2026) is published by University of California Press. He has written on his research for online venues such as 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 has an active outreach program on traditional and social media. More information about his work can be found on his website. He has previously held positions at the École française d’Extrême-Orient (Paris) and at the University of Sydney.