Sumanto Al Qurtuby (GRS '13)
Sumanto Al Qurtuby is a faculty member in the Department of Global & Social Studies, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, Saudi Arabia. Previously, he was a research fellow at the University of Notre Dame’s Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and a senior research scholar at the Middle East Institute, National University of Singapore. He is also the founder and director of the Nusantara Institute, a research institution focusing on the study of Indonesian culture and religion. The institute runs academic seminars, supports publications of books whose digital version is free for publics, as well as publishes working papers and essays on relevant topics. Annually, the institute also sponsors Nusantara Academic Award, a national competition to select top doctorate/magister theses, and Nusantara Writing Grant, a nationwide contest to choose best doctoral dissertation/magister thesis writing proposals, on themes related to the institute’s platform. Each year, the institute receives more than 250 applicants for the award and grant competition.
An active commentator on social media, especially Facebook whose personal account has attracted more than 240,000 followers, Sumanto has authored and edited more than 28 books, dozens of scholarly articles published by various journals, and hundreds of popular essays in both English and Indonesian languages on issues around Islam, public religion, Muslim politics and cultures, interfaith cooperation, as well as ethno-religious conflict and peacebuilding. His books include Religious Violence and Conciliation in Indonesia (London: Routledge, 2016) and Saudi Arabia and Indonesian Networks: Migration, Education and Islam (London & New York: I.B. Tauris / Bloomsbury, 2019). He has completed a monograph on the comparative study of terrorism and counterterrorism between Saudi Arabia and Indonesia and is working on a book manuscript, titled Higher Education and the Fourth Industrial Revolution: Saudi Arabia and Indonesia