Photo by Imelda T. Mandala

About Ferdi

Ferdiansyah Thajib is a researcher and educator whose lifework unfolds at the intersections of theory and lived experience, held by the practices of queer worldmaking and the affective entanglements of the everyday.

He is currently a Senior Lecturer in the Elite Graduate Program Standards of Decision-making Across Cultures at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, where he teaches psychological anthropology and gender and sexuality studies, with a regional focus on Indonesia and broader Southeast Asia. He earned a doctorate from Freie Universität Berlin in 2020 and, afterwards, joined Leipzig University for a year as a postdoctoral fellow with the Children and Nature Working Group.

Alongside his work as an academic,  Ferdi is also an artist, curator, and community educator focusing on the transformative potential of self-organisation through studying together. These interests are closely tied to his involvement with KUNCI Study Forum & Collective, an undisciplinary research initiative in Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

My Upcoming Book

Enduring Otherwise: Muslim Queer and Trans Worldmaking in Indonesia is an ethnographic inquiry into the affective experiences of sexual and gender minorities in the predominantly Muslim country as they navigate violence and normative pressures, zooming in into their complex engagement with issues of religiosity and their perseverance through struggles while holding onto the hope of transforming their marginalized conditions

This book will be published in Spring 2026 by NYU Press, as part of its Hauntings: Queer/Trans Studies in Religion series, edited by Ashton T. Crawley, Tamara C. Ho, and Melissa M. Wilcox.

 

Cover art & design  by Cecil Mariani