Ruby Saha OC ‘14

Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia (2014-16)

Robina (Ruby) Saha graduated in 2014 as an Art History major. She has spent her entire life at the intersection of cultures. Indian by nationality, Ruby grew up in Indonesia as a child, moved to Australia for two years and then settled down in Singapore. In addition to English and her mother tongue Bengali, she speaks French, beginning Arabic, and Bahasa. Robina contributed to the Wilder Voice, and was a Student Blogger during the beginning of her Oberlin career as a resource for Oberlin prospective students. In 2013, she was awarded the Laurine Mack Bongiorno Prize, given each year to the most promising juniors majoring in art history at Oberlin. She pursued an honors project that examined newly opened Islamic art galleries in Western museums and how they navigate a dialogue between Islam and the West in a post-9/11 context. During her Fellowship, Ruby came to appreciate the diversity of Indonesian society. Living in Yogyakarta, she felt privileged to learn about Javanese culture, but also enjoyed getting to know young people from the eastern islands who crowd into reggae night at a popular bar, telling us that “…as a Shansi fellow, within the context of cross-cultural discourse that we carry with us throughout our time here, I think we, I, should appreciate and participate in the culture that surrounds us, but also seek out the limits and margins of these spaces..freedom that our students do not often have.”