Southeast Asian Studies - Recent Titles from Ohio University Press

Realizing the Dream of R. A. Kartini

Sun, 13 Jan 2008

Realizing the Dream of R. A. Kartini (2008)
Her Sisters’ Letters from Colonial Java

Edited by Joost J. Coté

Realizing the Dream of R. A. Kartini: Her Sisters’ Letters from Colonial Java presents a unique collection of documents reflecting the lives, attitudes, and politics of four Javanese women in the early twentieth century. Joost J. Coté translates the correspondence between Raden Ajeng Kartini, Indonesia’s first feminist, and her sisters, revealing for the first time her sisters’ contributions in defining and carrying out her ideals. With this collection, Coté aims to situate Kartini’s sisters within the more famous Kartini narrative–and indirectly to situate Kartini herself within a broader narrative.

The letters reveal the emotional lives of these modern women and their concerns for the welfare of their husbands and the success of their children in rapidly changing times. While by no means radical nationalists, and not yet extending their horizons to the possibility of an Indonesian nation, these members of a new middle class nevertheless confidently express their belief in their own national identity.

Realizing the Dream of R. A. Kartini is essential reading for scholars of Indonesian history, providing documentary evidence of the culture of modern, urban Java in the late colonial era and an insight into the ferment of the Indonesian nationalist movement in which these women and their husbands played representative roles.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Realizing+the+Dream+of+R.+A.+Kartini.
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Being “Dutch” in the Indies

Tue, 01 Jan 2008

Being “Dutch” in the Indies (2008)
A History of Creolisation and Empire, 1500–1920

By Ulbe Bosma and Remco Raben

Being “Dutch” in the Indies portrays Dutch colonial territories in Asia not as mere societies under foreign occupation but rather as a “Creole empire.” In telling the story of the Creole empire, the authors draw on government archives, newspapers, and literary works as well as genealogical studies that follow the fortunes of individual families over several generations. They also critically analyze theories relating to culturally and racially mixed communities. The picture of the Indies they develop shatters conventional understandings of colonial rule in Asia.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Being+%E2%80%9CDutch%E2%80%9D+in+the+Indies.
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Burma’s Mass Lay Meditation Movement

Mon, 01 Oct 2007

Burma’s Mass Lay Meditation Movement (2007)
Buddhism and the Cultural Construction of Power

By Ingrid Jordt

Burma's Mass Lay Meditation Movement: Buddhism and the Cultural Construction of Power describes a transformation in Buddhist practice in contemporary Burma. This revitalization movement has had real consequences for how the oppressive military junta, in power since the early 1960s, governs the country.

Drawing on more than ten years of extensive fieldwork in Burma, Ingrid Jordt explains how vipassanā meditation has brought about a change of worldview for millions of individuals, enabling them to think and act independently of the totalitarian regime. She addresses human rights as well as the relationship between politics and religion in a country in which neither the government nor the people clearly separates the two. Jordt explains how the movement has been successful in its challenge to the Burmese military dictatorship where democratically inspired resistance movements have failed.

Jordt's unsurpassed access to the centers of political and religious power in Burma becomes the reader's opportunity to witness the political workings of one of the world's most secretive and tyrannically ruled countries. Burma's Mass Lay Meditation Movement is a valuable contribution to Buddhist studies as well as anthropology, religious studies, and political science.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Burma%E2%80%99s+Mass+Lay+Meditation+Movement.
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Locating Southeast Asia

Sat, 01 Jan 2005

Locating Southeast Asia (2005)
Geographies of Knowledge and Politics of Space

Edited by Paul H. Kratoska, Remco Raben and Henk Schulte Nordholt

Southeast Asia summons images of tropical forests and mountains, islands and seas, and a multitude of languages, cultures, and religions. Yet the area has never formed a unified political vision nor has it developed cultural unity. Academics have defined Southeast Asia over the years as what is left over after subtracting Australia, the South Pacific islands, China and India. More technically, Southeast Asia is defined as consisting of eleven countries: the ten members of ASEAN (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar/Burma, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, and Vietnam), and Timor Lesté.

Locating Southeast Asia: Geographies of Knowledge and Politics of Space considers Southeast Asia from a range of disciplinary perspectives. The authors—from Southeast Asia, Europe, Australia, and the United States—address climate; perceptions from the seas as seen by fishermen, naval officers, and governments; urbanization and industrialization; improvements in transport and communications; and the world of impoverished small farmers and marginalized minorities. Contributors also discuss borders, monetary networks, transnational flows of people, goods and information, and knowledge in shaping Southeast Asia.

Locating Southeast Asia offers important insights for its residents, for those who study it, and for the wider world.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Locating+Southeast+Asia.
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Tensions of Empire

Tue, 14 Oct 2003

Tensions of Empire (2003)
Japan and Southeast Asia in the Colonial and Postcolonial World

Edited by Paul H. Kratoska

Beginning with the closing decade of European colonial rule in Southeast Asia and covering the wartime Japanese empire and its postwar disintegration, Tensions of Empire focuses on the Japanese in Southeast Asia, Indonesians in Japan, and the legacy of the war in Southeast Asia. It also examines Japanese perceptions of Southeast Asia and the lingering ambivalence toward Japanese involvement in Asia and toward the war in particular.

Drawing on extensive multilingual archival research and interviews, Ken'ichi Goto has produced a factually rich and balanced view of this region's historical events of the last century.

Tensions of Empire features detailed discussions of Portuguese Timor in the 1930s and 1940s, the decolonization of Malaya, and twentieth-century Indonesia. This extended inquiry yields a unique view of the complicated network within and beyond the colonial and imperial relationships between a one-time nonwestern colonial power and an entire region.

Of great interest to students of Japan-Southeast Asia relations and to specialists in the modern history of both Southeast Asia and Japan, Professor Goto's Tensions of Empire is a fascinating account of Japan's recent past from the inside.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Tensions+of+Empire.
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New Terrains in Southeast Asian History

Tue, 15 Apr 2003

New Terrains in Southeast Asian History (2003)

Edited by Abu Talib Ahmad and Tan Liok Ee

At a watershed moment in the scholarly approach to the history of this important region, New Terrains in Southeast Asian History captures the richness and diversity of historical discourse among Southeast Asian scholars. Through the perspectives of scholars who live and work within the region, the book offers readers a rare opportunity to enter into the world of Southeast Asian historiography. Individual chapters subject the dominance of national narratives to critical reflection and deconstruction, while others highlight the need to go beyond essentially political narratives to seek out deeper cultural, economic, and social structures by utilizing new sources, methodologies, and concepts. Taken as a whole, the book contends that new terrains in Southeast Asian history may be found "at the interstices and on the margins" where nations, societies, or cultures engage the unending processes of historical change.

The contributors are Abdul Rahman Haji Ismail, Abu Talib Ahmad, Andrew Hardy, Badriyah Haji Salleh, Brenda S. A. Yeoh, C. J. W.-L. Wee, Ni Ni Myint, Dhiravat na Pombejra, Hong Lysa, Huang Jianli, Kobkua Suwannathat-Pian, M. R. Fernando, P. Lim Pui Huen, Paul H. Kratoska, Tan Liok Ee, Thongchai Winichakul, and Yong Mun Cheong.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/New+Terrains+in+Southeast+Asian+History.
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Secrets Need Words

Sat, 30 Jun 2001

Secrets Need Words (2001)
Indonesian Poetry, 1966-1998

Edited by Harry Aveling

The period from 1966 to 1999 represents a distinct era in Indonesian history. Throughout the "New Order" regime of President Suharto, the policies of economic development and political stability were dominant. However, the public opinion of personal expression was consistently under suspicion, and indeed dissent was severely punished.

Secrets Need Words traces the development of Indonesian poetry throughout this entire period. Texts are presented both in the original Indonesian and in careful, stylistically sensitive English translations.

In this anthology of contemporary work by Indonesian poets, the renowned translator and editor Harry Aveling presents a series of ongoing analyses detailing the political and social shifts that have influenced the work of particular poets.

Professor Aveling's analyses, along with the poems themselves, demonstrate how the poets responded to the power of the state in a variety of ways ranging from direct confrontation to withdrawal into personal and private realms characterized by fantasy and the use of heavily rhythmic language.

Secrets Need Words will be of interest to scholars of Indonesia and comparative literature, and will be for many years to come a basic text for scholarship and teaching. But it also offers all readers of poetry an opportunity to explore a new, complex, and exciting body of literature from one of the world's largest nations.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Secrets+Need+Words.
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Television, Nation, and Culture in Indonesia

Wed, 15 Nov 2000

Television, Nation, and Culture in Indonesia (2000)

By Philip Kitley

The culture of television in Indonesia began with its establishment in 1962 as a public broadcasting service. From that time, through the deregulation of television broadcasting in 1990 and the establishment of commercial channels, television can be understood, Philip Kitley argues, as a part of the New Order's national culture project, designed to legitimate an idealized Indonesian national cultural identity. But Professor Kitley suggests that it also has become a site for the contestation of elements of the New Order's cultural policies. Based on his studies, he further speculates on the increasingly significant role that television is destined to play as a site of cultural and political struggle.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Television%2C+Nation%2C+and+Culture+in+Indonesia.
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Theater and Martial Arts in West Sumatra

Tue, 01 Dec 1998

Theater and Martial Arts in West Sumatra (1998)
Randai and Silek of the Minangkabau

By Kirstin Pauka

Randai, the popular folk theater tradition of the Minangkabau ethnic group in West Sumatra, has evolved to include influences of martial arts, storytelling, and folk songs. Theater and Martial Arts in West Sumatra describes the origin, development, and cultural background of randai and highlights two recent developments: the emergence of female performers and modern staging techniques.

This book also explores the indigenous martial arts form silek, a vital part of randai today. The strong presence of silek is illustrated in the martial focus of the stories that are told through randai, in its movement repertoire, and even in its costumes and musical accompaniment. As Kirstin Pauka shows, randai, firmly rooted in silek and Minangkabau tradition, is an intriguing mirror of the Minangkabau culture.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Theater+and+Martial+Arts+in+West+Sumatra.
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Japanese Empire in the Tropics

Mon, 31 Aug 1998

Japanese Empire in the Tropics (1998)
Selected Documents and Reports of the Japanese Period in Sarawak, Northwest Borneo, 1941–1945

By Ooi Keat Gin

Although the Japanese interregnum was brief, its dramatic commencement and equally dramatic conclusion represented a watershed in the history of the young state of Sarawak.

In recent years, there has been a groundswell of interest in the war years, culminating in an attempt at reassessment of the Japanese occupation in Southeast Asia by Western and Japanese scholars as well as by those from Southeast Asia.

Presented here in a two-volume edition is a history of the Japanese occupation of Sarawak narrated through the compelling testimonies of the actual participants based on their recollections, memoirs, and correspondence.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Japanese+Empire+in+the+Tropics.
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