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The Princess of the Flaming Womb, the Javanese legend that introduces this pioneering study, symbolizes the many ambiguities attached to femaleness in Southeast Asian societies. Yet, despite these ambiguities, the relatively egalitarian nature of male-female relations in Southeast Asia is central to arguments claiming a coherent identity for the region. This challenging work by senior scholar Barbara Watson Andaya considers such contradictions while offering a thought-provoking view of Southeast Asian history that focuses on women's roles and perceptions. Andaya explores the broad themes of the early modern era (1500-1800) - the introduction of new religions, major economic shifts, changing patterns of state control, the impact of elite lifestyles and behaviors - drawing on an extraordinary range of sources and citing numerous examples from Thai, Vietnamese, Burmese, Philippine, and Malay societies.
There has been a growing acceptance that food has an important role in establishing and structuring social and kin relations in South East Asian societies. This study looks at a wide variety of groups in the region and demonstrates that within all of them the feeding relationship is fundamental to the establishment and the nature of relations within generations and between generations. Presenting material from ten societies in the region, the papers included in this volume argue that the feeding of foods, drink and meals based on the focal starch crop grown by these agricultural groups - rice in eight of the groups covered here, sago in one and cassava in one - is used to manipulate 'biological' kinship and to construct a 'kinship' particular to humans; which is nevertheless founded in a 'natural' process, the 'flow of life', blessings and potency between generations.
Supplies annotated and indexed entries on publications in Asian and European languages relating to prehistory, (proto)historical archaeology, art history (including modern art), material culture, epigraphy, palaeography, numismatics and sigillography.
A Peranakan Legacy captures the rich heritage of a fast disappearing way of life and put on record many traditions and practices which were previously handed only down from generation to generation. The term ‘Baba’ is used to refer to the Straits-born Chinese or Peranakans. The Babas boast a unique culture and way of life that is an amalgamation of Chinese and Malay customs and etiquette. Their culture is perhaps best captured in the beautiful clothing, stunning jewellery, pretty porcelain and other artefacts used in daily living. Girls were taught, from a young age, how to cook a variety of elaborate meals as well as crafts such as beading and embroidery. The result is a rich legacy of splendid kebayas (embroidered blouses), beadwork and various other items. Through lavish, full-colour photographs of Peranakan artefacts and clothing, this book explains the origins of the various customs and traditions. While some customs are still practiced today, other more complicated ones have disappeared as modern babas adapted to contemporary lifestyles which are deemed more convenient and practical.
The Muslim-majority nations of Malaysia and Indonesia are known for their extraordinary arts and Islamic revival movements. This collection provides an extensive view of dance, music, television series, and film in rural, urban, and mass-mediated contexts and how pious Islamic discourses are encoded and embodied in these public cultural forms.
A framework for knowledge ownership that challenges the mechanisms of inequality in modern society. Scholars of science, technology, medicine, and law have all tended to emphasize knowledge as the sum of human understanding, and its ownership as possession by law. Breaking with traditional discourse on knowledge property as something that concerns mainly words and intellectual history, or science and law, Dagmar Schäfer, Annapurna Mamidipudi, and Marius Buning propose technology as a central heuristic for studying the many implications of knowledge ownership. Toward this end, they focus on the notions of knowledge and ownership in courtrooms, workshops, policy, and research practices, while...
Originating in 1891 in the Port City of Surabaya, the Komedie Stamboel, or Istanbul-style theater, toured colonial Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia by rail and steamship.
This volume is the first tangible result of an international project initiated by the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) with the aim of compiling a bibliographic database documenting publications on South and Southeast Asian art and archaeology. The bibliographic information, over 1,300 records extracted from the database, forms the principal part of this publication. It is preceded by a list of periodicals consulted and followed by three types of indexes which help users to find their way in the ABIA South and Southeast Asian Art and Archaeology Index (ABIA Index). The detailed bibliographic descriptions, controlled keywords and many elucidating annotations make this reference work into an indispensable guide to recent scholarly work on the prehistory and arts of South/Southeast Asia.
The batik designs of Java's North Coast are particularly varied in both design and colour. With their fanciful, highly imaginative motifs and luminous tints, they are more immediately appealing than the sombre blue and brown batik of Central Java. It was a chance encounter in a Hong Kong antique shop that inspired photojournalist Inger McCabe Elliot to devote over three decades to assembling one of the world's finest collections, which she presented to the Los Angeles Country Museum of Art in 1991. This volume, published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Museum, celebrates Elliott's gift and presents her collection. Essays by authorities on the subject examine the 82 featured batik textiles from historical, cultural and aesthetic perspectives. The essays are followed by biographies of some of the most distinguished batik designers and entrepreneurs and a descriptive catalogue of the batiks. Appendices document design formats and motifs, as well as the complete production process of North Coast batiks.
In The Encoded Cirebon Mask: Materiality, Flow, and Meaning along Java’s Islamic Northwest Coast, Laurie Margot Ross situates masks and masked dancing in the Cirebon region of Java (Indonesia) as an original expression of Islam. This is a different view from that of many scholars, who argue that canonical prohibitions on fashioning idols and imagery prove that masks are mere relics of indigenous beliefs that Muslim travelers could not eradicate. Making use of archives, oral histories, and the performing objects themselves, Ross traces the mask’s trajectory from a popular entertainment in Cirebon—once a portal of global exchange—to a stimulus for establishing a deeper connection to God in late colonial Java, and eventual links to nationalism in post-independence Indonesia.