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First Published in 1995. This collection explores the formation of identity in Asian literature. The main themes are the creation of identity, its nature and the historical context of this process of formation. At the same time, the study also serves to introduce readers to the various streams of Asian literature and their related research traditions. Suitable for course use.
Writing a New Society is the first extended study of the novel in Malay and is a groundbreaking study of the relationship between social change and literary practice. The book traces the emergence of the genre from the 1920s and, drawing on 26 of Malaysia's best-known novels, argues that the form was developed as a vehicle for transforming Malay ideas about themselves and their society. Virginia Hooker focuses on the underlying anxiety about racial identity, which underpins much of Malay writing and examines how ethnic identity is constructed and expressed. In a radical break with the traditional notion of Malay society as being totally dependent on the Sultan, the book shows how the novelists centre their writings on descriptions of 'ordinary' Malays, and present the household as the primary site of change. Here the novels develop and describe a 'private' sphere where Malays who previously had no rights begin to exercise their initiative. The concept of social equality which inspires the novelists subverts many of the themes of modern Malay politics.
Combining autobiography and ethnography, Damrong Tayanin examines the lifestyles, customs, practices, and beliefs of the Kammu people by describing his own early experiences.
In this book, Ann Laura Stoler navigates the shadows and shatterzones of democratic policies, considering how imperial features are folded through (il)liberal orders, where racial inequities thicken in the borderlands of interior frontiers. Sometimes those frontiers, or the lines that define the contours of belonging and not belonging, are porous--often fixed and firm. For those on the wrong side of the fabulated division between inside and out, entry requirements can be opaque, neither verbal nor visible. Illegibilities are secured in code. The sites of inequity are disparate, the sensibilities that produce and sustain those inequities are as well. Borrowing Ralph Ellison's phrase, Stoler e...
This book examines how women journalists in Malaysia negotiated male power structures, in particular structures determined by the keystone party of the ruling coalition, the United Malays National Organisation. Through both oral histories and content analysis, it looks at how women journalists in the women’s pages of the newspapers found spaces to advocate for their readers. It is thus the first work to look at the importance of the women’s pages in the Malay-language newspapers, and how apparently monolithic institutions of the authoritarian state hid diverse contests for resources and prestige. In this contest, the concept of news values, the perception of the reader and the ways in which women constructed themselves as journalists all come into play, and are examined here. The book contributes to the field of feminist media studies by examining how gendered newsroom practices paradoxically allowed women journalists in the women’s pages more editorial freedom than those in the malestream press.
This work contains over 2,500 entries to guide students and scholars interested in the languages and literature of Vietnam. The books, monographs, and journal articles considered are those written in the Western languages (especially French and English). Meticulously researched and indexed, this bibliography is both the first of its kind and an invaluable reference tool.
Jerryson offers an exntensive examination of one of the least known but longest-running conflicts of Southeast Asia. Part of this conflict, based primarily in Thailand's southernmost provinces, is fueled by religious divisions.
People within the Malay world hold strong but diverse opinions about the meaning of the word Melayu, which can be loosely translated as Malayness. Questions of whether the Filipinos are properly called "e;Malay"e;, or the Mon-Khmer speaking Orang Asli in Malaysia, can generate heated debates. So too can the question of whether it is appropriate to speak of a kebangsaan Melayu (Malay as nationality) as the basis of membership within an aspiring postcolonial nation-state, a political rather than a cultural community embracing all residents of the Malay states, including the immigrant Chinese and Indian population.In Melayu: The Politics, Poetics and Paradoxes of Malayness, the contributors exa...
A comprehensive biography of the Indonesian nationalist leader and Prime Minister of the Indonesian Republic, Sutan Sjahrir. This work is both a study of an individual and the social conditions that shaped him. The author has conducted extensive research and interviews with those who knew Sjahrir personally, politically, and by reputation.
Contesting Malayness assembles research on the theme of how Malays have identified themselves in time and place, developed by a wide range of scholars. While the authors describe some of the historical and cultural patterns that make up the Malay world, taken as a whole their work demonstrates the impossibility of offering a definition or even a description of "Melayu" that is not rife with omissions and contradictions.