Digital Commons Network^™

How Bollywood Has Influenced Cinema And Viewers Both Locally And Globally, Bhumi Patel

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The evolution and impact of Bollywood cinema follows its journey from silent films to contemporary masterpieces. Bollywood reflects India's rich cultural heritage while adapting to societal shifts and embracing progressive themes. From timeless tales of romance to modern explorations of feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, and mental health, Bollywood has evolved into a dynamic force for social commentary and cultural expression. Through integration of deep emotions and universally enjoyable music and dance, Bollywood transcends language and cultural barriers, captivating audiences worldwide. While facing setbacks such as lack of diversity, Bollywood is gradually embracing inclusivity and evolving with the times. By addressing taboo …

Problematizing Progress: Building A Postcapitalist Present, Cole G. Shepard

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

In the past three decades, the term post-capitalism has found its way into several disciplines ranging from economics to feminist studies. Over these years, its use and definition have made a noticeable shift, from a focus on grassroots resistance meant to carve out noncapitalist spaces within a capitalist system to a focus on utilizing modern technology like automation and universal basic income to demand more freedom for the working class. This project traces the academic discourses of postcapitalism in the United States today. I analyze who is using the term and how to understand postcapitalism’s place in a larger movement/series …

Tradition, Ritual, And Art Of The Baliatn; The Conceptualization Of Philosophy And The Manifestation Of Spirituality Among The Dayak Kanayatn, Yudhistira Oscar Olendo, Jagad Aditya Dewantara, Efriani Efriani

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

Rapid globalization has slowly eroded the survival of the Baliatn ritual of the Dayak Kanayatn. Nowadays, the locals only rarely perform this ritual which is a manifestation of their culture. This study describes the Baliatn ritual pointing out it is pregnant with the meaningful philosophy of the ancestors. This tradition sets out the relationship between the people and nature; an example of gratitude and spirituality in this modern era. It also discusses the importance of cultural conceptualization through philosophy, art, and spirituality. Importantly, the Baliatn is an expression of the Dayak Kanayatn idea of how to live and appreciate life. …

Primates And Birds Of Sabulungan; Roles Of Animals In Sculptures, Shamanic Songs And Dances, And The Belief System Of Traditional Mentawaians, Juniator Tulius, Linda Burman-Hall

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

Mentawaians sing ritual songs enshrined in archaic texts referring to particular primates and birds, while ritual and traditional dances imitate how gibbons, sea eagles, and other animals live in the natural world. Mentawaians craft sculptures of endemic primates and unique birds. The bilou gibbon ape and various other animals also symbolize specific sacred knowledge within the sabulungan spiritual belief system and traditional cosmology of Mentawai society. Although some do succeed in surviving, many older traditions have faded away. Among the traditions which continue intact, this report aims to examine the roles of primates and birds across the arts and in …

Belang And Kabata Banda; The Significance Of Nature In The "Adat" Practices In The Banda Islands, Joëlla Van Donkersgoed, Muhammad Farid

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

As an island community, the culture of the Bandanese is closely linked to their natural maritime environment. Not only is fishery the main source of income for many Bandanese, their cultural practices also include the creation of traditional boats and songs which tie the people, their environment and history together. These boats, locally referred to as belang or kora-kora, feature symbolic decorations and take part in an annual competition in which competing villages chant about their oral stories, known as kabata. Before this performance, various sacred locations, keramat, are honoured and a ceremony is held at the traditional house in …

Honey-Bees, Court Ladies, And Beekeeping In Java Before 1500 Ce, Jiří Jákl

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

People have been interacting with bees in the Indo-Malay world for thousands of years. Though the practice of robbing bees of honey and wax is relatively well-documented, we know very little about the early history of beekeeping in Southeast Asia. In this study I will use Old Javanese evidence to demonstrate that providing honey bees with artificial cavities was a practice known in Java at least by the twelfth century CE, several centuries earlier than suggested by the historians of beekeeping. In the second part of my contribution I will discuss in detail an intriguing passage in the Sumanasāntaka, a …

Journeys And Metaphors; Some Preliminary Observations About The Natural World Of Seashore And Forested Mountains In Epic Kakawin, Peter Worsley

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

In earlier publications I have argued that ancient Javanese poets imagined the world to be one marked by distinctions between a social world consisting of palace (kaḍatwan) and countryside (thāni-ḍusun) and a wilderness of seashores and forested mountains (pasir-wukir). The social world was characterized by the presence of an effective royal authority; the wilderness by its absence. A distinction was also drawn between this world inhabited by human beings and a world in which gods, ancestral spirits, and other divine beings dwelt (kedewatan). Journeys through these landscapes are an enduring interest in the narrative literature in the literary tradition of …

On The Nature Of Botanical Gardens; Decolonial Aesthesis In Indonesian Contemporary Art, Sadiah Boonstra

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

This article examines decolonial approaches to the nature of botanical gardens in Indonesia in the artworks of nine artists featured in the exhibition On the nature of botanical gardens: contemporary Indonesian perspective at Framer Framed, Amsterdam in 2020. Zico Albaiquini, Arahmaiani, Ade Darmawan, Edwin, Samuel Indratma, Lifepatch, Ipeh Nur, Elia Nurvista, and Sinta Tantra presented works which confronted the coloniality of botanical gardens. This article provides a historical reading of the content matter of the artworks presented from a decolonial standpoint as conceptualized by Aníbal Quijano, Walter Mignolo, and María Lugones. The article will demonstrate that the artists have applied …

Mount Merapi In Drawings And Paintings; A Dynamic Reflection Of Nature, 1800-1930, Ghamal Satya Mohammad

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

Mount Merapi in Central Java is one of the world’s most studied volcanoes. The frequent eruptions of this volcano and the densely populated areas on its slopes make Merapi particularly important to scholars of the natural and social sciences. Considerable attention has been devoted to contemporary aspects of this volcano, including research into forecasting and monitoring possible volcanic activity and eruptions. However, research investigating artistic representations of Merapi in a historical context, particularly local artworks referring to how people responded to a natural hazard such as a volcanic eruption, is still rare. In this paper, I explore how artists in …

The Tropics And The East-Central European Gaze; The Natural World Of Southeast Asia In Polish And Serbian Travel Writings, Tomasz Ewertowski

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

The article analyses representations of the natural world in Indonesia and mainland Southeast Asia in a corpus of Polish and Serbian travel writings for the period between the opening of the Suez Canal (1869) and the outbreak of the First World War (1914). The research is based on travel writings by twenty Polish and Serbian authors, who visited Southeast Asia during the period 1869-1914. Scrutinizing a corpus of such narratives should contribute to the study of perceptions of Southeast Asia, especially among travellers from very diverse backgrounds. The theoretical and conceptual framework of the article draws on works by other …

Reaching Syrians In Need: An Analysis Of Humanitarian Aid In The 21st Century., James Clark

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this dissertation is two-fold. One is to critically consider humanitarian aid delivery to and through Syria via a lens that combines the humanities and social sciences. The fields of anthropology, political science and postcolonialism are employed to accomplish this. The second is to investigate the process involved in this delivery amid the country’s ongoing conflict. Combining these two facets provides a view of humanitarian aid as it relates to the conflict in Syria while applying a liberal arts-humanities approach. The introduction establishes the basis to discuss the existence of aid providers and those in need of aid …

Hacia La Preservación De Los Relatos De Las Comunidades Digitales De Los Mmorpg Mediante Etnografías Digitales: Una Mirada Desde Los Estudios Visuales Al Caso Futur0 Server [2005-2012] De Ragnarok Online, Romano Ponce Díaz

Journal of Roleplaying Studies and STEAM

Resumen: La ponderación planteada en los siguientes párrafos centra su interés en las plataformas digitales de narrativa audiovisual donde los participantes pueden alterar y determinar el relato por medio de la interacción social sucedida en el mismo, concretamente, los videojuegos multijugador masivos de rol en línea en servidores emulados. Además, se abordan las implicaciones de la desaparición potencial y real de la información, datos, testimonios y vestigios de estas comunidades digitales participativas a causa de la naturaleza falible de los dispositivos de almacenaje electrónico. De esa forma, se busca plantear un breve panorama general de los antecedentes históricos de las …

Where Is Home? Changing Conceptions Of The Homeland In The Surinamese-Javanese Diaspora, Rosemarijn Hoefte, Hariëtte Mingoen

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

In 1890 the first Javanese indentured labourers arrived in Suriname to work on the colony’s plantations. In total almost 30,000 indentured and free immigrants arrived in this small Caribbean colony. Fifty years later, at the end of the migration period, they formed more than one fifth of the population. Consequently, they constituted a substantial community which had to adapt to a different socio-cultural environment but, at the same time, managed to keep in touch with their homeland. The Javanese thus shaped their own cultural expressions and traditions in Suriname.

We attempt to analyse the processes of identity formation, adaptation, and …

Searching Transnational Relations Between Moluccans In The Netherlands And The Moluccas, Fridus Steijlen

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

This article deals with the transnational relations between Moluccans in the Netherlands and the Moluccas. Former Moluccan colonial soldiers and their families were forced to go to the Netherlands because of political developments in Indonesia after the transfer of sovereignty in 1949. They hoped to return soon to an independent South Moluccan Republic but, more than seventy years later, they still live in the Netherlands. This article first describes how and why Moluccans came to the Netherlands and began to build a community. At the very beginning, the foundations for a transnational relationship were laid through village-based organizations and political …

In Memoriam Clara Brakel-Papenhuyzen, Els Bogaerts

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

No abstract provided.

Introduction Exploring Transnationalism, Fridus Steijlen

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

No abstract provided.

Indonesian Political Exiles In The Netherlands After 1965; Postcolonial Nationalists In An Era Of Transnationalism, David T. Hill

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

This article presents brief life stories of select Indonesians who were forced into exile by the Suharto regime after the 1965 National Tragedy in Indonesia. It focuses on staunch nationalist exiles who were rendered stateless by the self-proclaimed “New Order“ for refusing to accept the overthrow of President Sukarno and declare loyalty to the military regime. Faced with a life in exile, they sought refuge in the former colonial nation of the Netherlands. After exploring a brief history of exile in the bilateral relationship, it explores the choices made by select individuals who moved to the Netherlands from a variety …

Objects Of Belonging And Displacement; Artefacts And European Migrants From Colonial Indonesia In Colonial And Post-Colonial Times, Caroline Drieënhuizen

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

As colonial Indonesia never was intended to be a “settler colony”, many Dutch citizens spent only a certain period of their lives there before returning to the Netherlands. However, there were also Europeans, many with Asian-European roots, who had called the colony home for generations and were forced to leave that home after 1945.

All these different types of colonial migrants were displaced and maintained, built and reinforced their relations with the country (whether it was the colony or the “motherland”) they had left. This transnationalism (or, as I argue here, imperial orientation) took shape not only legally or relationally …

Three Generations Later; Examining Transnationalism, Cultural Preservation, And Transgenerational Trauma In United States Indo Population, Jamie D. Stern

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

This paper examines the relationship between transnationalism, cultural preservation, and transgenerational trauma in the United States (US) Indo population. The information being analysed was compiled by the author from two separate surveys which took place between 2012 and 2021. This data was initially intended to act as a census for the scattered US Indo community however the salient information necessitated that the census be ongoing and that another survey be developed to measure effects of lingering trauma which has been passed down generationally. The two surveys invited Indos from around the globe to participate in data collection, which led to …

“The People Are Tired, And Just Want To Have Fun”: Mahraganat Music And The Struggle For Sonic Presence In Post-2013 Egypt, Mohammed Elfeky

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Building upon Asef Bayat’s notion of the “unintelligibility” of Egypt’s subaltern politics, this thesis investigates how mahraganat music is rendered “unintelligible/nonsense” by influential Egyptian cultural figures and is targeted for censorship. Mahraganat is a musical artform that arose from the lower-working classes neighborhoods in Egypt to become a dominant genre in the country. In 2020, the Egyptian Musicians Syndicate, headed by Hany Shakir, banned mahraganat artists from performing officially in Egypt. Before and after the ban, state media debated the genre's status; its detractors framed the music as nonsensical, “absurd”, “meaningless”, “vulgar”, and a “low-brow” dilution of Egyptian cultural production …

Pallavi Rastogi, Postcolonial Disasters: Narrating Catastrophe In The Twenty-First Century (2020): Review Essay, Sourit Bhattacharya

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This review essay reads literary-critical works of what is broadly understood as ‘postcolonial disasters’. It outlines how literary critics in the last decades have drawn upon cultural-geographical and anthropological readings of disasters to develop critical frameworks around how literary writers have used style, form, and aesthetics to represent postcolonial catastrophes. It then offers a detailed review of Pallavi Rastogi’s 2020 monograph, Postcolonial Disasters: Narrating Catastrophe in the Twenty-First Century. Through an engaged and critical reading, the essay attends to Rastogi’s insightful theorizing of the topic of ‘Disaster Unconscious’ and her wide-ranging interrogation of fiction from South Asia and Southern …

Incendiary Devices: Imagining E-Waste Frontiers And Africa’S Digital Futures, Treasa De Loughry

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In her article, “Incendiary Devices: Imagining E-Waste Frontiers and Africa’s Digital Futures,” Treasa De Loughry focuses on different visual responses to e-waste in West Africa, from eco-documentary film and photography responses to the infamous Agbogbloshie e-waste yard in Ghana; to techno-utopian visions of e-waste bricoleurs, and e-waste as a signifier and artefact of the neocolonial nature of the capitalist world-ecology. The first half of this article focuses on Florian Weigensamer and Christian Krönes’ documentary film, Welcome to Sodom (2018), grounding it in critiques of the transmedial influence of the documentary form, while attending to the film’s pyrotechnical “optical regime” (Schoonover). …

Necropolitics And Visuality: Remembering ‘Speculative Fictions’ In Hong Kong After Rancière And Mbembe, Anthony Siu

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article, “Necropolitics and Visuality: Remembering ‘Speculative Fictions’ in Hong Kong after Rancière and Mbembe,” Anthony Siu examines images from Defiance.Voices, a two-volume collection that gathers photography and art illustrations about the Hong Kong Protests. He studies how paintings from the second volume register politics and events, arguing that visual art can be viewed as a new form of “speculative fictions,” a material ontology that historicizes modes of sovereign violence in postcolony. The introduction situates the debate of aesthetics in Hong Kong, conjoining Rancière’s thinking on “the people” and Achille Mbembe’s philosophy on “necropolitics.” The first cluster of …

Sounding The State Of The World: Interview With Karim Rafi, Summer 2021, Matthew Brauer

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Matthew Brauer interviews Moroccan contemporary artist Karim Rafi about postcolonial creation in the 2020s in "Sounding the State of the World.” Beginning with Rafi’s shift to remote performances during the COVID-19 pandemic, the discussion approaches confinement as just the latest in a series of crises in North Africa and the world. The repeated experience of crisis opens a conversation about the contemporary experience of time, broached in relation to modern Moroccan art history, which emerged from and against the conservative institutions of the French Protectorate (1912-1956). The interview touches on a range of distinctive concerns in Rafi’s art practice, from …

Reading The Global City: Crisis, Cognitive Mapping And The “Urban Sensorium” In Tom Mccarthy’S Satin Island And Ben Lerner’S 10:04, Marty Gilroy

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

“What is the role played by the aesthetics and politics of space,” asks Kanishka Goonewardena, “in producing and reproducing the durable disjunction between the consciousness of our urban everyday life […] and the now global structure of social relations that is itself ultimately responsible for producing the spaces of our lived-experience?” (55). Goonewardena’s account of the “urban sensorium” describes the mediatory, ideological role played by space in this “gap,” informing his adaptation of Jameson’s “cognitive mapping” as a hermeneutics of urban experience vis-à-vis totality. This article considers the mediation of these insights as critical aesthetic strategies in two global city …

Periodizing The Present: The 2020s, The Longue Durée, & Contemporary Culture, Treasa De Loughry, Brittany Murray

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

No abstract provided.

The Extinction Race: Techniques Of The Human In Proust, Via Houellebecq, James Dutton

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his article, “The Extinction Race: Techniques of the Human in Proust, via Houellebecq” James Dutton “reads” identity and race from the point of view of technics. Namely, he does so through the work of two nominally “Eurocentric” authors, Marcel Proust and Michel Houellebecq, observing how familial and racial resemblance is a living inscription of “lost time.” This inscription comes about through the technical means available to and constitutive of the categories which bind them. Thus, instead of furthering unfinishable racial distinctions which only serve to support discourses of racism, this article follows assertions made in the novels of …

Pushing Understanding: Curriculum Resources For Digital Pedagogues, M. Rubin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Whether one wishes to admit it or not, the classroom is a distinct and separate space from the rest of the world with its own rules, expectations, and environment. Even when a class takes place outside of a classroom, the space takes on the role of a classroom, if not outright becoming a classroom in every form aside from shape. This is not unlike, for instance, a tabletop game: even if not played on a literal tabletop, a tabletop game remains identifiable as such, and its rules and expectations remain the same, as does even its environment. A course may …

Carlos Bulosan And Filipino Collective Memory: Teaching, Transgression, And Transformation, Jeffrey Cabusao

English and Cultural Studies Journal Articles

Who is Carlos Bulosan? Why is he significant? Why teach Bulosan in our classrooms? These questions function as points of departure for this lecture delivered in Summer 2021 for the UNITAS International Lecture Series cosponsored by CLASS and Kritika Kultura. By reviewing the significance of Carlos Bulosan, this talk provides an opportunity to examine the continued relevance of Bulosan and his works for the twenty-first century. A pioneering Filipino writer of the twentieth century, Bulosan developed a unique transgressive aesthetic that travels across national and literary boundaries and, in the process, reimagines the boundaries of Filipino identity and literary categorization. …

Unmarked Human Burial Site Policy In Louisiana: Pre-Columbian Context And Community Perspectives, Sadie M. Schoeffler

LSU Master's Theses

Since the passing of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 (NAGPRA), state governments have implemented similar policies that allow for Native American tribes without federal recognition to petition for the repatriation of human remains and objects significant to their culture (Seidemann, 2010). Per La. R.S. 8:671-681, which is the Louisiana Unmarked Human Burial Sites Preservation Act of 1992 (UBA), the Division of Archaeology in the Louisiana State Office of Cultural Development is responsible for overseeing the protection and preservation of unmarked burials. These burials are often of pre-Columbian or historic cultural and temporal context, which warrants …