Other Languages, Societies, and Cultures Commons^™

Nurturing Salafi Manhaj; A Study Of Salafi Pesantrens In Contemporary Indonesia, Din Wahid

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

This study is about the role of Salafi pesantrens (Islamic boarding schools) in Salafi da'wa (conveying or inviting to the way of Islam) in Indonesia. A Salafi pesantren is a pesantren that teaches Salafism which mostly derives from the works of Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, the founder of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia. Salafi pesantrens started to emerge in the late 1980s and were established by graduates from Saudi Arabia and Yemen universities, and supported by alumni of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Arabic (LIPIA) in Jakarta. While the precise number of Salafi pesantrens is unavailable, it is …

Seren Taun Between Hegemony And Culture Industry; Reading A Sundanese Ritual Of Harvest In Cigugur, West Java, Lilawati Kurnia

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

Seren Taun is a ritual ceremony and celebration, which is practiced in West Java by the Sundanese. It is similar to Thanksgiving in many countries. The village Cigugur, located 3 km west of Kuningan, is the focus of the paper, because the Seren Taun celebration there has been a major event and received a lot of attention from the media, government, and scholars. Many non-Javanese traditional celebrations were repressed during the Suharto era and traditional beliefs were either also repressed or co-opted into one of the five official religions. During the post-Suharto era, the spirit of reformation has brought diversity …

Abidin Kusno (2012), Zaman Baru Generasi Modernis; Sebuah Catatan Arsitektur. Abidin Kusno (2012), Politik Ekonomi Perumahan Rakyat Dan Utopia Jakarta., Yuventia Chandra

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

No abstract provided.

Is Ancestor Veneration The Most Universal Of All World Religions? A Critique Of Modernist Cosmological Bias, Thomas Reuter

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

Research by anthropologists engaged with the Comparative Austronesia Project (Australian National University) has amassed an enormous data set for ethnological comparison between the religions of Austronesian-speaking societies, a language group to which nearly all Indonesian societies also belong. Comparative analysis reveals that ancestor veneration is a key-shared feature among "Austronesian" religious cosmologies; a feature that also resonates strongly with the ancestor-focused religions characteristic of East Asia. Characteristically, the religions of Austronesian-speaking societies focus on the core idea of a sacred time and place of ancestral origin and the continuous flow of life that is issuing forth from this source. Present-day …

Pragmatism, Identity, And The State; How The Nuaulu Of Seram Have Reinvented Their Beliefs And Practices As "Religion", Roy Ellen

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

The Dutch colonial state categorized animists and ancestor-worshippers and inscribed them into written records in ways that have had long-term effects. The immediate post-independence period in Maluku, despite early political turmoil, settled down to a kind of stability under the New Order, the paradoxical outcome of which was both gradual integration of Nuaulu into a wider political and cultural consensus and conditions favouring economic change that undermined that consensus. The new policies of reformasi after 1998 presented further opportunities for Nuaulu to engage with the state in ways that promoted their interests. The opportunities were short-lived, however, given the implosive …

Following The Faith Of The Father; Sayyid 'Uthm N'S Son Ya Y On Mosque Etiquette, E. P. Wieringa

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

The Dal 'il al-n shid 'an a k m al-wal 'im f -l-mas jid (Arguments of the Seeker for Legal Judgements concerning Festive Meals in Mosques) is a short tract, written in 1938 in Malay in Arabic script by Ya y b. 'Uthm n b. 'AbdAll h, none other than a son of the renowned Batavian muft Sayyid 'Uthm n (1822-1914). Protesting against the (in his view) bid'a (unauthorized religious innovation) () of organizing festive meals in mosques, he felt it his duty to try to stop his co-religionists from doing wrong. Not being a theologian himself, his pamphlet is …

Indonesia, Modernity And Some Problems Of Religious Adaptation, June Mcdaniel

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

This article discusses the challenges of adaptation for Indonesian religion. It describes the ways that the major Indonesian religions have changed to fit the requirements of being recognized religions, and focuses as an example on the ways that Balinese Hinduism has changed to become Agama Hindu Dharma Indonesia. It also examines the traditional theological problem of "faith and works" in the Indonesian context, and the concerns used to balance modernization and religious freedom.

Preserving Kyai Authority In Modern Society; A Case Study Of Pesantren Cidahu, Pandeglang, Banten, Yon Machmudi

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

A pesantren is a typical component of the Indonesian cultural heritage. Besides being thought of as one of the oldest type of educational institutions in Indonesia, pesantren have played a significant contributing role in the process of nation building in modern Indonesia. Pesantren have many roles in society in education, the economy and in the social and political fields in which pesantren alumni play a role. Currently, pesantren roles are being challenged by modernization and they have to change or transform into modern institutions in order to survive. Nevertheless, traditional pesantren continue to resists change and they insist on preserving …

The Reformasi Of Ayu Utami; Attacking The Monopoly Of The Great Religions, Karel Steenbrink

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

In eight novels, Ayu Utami has presented critical attacks on doctrines and practices of the major religions in Indonesia. The two books, that describe the spiritual struggle of the Catholic priest Saman (1998-2002), call for a religion that is more active in the political arena, but leaves sexual rules to the individual people. The novel Bilangan Fu (2008) condemns the monopoly of the great religions in favour of local and individual spirituality. This is developed in a series of novels of which two more have already appeared. A third cycle of three more or less autobiographic novels (2003-2013) sketch her …

Southeast Asia In The Ancient Indian Ocean World; Combining Historical Linguistic And Archaeological Approaches, Tom G. Hoogervorst

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

This PhD dissertation examines the role of insular Southeast Asia in the trans-regional networks of maritime trade that shaped the history of Indian Ocean. The work brings together data and approaches from archaeology, historical linguistics and other disciplines, proposing a reconstruction of cultural and linguistic contact between Southeast Asia and its maritime neighbours to the west in order to advance our historical understanding of this part of the world. Numerous biological, commercial and technical items are examined. The study underlines that the analysis of lexical data is one of the strongest tools to detect and analyse contact between two or …

Utopias Misplaced: The Cost Of Outsourcing Dystopian Poetics To North Korea, Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

This is a slightly revised version of the text of a talk that I (Seo-Young Chu) gave as part of the Fall 2014 Franke Lectures in the Humanities at Yale University. I'm sharing the text here to make the lecture more accessible. Topics include: North Korea/the DPRK, the "uncanny body politic," the uncanny valley, "dystopian poetics," what it means to outsource dystopian poetics, the intersection of aesthetics and politics. Authors/artists mentioned include: Thomas Hobbes, Mary Shelley, David Mitchell, Marjane Satrapi, Song Byeok, Sun Mu, Masahiro Mori, Andy Warhol. The talk also discusses the James Bond film Die Another Day.

Joshua Oppenheimer Et Al., Jagal/Act Of Killing. [Documentary.] Denmark-Norway- Uk: Final Cut For Real, Arts And Humanities Research Council (Ahrc), Danmarks Radio (Dr), 2012, 159 Min., Dag Yngvesson

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

No abstract provided.

The Moral Panic About The Socializing Of Young People In Minangkabau, Lyn Parker

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

This paper analyses the discourse surrounding the perceived threat of free seks and pergaulan bebas (free socializing) to the moral health of young Minangkabau people, and in particular, young women, in West Sumatra. It uses the sociological frame of "moral panic" to examine contemporary discussions about globalization and the influence of "the West" in West Sumatra. The paper examines the way in which "the authorities" in West Sumatra (media, such as teen magazines and newspapers, academics, government and law, teachers, and community leaders) present the threat, and the way in which young people, who are the target of the moral …

Early Marriage, Adolescent Motherhood, And Reproductive Rights For Young Sasak Mothers In Lombok, Linda Rae Bennett

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

This article focuses on Indonesian adolescents who are wives and mothers, demonstrating how early marriage and adolescent motherhood are normative among women from poor Sasak communities in Western Lombok. It is based on ethnographic research with 28 young mothers that included focus group discussions, in depth interviews, and observations. Demographic and ethnographic data on the aetiology of early marriage and adolescent motherhood are discussed, and confirm that low educational attainment for girls, lack of employment prospects, poverty, and low levels of economic development are all associated with a higher probability of adolescent marriage and motherhood in Indonesia. The article also …

Study On The Documents Of Java In Siku Quanshu; Historical Knowledge And Historians' Point Of View, Nurni Wahyu Wuryandari

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

The dissertation discusses various documents on Java collected in Siku Quanshu (Complete Library of Four Treasures). The documents used as the sources of this study are the ones with complete pictures and strong narration on Javanese recorded from Han Dynasty (206 bc-220 ad) to Ming Dynasty (1364-1644) in order to reveal what kind of historical knowledge or historical information is delivered by Chinese historians in general and what kind of point of view is used by historians to deliver the notes about Java. Through analytical reading, the readers will find that historians paid attention to three issues: the relationship between …

Youth Culture And Islam In Indonesia, Pam Nilan, Michelle Mansfield

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

Indonesian youth culture is sometimes depicted through a moral panic discourse about mixed sex socializing. In this article, the authors challenge that view by presenting some ethnographic material on young Muslim Indonesians of both sexes socialising in an internet caf and gathering during Ramadhan in a mall in Solo, Central Java. Young Indonesians enact everyday youth culture through the negotiation of space, time, and technology within the strong discourse of moral propriety and gender separation advised by contemporary Islam. The intense social bonding between same sex age peers provides security and reassurance for young men and women in the transition …

Anak Jakarta; A Sketch Of Indonesian Youth Identity, Solita Sarwono

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

Anak Jakarta refers to the youth of Jakarta, the trend-setters of the Indonesian youth. This paper gives a sketch of the youth in Jakarta as characterized by their appearance, language and lifestyle. Information is derived from discussions and personal contact with different groups of youth and parents (adults with children) in Jakarta; literature review, observations, as well as from flashbacks given by the adults, providing a portrait of anak Jakarta since late 1980's. The youth in Jakarta is Western (American) oriented, copying from the mass- and social media, often times conflicting with local norms and parental advices. Anak Jakarta profile …

Let's Judge A Magazine By Its Cover; A Textual Analysis Of The Covers Of Gadis, Suzie Handajani

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

In this article, I analyse the covers of Gadis, a magazine for Indonesian teenage girls, from 2009 to 2013. Using textual analysis, I examine these magazine covers as manifestations of local gender ideology amidst pressures from a globalized market. The models on the magazine covers are the embodiment of ideal teenagers and they reflect the magazine's personification of Indonesian adolescents. Images of the models in conjunction with the article titles displayed on the covers construct dominant themes surrounding the lives of female adolescents. In this article, I argue that the dominant gender ideology is perpetuated by the magazine; however, the …

Youth Culture And Urban Pride; The Sociolinguistics Of East Javanese Slang, Tom G. Hoogervorst

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

This study offers an overview of the characteristics and social functions of youth slang in the Indonesian province of East Java. It examines Boso Walikan and various types of Surabayan slang. Boso Walikan emerged in Malang as a secret language that was deliberately made unintelligible to outsiders. Over the decades, large parts of Malang's urban population developed proficiency in the language and appropriated it as an identity marker. The situation in nearby Surabaya is different. While lacking a uniform local slang comparable to that of Malang, several communities make an effort to differentiate themselves through specific linguistic habits, which are …

Language Development Of Bilingual Children; The Acquisition Of Tense And Aspect In An Italian-Indonesian Child: A Case Study, Antonia Soriente

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

This paper describes the development of temporal expressions in a bilingual child acquiring two typologically distinct languages: Italian and Indonesian. These languages differ from one another in the way tense and aspect are encoded and it is interesting to observe what kind of cross-linguistic influence one language system has on the other. Italian verbs are heavily inflected for person, number as well as for tense, aspect and mood, whereas, in Indonesian, the encoding of tense and aspect is lexical rather than morphological; moreover encoding is optional when the context is sufficiently clear. This means that tense and aspect in Indonesian …

Adolescent Social Media Interaction And Authorial Stance In Indonesian Teen Fiction, Dwi Noverini Djenar

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

This article examines representations of adolescent social media interaction in two Indonesian teen novels to show how adolescent communication styles are typified. It is argued that public discourse on the potential danger of social media interaction is resounded in the novels. The article demonstrates that the authors of both novels take a similar moral stance on the issue of social media but use different rhetorical strategies for indexing that stance. Both draw on the social values of registers to communicate the stance. In Online addicted, standard Indonesian is used in narration to convey an authoritative voice and a stern moral …

Family Stories; Oral Tradition, Memories Of The Past, And Contemporary Conflicts Over Land In Mentawai - Indonesia, Juniator Tulius

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

This is a study of oral tradition on Mentawai family stories. The family stories relate to historical events and contemporary social issues occurred in the Mentawai Islands and affecting the Mentawai kin groups. The Mentawai family stories comprise significant elements defining different kin groups living on the Mentawai Islands. They are also an important source of information with regard to claims to ancestral land. The Mentawai family stories can furthermore be regarded as the kin groups' verbal form of identities. Therefore, to maintain the family stories is indispensable to Mentawai communities and the power of human memory plays an important …

Djoko Soekiman, Kebudayaan Indis; Dari Zaman Kompeni Sampai Revolusi. Depok: Komunitas Bambu, 2011, 185 Pp. Isbn 979-3731-974. Price: Idr 65,000 (Soft Cover)., Achmad Sunjayadi

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

No abstract provided.

America The Yogiful: Insights Into American Yoga Culture Today, Carolina Castaneda

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

Originally a spiritual technology, yoga has been practiced in India and surrounding areas for thousands of years. In the late nineteenth century the practice of yoga gained popularity as a physical, mental and spiritual commodity among the masses in America and the world. Yoga is now a globally recognized fitness routine, part of the everyday lives of men and women seeking relaxation, stretching and mental sanity. In today’s fast paced world it is easy to understand yoga is appealing to the masses, however, as a yoga practitioner myself I often wondered if Americans are gaining all the benefits of the …

Science-Fictional North Korea: A Defective History, Seo-Young J. Chu

Publications and Research

Kafkaesque, Orwellian, eerie, surreal, bizarre, grotesque, alien, wacky, fascinating, dystopian, illusive, theatrical, antic, haunting, apocalyptic: these are just a few of the vaguely science-fictional adjectives that are now associated with North Korea. At the same time, North Korea has become an oddly convenient trope for a certain aesthetic – an uncanny opacity; an ominous mystique – that many writers and artists have exploited to generate striking science-fictional effects in texts with little or no connection to North Korean reality. (The 2002 Bond film Die another Day, for example, draws from North Korea’s science-fictional aura to animate North Korean super-villains who …

A Heart-Based Sufi Mindfulness Spiritual Practice Employing Self-Journeying, Faruk Arslan

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Spiritual Psychology is the study and practice of the art and science of the human evolution of consciousness. The heart occupies an important place in Sufism and is considered to contain the divine spark that leads to spiritual realization. Fethullah Gülen’s action-oriented Sufi methods described in his book series “The Emerald Hills of the Heart” provides the basis for a heart-based therapeutic intervention through self-journeying, which is the objective of this thesis. These self-purification and mindfulness-related transpersonal methods generate a form of treatment that is culturally sensitive. Through my reflections in this research, I transformed my personal experiences into …

Anthony Reid (2010), Menuju Sejarah Sumatra; Antara Indonesia Dan Dunia, Susanto Zuhdi

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

No abstract provided.

Thinking In Islands; The Portuguese Perception Of The Indonesian Archipelago And Particularly Of Sunda In Early Texts And Charts, Svann Langguth

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

This article discusses various early sources on the Indonesian archipelago. It starts with the status of knowledge before the first voyage of the Portuguese to the Moluccas from accounts of travellers to insular Southeast Asia in the Middle Ages and the picture on world maps European cartographers produced. Comparing that view with text sources and the resulting geographic material of the first expeditions by the Portuguese provides an insight into contemporary mechanisms of knowledge transfer. Certain effects can be traced and are repeated on different levels of access to the original facts mainly because most maps were drawn up in …

State-Of-The-Art In The Documentation Of The Papuan Languages Of Timor, Alor, Pantar, And Kisar; A Bibliography, Antoinette Schapper, Juliette Huber

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

The Timor-Alor-Pantar (TAP) language family has a special place in South-East Asian linguistics; its members make up the western extreme of the Papuan language sphere. Along with an exhaustive bibliography of works on the TAP languages, this paper presents a state-of-the-art review of the ongoing documentation of the TAP language family in terms of both linguistic description and (pre-)historical reconstruction. The paper concludes with a consideration of the prospects for future studies of the TAP languages.

Wiwik Sushartami, Representation And Beyond; Female Victims In Post-Suharto Media. Phd Thesis, Leiden University, 2012; Xvi + 305 Pages., Budiawan Budiawan

Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia

No abstract provided.