On the subject of Java.

Description

What are the limits of cultural critique? What are the horizons? What are the political implications? John Pemberton explores these questions in this far-reaching ethnographic and historical interpretation of cultural discourse in Indonesia since 1965. Pemberton considers in particular how the appearance of order under Soeharto's repressive New Order regime is an effect of an enigmatic politics founded upon routine appeals to cultural values. Through a richly textured ethnographic account of events ranging from national elections to weddings, Pemberton simultaneously elucidates and disturbs the contours of the New Order cultural imaginary. He pursues the fugitive signs of circumstances that might resist the powers of New Order rule through unexpected village practices, among graveyard spirits, and within ascetic refuges. Key to this study is a reexamination of the historical conditions under which a discourse of culture emerges. Providing a close reading of a number of Central Javanese manuscripts from the late eighteenth century on, Pemberton outlines the conditions of knowledge formation in Indonesia since the beginning of Dutch colonial control. As he overturns common assumptions concerning colonial encounters, he discloses the gradual emergence in these texts of a discursive figure inscribed in contrast to the increasingly invasive presence of the Dutch: a figuration of difference that came to be called "Java." 001 [On the Subject of _Java_] Frontmatter 002 [On the Subject of _Java_] CONTENTS 003 [On the Subject of _Java_] MAPS 004 [On the Subject of _Java_] Acknowledgments 005 [On the Subject of _Java_] A Note on Manuscripts, Transliteration, and Translation 006 [On the Subject of _Java_] Introduction 007 [On the Subject of _Java_] 1. Seminal Contradictions_ Founding the Palace of Surakarta 008 [On the Subject of _Java_] 2. Writing Subjects, Writing Authorities_ _Java_ in the Nineteenth Century 009 [On the Subject of _Java_] 3. Prophetic Conclusions_ Surakarta in Late Colonial Times 010 [On the Subject of _Java_] 4. Origins Revisited_ A Circuitous Return to the Present 011 [On the Subject of _Java_] 5. On the Practice of Wedding_ Ritual Domestication in the New Order 012 [On the Subject of _Java_] 6. Village Cleansing, Local Spirits_ Traces of Difference 013[On the Subject of _Java_] 7. The New Order's Other _Java__ Sacred Sitings, Otherworldly Communications 014 [On the Subject of _Java_] Afterword 015 [On the Subject of _Java_] Bibliography