INS4410

Constituting gender in Indonesian society and cultural forms

Barbara Hatley

12 points -3 hours per week -First semester -Clayton

Objectives Students successfully completing this subject should have gained an understanding of dominant and alternate gender ideologies and practices in Indonesian societies, and of the modes in which these are represented in cultural forms. Comparisons with Western feminist theories should have helped illuminate the particular nature of Indonesian gender experience and its representation.

Synopsis This subject looks at the way gender has been constituted in Indonesian cultural forms - performances, literary works andcontemporary mass media. Taking a generally chronological approach, it attempts to investigate links between the gender practices and ideologies of particular social groups in particular historical periods and the respresentation of gender in corresponding cultural forms; it explores the social roles and ideological functions of these representations. Both anthropological/historical studies of Indonesian societies and the insights of Western feminist criticism are drawn upon to gain an understanding of the particular process of constitution of gender in Indonesia.

Assessment Written (7000 words): 75% -Seminar participation: 25%

Prescribed texts

Sears L (ed.) Fantasizing the feminine in Indonesia Duke U P

Recommended texts

Atkinson J and Errington S (eds) Power and difference: Gender in island Southeast Asia Stanford U P, 1991
Berninghausen J and Kerstan B (ed.) Forging new paths: Feminist social methodology and rural women in Java Zed
Jayawardena K Feminism and nationalism in the third world Zed
Gilbert S and Gubar S The madwoman in the attic Yale U P
Moi T Sexual/textual politics Methuen
Pramudya Ananta Tur This earth of mankind Penguin
Radway J Reading the romance: Women, patriarchy and popular literature U North Carolina P
Showalter E The new feminist criticism Virago
Umar Kayam Sri Sumarah dan Bawuk (Sri Sumarah and other stories) tr. H Aveling, Heinemann

Options for studies in Indonesian Options exist for students of Indonesian to undertake subjects in consultation with the Department of Asian Languages and Studies: 'Indonesian for special purposes', 'Special project in Indonesian', 'Beginning Javanese', 'Intermediate Javanese', 'Introduction to Classical Malay', 'Classical Malay'.

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