VSA4750

Southeast Asian and Indonesian film and television

David Hanan

10 points - 5 hours per week - First semester - Clayton - Prerequisites: Visual culture major with emphasis on film and television, or students of Asian studies - Prohibitions: VSA3750

Objectives By the completion of this subject students should demonstrate an ability to discuss Southeast Asian texts in ways that show some understanding of historical specificity and cultural differences; some awareness of the historical circumstances of Indonesia's emergence from colonial domination by the Dutch, the various periods of its history as a nation undergoing modernisation since 1945, and how certain views of history, and national, political and religious ideologies, constitute dominant discourses in Indonesian film and media; a knowledge of how information is regulated and controlled by various formal and informal systems of censorship in Indonesia and by state management of the structure of the media; and of the responses of Indonesian film artists, writers and journalists, and key figures in popular culture to these forms of social control; some understanding of the relation between Indonesian film and televisual texts and other key aspects of Indonesian cultural production. Some comparative knowledge of texts and media institutions in other Southeast Asian countries is also required.

Synopsis Students undertaking this subject will be required to undertake rigorous research and display a capacity to synthesise their knowledge on a high level, using a variety of theoretical models to account for the phenomena they are analysing.

Assessment One short essay or class paper (2500 words): 33% - Long essay (4000 words): 53% - Visual test (1 hour): 14%

Preliminary reading

Legge J D Indonesia Prentice-Hall, 1980

Recommended texts

Hanan D (ed.) Course reader for 'Indonesian and Southeast Asian film and television' Dept Visual Arts, Monash U, 1993
Hooker V (ed.) Culture and society in new order Indonesia, 1965-1990 OUP, 1993
Said S Shadows on the silver screen: A social history of Indonesian film Lontar, 1991
Sen K (ed.) Histories and stories: Cinema in new order Indonesia Centre for Southeast Asian Studies, Monash U, 1988
Sen K Indonesian Cinema: Framing the New Order Zed, 1994

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