Search results for ""author james t. siegel""

The essays in this volume, in all their astonishing richness and diversity, focus on the question of the “other.” Brimming with whole flotillas of new ideas, they delineate subtle and various ways in which that question can be made the basis of an ethnographic project. In them, the author responds to the invitations extended by a specific location rather than pursuing a codified method. And they examine many different socialities in many different locations—among them the Cornell University campus in the late seventies, the former Musée de l’Homme and the Quai Branly Museum in Paris, the Indonesian province of Aceh in the wake of the tsunami of 2004, and contemporary Indonesia, in the liminal figures of the Jew and the Chinese. The author meticulously traces how the social and cultural responses in each location are astonishingly different—in the form, say, of gorges, faces, garbage, and fetishes. Regrettably, these days anthropologists have a tendency to look for similarities rather than differences, to show how one phenomenon is “just like” another. This book stands determinedly against this trend, both in its ethnographic examinations and in how it takes up such figures as Kant, Derrida, Bataille, Simmel, and Leiris so as to illuminate not only the objects of ethnography but also differences among the perspectives these thinkers represent. This book will put the methods and objects of anthropology in an entirely new light. In addition, it will speak to the concerns of historians, political scientists, and scholars of area studies, literature, and art.

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This book concerns the role of language in the Indonesian revolution. James Siegel, an anthropologist with long experience in various parts of that country, traces the beginnings of the Indonesian revolution, which occurred from 1945 through 1949 and which ended Dutch colonial rule, to the last part of the nineteenth century. At that time, the peoples of the Dutch East Indies began to translate literature from most places in the world. Siegel discovers in that moment a force within communication more important than the specific messages it conveyed. The subsequent containment of this linguistic force he calls the "fetish of modernity," which, like other fetishes, was thought to be able to compel events. Here, the event is the recognition of the bearer of the fetish as a person of the modern world. The taming of this force in Indonesian nationalism and the continuation of its wild form in the revolution are the major subjects of the book. Its material is literature from Indonesian and Dutch as well as first-person accounts of the revolution.

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In A New Criminal Type in Jakarta, James T. Siegel studies the dependence of Indonesia’s post-1965 government on the ubiquitous presence of what he calls criminality, an ensemble of imagined forces within its society that is poised to tear it apart. Siegel, a foremost authority on Indonesia, interprets Suharto’s New Order—in powerful contrast to Sukarno’s Old Order—and shows a cultural and political life in Jakarta controlled by a repressive regime that has created new ideas among its population about crime, ghosts, fear, and national identity.Examining the links between the concept of criminality and scandal, rumor, fear, and the state, Siegel analyzes daily life in Jakarta through the seemingly disparate but strongly connected elements of family life, gossip, and sensationalist journalism. He offers close analysis of the preoccupation with crime in Pos Kota (a newspaper directed toward the lower classes) and the middle-class magazine Tempo. Because criminal activity has been a sensationalized preoccupation in Jakarta’s news venues and among its people, criminality, according to Siegel, has pervaded the identities of its ordinary citizens. Siegel examines how and why the government, fearing revolution and in an attempt to assert power, has made criminality itself a disturbing rationalization for the spectacular massacre of the people it calls criminals—many of whom were never accused of particular crimes. A New Criminal Type in Jakarta reveals that Indonesians—once united by Sukarno’s revolutionary proclamations in the name of “the people”—are now, lacking any other unifying element, united through their identification with the criminal and through a “nationalization of death” that has emerged with Suharto’s strong counter-revolutionary measures.A provocative introduction to contemporary Indonesia, this book will engage those interested in Southeast Asian studies, anthropology, history, political science, postcolonial studies, public culture, and cultural studies generally.

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In this brilliant ethnography of contemporary Java, James Siegel analyzes how language operates to organize and to order an Indonesian people. Despite the imposition of Suharto's New Order, the inhabitants of the city of Solo continue to adhere to their own complex ideas of deference and hierarchy through translation between high and low Javanese speech styles. Siegel uncovers moments when translation fails and compulsive mimicry ensues. His examination of communication and its failures also exposes the ways a culture reconstitutes itself. It leads to insights into the "accidents" that precede the formulations of culture as such.

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The essays in this volume, in all their astonishing richness and diversity, focus on the question of the “other.” Brimming with whole flotillas of new ideas, they delineate subtle and various ways in which that question can be made the basis of an ethnographic project. In them, the author responds to the invitations extended by a specific location rather than pursuing a codified method. And they examine many different socialities in many different locations—among them the Cornell University campus in the late seventies, the former Musée de l’Homme and the Quai Branly Museum in Paris, the Indonesian province of Aceh in the wake of the tsunami of 2004, and contemporary Indonesia, in the liminal figures of the Jew and the Chinese. The author meticulously traces how the social and cultural responses in each location are astonishingly different—in the form, say, of gorges, faces, garbage, and fetishes. Regrettably, these days anthropologists have a tendency to look for similarities rather than differences, to show how one phenomenon is “just like” another. This book stands determinedly against this trend, both in its ethnographic examinations and in how it takes up such figures as Kant, Derrida, Bataille, Simmel, and Leiris so as to illuminate not only the objects of ethnography but also differences among the perspectives these thinkers represent. This book will put the methods and objects of anthropology in an entirely new light. In addition, it will speak to the concerns of historians, political scientists, and scholars of area studies, literature, and art.

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In honor of Benedict Anderson's many years as a teacher and his profound contributions to the field of Southeast Asian studies, the editors have collected essays from a number of the many scholars who studied with him. These articles deal with the literature, politics, history, and culture of Southeast Asia, addressing Benedict Anderson's broad concerns.

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Indonesia is a semi-annual journal devoted to the timely study of Indonesia's culture, history, government, economy, and society. It features original scholarly articles, interviews, translations, and book reviews. Published Cornell University's Southeast Asia Program since April 1966, the journal provides area scholars and interested readers with contemporary analysis of Indonesia and an extensive archive of research pertaining to the nation and region. Currently, only back issues of Indonesia are available for purchase through Cornell University Press's website.

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Indonesia is a semi-annual journal devoted to the timely study of Indonesia's culture, history, government, economy, and society. It features original scholarly articles, interviews, translations, and book reviews. Published Cornell University's Southeast Asia Program since April 1966, the journal provides area scholars and interested readers with contemporary analysis of Indonesia and an extensive archive of research pertaining to the nation and region. Currently, only back issues of Indonesia are available for purchase through Cornell University Press's website.

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