Dangdut Stories

A keen critic of culture in modern Indonesia, Andrew N. Weintraub shows how a genre of Indonesian music called dangdut evolved from a debased form of urban popular music to a prominent role in Indonesian cultural politics and the commercial music industry. Dangdut Stories is a social and musical history of dangdut within a range of broader narratives about class, gender, ethnicity, and nation in post-independence Indonesia (1945-present).

A keen critic of culture in modern Indonesia, Andrew N. Weintraub shows how a genre of Indonesian music called dangdut evolved from a debased form of urban popular music to a prominent role in Indonesian cultural politics and the commercial music industry. Dangdut Stories is a social and musical history of dangdut within a range of broader narratives about class, gender, ethnicity, and nation in post-independence Indonesia (1945-present).

A keen critic of culture in modern Indonesia, Andrew N. Weintraub shows how a genre of Indonesian music called dangdut evolved from a debased form of urban popular music to a prominent role in Indonesian cultural politics and the commercial music industry.

It is certainly not Indonesia if the country doesn’t have plenty of unique, interesting stories with a variety of traditions and cultures, so that thanks to the behavior of the community, the country of various ethnics has many stories. One of them is the story about traditional fire ball that highly amazes western media. “The Premier League may have produced the “hottest” players in the world, but they are nothing compared to the fire ball players”, one of English newspapers write. It is just fire ball, not to mention the still plenty of cultures and customs that is only available in Indonesia. CERDAS INTERAKTIF

This book explores Indonesian cinema, focusing on moments of unique creativity by Indonesian film artists who illuminate important but less-widely-known aspects of their multi-dimensional society. It begins by exploring early 1950s ‘Indonesian neorealist films’ of the Perfini group, which depict the ethos and emerging moral issues of the period of struggle for independence (1945–49). It continues by discussing four audacious political allegories produced in four discrete political eras—including the Sukarno, Suharto and Reformasi periods. It also surveys the main approaches to Islam in both popular cinema and auteur films during the Suharto New Order. One chapter celebrates the popular songs and B-movies of the Betawi comedian, Benyamin S, which dramatize the experience of the poor in ‘modernizing’ Jakarta. Another examines persisting Third World dimensions of Indonesian society as critiqued in two experimental features. The concluding chapter highlights innovation in a renewed Indonesian cinema of the post-Suharto Reformasi period (1999–2020), including films by an unprecedented generation of women writer-directors

Entertainment media comprises one of the worlds largest industries and this collection is important not just for explaining what is happening in Indonesian entertainment media, but also for establishing a theoretical framework for the study of entertainment media in other societies.

This book explores ways in which diverse regional cultures in Indonesia and their histories have been expressed in film since the early 1950s. It also explores underlying cultural dominants within the new nation, established at the end of 1949 with the achievement of independence from Dutch colonialism. It sees these dominants—for example forms of group body language and forms of consultation—not simply as a product of the nation, but as related to unique and long standing formations and traditions in the numerous societies in the Indonesian archipelago, on which the nation is based. Nevertheless, the book is not concerned only with past traditions, but explores ways in which Indonesian filmmakers have addressed, critically, distinctive aspects of their traditional societies in their feature films (including at times the social position of women), linking past to the present, where relevant, in dynamic ways.

The 26 scholars contributing to this volume have helped shape the field of Indonesian studies over the last three decades. They represent a broad geographic background—Indonesia, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States, Canada—and have studied in a wide array of key disciplines—anthropology, history, linguistics and literature, government and politics, art history, and ethnomusicology. Together they reflect on the "arc of our field," the development of Indonesian studies over recent tumultuous decades. They consider what has been achieved and what still needs to be accomplished as they interpret the groundbreaking works of their predecessors and colleagues. This volume is the product of a lively conference sponsored by Cornell University, with contributions revised following those interactions. Not everyone sees the development of Indonesian studies in the same way. Yet one senses—and this collection confirms—that disagreements among its practitioners have fostered a vibrant, resilient intellectual community. Contributors discuss photography and the creation of identity, the power of ethnic pop music, cross-border influences on Indonesian contemporary art, violence in the margins, and the shadows inherent in Indonesian literature. These various perspectives illuminate a diverse nation in flux and provide direction for its future exploration.