Reading Contemporary Indonesian Muslim Women Writers

A study that discusses the construction of gender and Islamic identities in literary writing by four prominent Indonesian Muslim women writers: Titis Basino P I, Ratna Indraswari Ibrahim, Abidah El Kalieqy and Helvy Tiana Rosa.

Most literary analysis of the canon of Indonesian literature overlooks its religious aspect. This book is the first to discuss the construction of gender and Islamic identities in literary writing by four prominent Indonesian Muslim women writers: Titis Basino P I, Ratna Indraswari Ibrahim, Abidah El Kalieqy and Helvy Tiana Rosa. The narratives of the four writers are rich sources for revealing the construction of Indonesian Muslim women's identities. Within their feminist reading the writers understand that gender roles are negotiable rather than inherent. In representing women in a variety of discourses they draw multi-faceted women struggling against repression and domination, and resisting their status as powerless.

This volume is the result of a conference held in October 2015 in connection with the Frankfurt Book Fair discussing developments that are considered important in contemporary Indonesian cultural productions. The first part of the book reflects on the traumatic experiences of the Indonesian nation caused by a failed coup on October 1, 1965. In more general theoretical terms, this topic connects to the field of memory studies, which, in recent decades, has made an academic comeback. The focus of the chapters in this section is how certain, often distressing, events are represented in narratives in a variety of media that are periodically renewed, changed, rehearsed, repeated, and performed, in order to become or stay part of the collective memory of a certain group of people. The second part of the book explores how forces of globalisation have impacted upon the local and, linguistically surprisingly, rather homogeneous cultural productions of Indonesia. The main strands of inquiry in this second section are topics of global trends in religion, responses to urban development, the impact of popular literary developments, and how traditions are revisited in order to come to terms with international cultural developments.

In an important social change, female Muslim political leaders in Java have enjoyed considerable success in direct local elections following the fall of Suharto in Indonesia. Indonesian Women and Local Politics shows that Islam, gender, and social networks have been decisive in their political victories. Islamic ideas concerning female leadership provide a strong religious foundation for their political campaigns. However, their approach to women's issues shows that female leaders do not necessarily adopt a woman's perspectives when formulating policies. This new trend of Muslim women in politics will continue to shape the growth and direction of democratization in local politics in post-Suharto Indonesia and will color future discourse on gender, politics, and Islam in contemporary Southeast Asia.

Indonesian women's fiction has flourished since the beginning of the Reformasi Era in 1998. Who are the authors? What do they write about? What are the contexts of their writings? This anthology offers a taste of this literary phenomenon by selecting nine stories, five author's interviews, and five scholarly essays. It covers a variety of genres and themes, from social realism to gothic mystery to romance, from gender and sexuality to political satire to Islamic piety.Indonesian Women Writers is a must read for students and scholars of Indonesian and Southeast Asian studies as well as a general audience with an interest in contemporary fiction.

This essential collection examines South and Southeast Asian Muslim women’s writing and the ways they navigate cultural, political, and controversial boundaries. Providing a global, contemporary collection of essays, this volume uses varied methods of analysis and methodology, including: • Contemporary forms of expression, such as memoir, oral accounts, romance novels, poetry, and social media; • Inclusion of both recognized and lesser-known Muslim authors; • Division by theme to shed light on geographical and transnational concerns; and • Regional focus on Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Muslim Women’s Writing from across South and Southeast Asia will deliver crucial scholarship for all readers interested in the varied perspectives and comparisons of Southern Asian writing, enabling both students and scholars alike to become better acquainted with the burgeoning field of Muslim women's writing. This timely and challenging volume aims to give voice to the creative women who are frequently overlooked and unheard.

THIS BOOK examines a selection of fictional works by writers belonging to the Indonesian association of writers, Forum Lingkar Pena (Pen Circle Forum; hereafter referred to as FLP). Figures from 2010 suggest that this organisation had around 5,000 members across 93 Indonesian branches and ten overseas branches. Writers recruited and trained by FLP have produced approximately nine hundred published works. Their works are often categorised as Islamic or religious literature (sastra religi). This label-ling of FLP’s literary output as Islamic literature has arisen principally be-cause of the publicly expressed aims and beliefs of key FLP figures which include such notions as sastra dakwah (literature for religious propaga-tion). In order to contextualise the emergence of FLP in the final years of the twentieth century and to locate this organisation within wider Indo-nesian literary developments, it is necessary to take account of cultural debates that came to the fore with the profound social and political changes which accompanied the end of the New Order regime in 1998.

This book introduces the special dynamics of women and their close relationships with the gift in both past and contemporary religious settings. Written from a cross-cultural perspective, it challenges depictions of women’s roles in religion where they have been relegated to compliance with specifically designated gendered attributes. The different chapters contest the resultant stereotypes that deny women agency. Each chapter describes women as engaged in an aspect of religion, from that of ritual specialists, to benefactors and patrons, or even innovators. The volume examines topics such as sainthood and sacrifice so as to refine these ideas in constructive ways that do not devalue women. It also examines the meaning of the term “gift” today, embracing the term in both figurative and literal ways. Such a collection of diverse women’s writings and activities provides a significant contribution to their quest for recognition, and also suggests ways this can be understood and realized today.