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Books I have skimmed
For quals, that is, and more to remind myself that I got quite a bit accomplished in a short amount of time and I should be able to do just as much in the next couple of weeks.
NON-FICTION
Benedict Anderson, The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia, and the World.
Started off slow and I thought it was gonna be more of what he wrote in Imagined Communities, but really much more engaging and as Dr. G said, more interesting. Covers a lot of regions: Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia. Some interesting observation on historical trajectories of radicalism and independence.
Elleke Boehmer. Stories of women: gender and narrative in the postcolonial nation.
Mostly about how postcolonial writers write about women as stand-in metaphors for the nation and national identity. I'm not crazy about it because there was a lot of close reading of things I never read before.
Ketu Katrak. Politics of the Female Body: Postcolonial Women Writers of the Third World.
More stuff I never read before, more gender stuff, lots of things that we already talk about as women writers ourselves, idk.
Gayatri Gopinath. Impossible Dreams: Queer Diasporas and South Asian Public Cultures.
Was afraid this would be more of the same, but not really. Diasporas trouble the concept of national identity; queerness does the same on the gendered national body. If the nation is gendered according to patriarchal norms, then queerness creates a destabilizing frame with which to approach and trouble national identity. Kinda cool, eh?
Khoo Gaik Cheng. Reclaiming Adat: Contemporary Malaysian Film and Literature.
So, adat, a thing I don't really understand but anyway, Khoo argues that modern media allows for the recuperation of adat. Lots of focus on Tuah/Jebat binary, critique of ketuanan Melayu, and Malay cinema as Cinema of Denial with tensions between adat, Westernization and Arabization. Put this way, the feeling I get from local writers querying me about whether mythological creatures in their SEAsteampunk submissions makes sense; I'd been worrying about getting more "magical East vs. technological West" stories as if magic stuff is really all Asian writers have to offer to the SFF ouvre, but set in a context of reclaiming adat it kind of makes more sense. Still, would like to see a good mix of hard science steampunk alongside fantastic myth steampunk.
Achille Mbembe. On the Postcolony.
I did not so much read this as skim it; lots of big statements, sweeping theory, very grand, very Africa-specific, many big words I could not handle at this point in time.
Martin Barker. The New Racism: conservatives and the ideology of the tribe.
Less a theory about race than an examination of the rhetorics surrounding the many justifications of racism and xenophobia (this was written in 81). Really goes in deep talking about Hume and sociobiological stuff.
Amin Sweeny. A Full Hearing: Orality and literacy in the Malay world.
A look at how oral culture remains steeped even in the print culture of Malay storytelling. Not sure I buy the argument but it's pretty interesting!! I thought I could buy it especially when thinking about Twitterjaya but hrm, I just don't know.
Sulastrin Sutrisno. Hikayat Hang Tuah: Analisis Struktur & Fungsi.
The prof loaned me this book just to see how I'd react to it, and it was strange. Apparently it was a really big deal when it first came out! Because it was the first time anyone had ever thought to analyze Hang Tuah using structuralism. And I don't like structuralism. It's got diagrams and shit. Also a handy summary of the whole hikayat. Which was kind of strange. Lots of things I don't recognize from the usual Hang Tuah stories. Also a genre discussion because genre discussions never die.
FICTION:
Keris Mas. Jungle of Hope. English translation of Rimba Harapan by Adibah Amin.
I really liked it! It was slow, as most of these things are, but I really liked the ensemble cast. I've never been bothered by shallow head-hopping, especially when it's done to show how complex people are. It ends at the point of tension, but it's a long-term sort of novel which also hits my buttons.
Somerset Maugham. "The Force of Circumstance"
Racist white woman can't handle that her racist white husband had a Malay live-in mistress and three kids before she came along. It's too bad because they are so very in love. She might not even be racist but for constantly calling the Malay woman "black" and it was kind of jarring to see the N-word being used.
---. "Footprints in the Jungle."
Murder mystery! Telegraphed whodunit from page three!
---. "The Yellow Streak."
Yellow streak referring to the Malay blood in the main character who has some crazy white anxieties about being tainted by his mother's blood.
---. "The Outstation."
The classist snob versus the racist bully. Classist snob has principles informed by noblesse oblige adopted from his aristo friends; racist bully has a chip on his shoulder because he's a white dude born "in the colonies" so not as good as a ranking officer or whatever. The latter gets killed. He had it coming.
Fatima Busu. Salam Maria.
Posted about it earlier. I'm not crazy about it, but then I am not crazy about cardboard characters and special snowflake figures.
NON-FICTION
Benedict Anderson, The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia, and the World.
Started off slow and I thought it was gonna be more of what he wrote in Imagined Communities, but really much more engaging and as Dr. G said, more interesting. Covers a lot of regions: Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia. Some interesting observation on historical trajectories of radicalism and independence.
Elleke Boehmer. Stories of women: gender and narrative in the postcolonial nation.
Mostly about how postcolonial writers write about women as stand-in metaphors for the nation and national identity. I'm not crazy about it because there was a lot of close reading of things I never read before.
Ketu Katrak. Politics of the Female Body: Postcolonial Women Writers of the Third World.
More stuff I never read before, more gender stuff, lots of things that we already talk about as women writers ourselves, idk.
Gayatri Gopinath. Impossible Dreams: Queer Diasporas and South Asian Public Cultures.
Was afraid this would be more of the same, but not really. Diasporas trouble the concept of national identity; queerness does the same on the gendered national body. If the nation is gendered according to patriarchal norms, then queerness creates a destabilizing frame with which to approach and trouble national identity. Kinda cool, eh?
Khoo Gaik Cheng. Reclaiming Adat: Contemporary Malaysian Film and Literature.
So, adat, a thing I don't really understand but anyway, Khoo argues that modern media allows for the recuperation of adat. Lots of focus on Tuah/Jebat binary, critique of ketuanan Melayu, and Malay cinema as Cinema of Denial with tensions between adat, Westernization and Arabization. Put this way, the feeling I get from local writers querying me about whether mythological creatures in their SEAsteampunk submissions makes sense; I'd been worrying about getting more "magical East vs. technological West" stories as if magic stuff is really all Asian writers have to offer to the SFF ouvre, but set in a context of reclaiming adat it kind of makes more sense. Still, would like to see a good mix of hard science steampunk alongside fantastic myth steampunk.
Achille Mbembe. On the Postcolony.
I did not so much read this as skim it; lots of big statements, sweeping theory, very grand, very Africa-specific, many big words I could not handle at this point in time.
Martin Barker. The New Racism: conservatives and the ideology of the tribe.
Less a theory about race than an examination of the rhetorics surrounding the many justifications of racism and xenophobia (this was written in 81). Really goes in deep talking about Hume and sociobiological stuff.
Amin Sweeny. A Full Hearing: Orality and literacy in the Malay world.
A look at how oral culture remains steeped even in the print culture of Malay storytelling. Not sure I buy the argument but it's pretty interesting!! I thought I could buy it especially when thinking about Twitterjaya but hrm, I just don't know.
Sulastrin Sutrisno. Hikayat Hang Tuah: Analisis Struktur & Fungsi.
The prof loaned me this book just to see how I'd react to it, and it was strange. Apparently it was a really big deal when it first came out! Because it was the first time anyone had ever thought to analyze Hang Tuah using structuralism. And I don't like structuralism. It's got diagrams and shit. Also a handy summary of the whole hikayat. Which was kind of strange. Lots of things I don't recognize from the usual Hang Tuah stories. Also a genre discussion because genre discussions never die.
FICTION:
Keris Mas. Jungle of Hope. English translation of Rimba Harapan by Adibah Amin.
I really liked it! It was slow, as most of these things are, but I really liked the ensemble cast. I've never been bothered by shallow head-hopping, especially when it's done to show how complex people are. It ends at the point of tension, but it's a long-term sort of novel which also hits my buttons.
Somerset Maugham. "The Force of Circumstance"
Racist white woman can't handle that her racist white husband had a Malay live-in mistress and three kids before she came along. It's too bad because they are so very in love. She might not even be racist but for constantly calling the Malay woman "black" and it was kind of jarring to see the N-word being used.
---. "Footprints in the Jungle."
Murder mystery! Telegraphed whodunit from page three!
---. "The Yellow Streak."
Yellow streak referring to the Malay blood in the main character who has some crazy white anxieties about being tainted by his mother's blood.
---. "The Outstation."
The classist snob versus the racist bully. Classist snob has principles informed by noblesse oblige adopted from his aristo friends; racist bully has a chip on his shoulder because he's a white dude born "in the colonies" so not as good as a ranking officer or whatever. The latter gets killed. He had it coming.
Fatima Busu. Salam Maria.
Posted about it earlier. I'm not crazy about it, but then I am not crazy about cardboard characters and special snowflake figures.
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