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If you haven't yet finished Footsteps,do so.
In addition, read:
Course Pack
In discussing Pramoedya, we'll follow up on issues raised last week. Last week, we looked at the context of the novel in terms of the historical period in which it is set. This is still important, but I thought we might also focus a little on the time of writing of Footsteps, and the way in which it represents Pramoedya's own personal intervention into history. We might argue that the novel, and indeed the tetralogy of which it is a part, represent an attempt by Pramoedya to construct a "counter-modernity" to Suharto's New Order, under which Pramoedya was imprisoned and his works banned. If you're interested in Pramoedya's place in these historical questions, a useful resource is a Alex G. Bardsley's Pramoedya Ananta Toer Site, although the links are of uneven quality.
We may also want to begin to re-consider issues to do with narrative form and modernity, and in particular Pramoedya's adoption of realist conventions at a time when many of his contemporaries are experimenting with magical realism, historiographic metafiction, and other narrative forms which challenge the conventions of realist narrative. In order to get discussion going, I've attached a document here with a series of quotes and questions. We're going to start making links here between literary texts and theory, and it may be worth revisiting Mao Zedong, Frantz Fanon, and Theodor Adorno while thinking about these questions.
We will also look at nationalism in Pramoedya’s work, and the manner in which gender and nationalism are linked. We’ll use Deniz Kandiyoti’s article to think about the ways in which women are emplaced within nationalist narratives, and consider how this might relate to Pramoedya's narrative.
When reading Kandiyoti, try to do so in terms of a general argument about women's place in nationalism, rather than seeing her remarks as applying solely to nationalism within predominantly Islamic societies. The best summary of Kandiyoti's ideas is actually the conclusion to the article, and you can use it to mentally check off your understanding of the at times slightly circuitous argument. She commences with a review of writing about women in nationalism which she pulls together in the shared conclusion that "the integration of women into modern 'nationhood' . . . somehow follows a different trajectory from that of men" (377). Again, features you might want to look for and consider:
Last updated: 26 August, 2008