Divine Inspirations: Music and Islam in Indonesia

by David Harnish (Editor), Anne Rasmussen (Editor)

Overview

Divine Inspirations: Music and Islam in Indonesia brings together the work of 11 international scholars into an unprecedented volume focused on religion and performance in a nation celebrated for its extraordinary arts, religious diversity, and natural beauty. The resulting collection provides a panoramic view of Indonesia's Islamic arts in a variety of settings and communities. Together the authors address how history, politics, spirituality, and gender are expressed through performance and how Indonesian Islamic culture intersects with the ideology and practice of nationalism. Unique and engaging, Divine Inspirations will fascinate readers interested in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Islam, world religions, global discourse, and music, arts and ritual.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780199793099
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	05/09/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	8 MB

About the Author

David Harnish is Professor of Ethnomusicology at Bowling Green State University. He is author of Bridges to the Ancestors: Music, Myth and Cultural Politics at an Indonesian Festival (2006) and has recorded and/or performed Indonesian, jazz, Indian and Tejano musics with five different labels. Anne K. Rasmussen is Associate Professor at The College of William and Mary, where she also directs a Middle Eastern Music Ensemble. She is the author of Women, the Recited Qur'an, and Islamic Music in Indonesia (2010), co-editor of Musics of Multicultural America (1997), a former Fulbright senior scholar, and Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center Research Fellow

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements About the Companion Website List of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Introduction: The World of Islam in the Music of Indonesia David Harnish, Anne Rasmussen Part I Tensions, Change, and Problematic Histories 1 Past and Present Issues of Islam within the Central Javanese Gamelan and Wayang Kulit Sumarsam 2 Tensions between Adat (Custom) and Agama (Religion) in the Music of Lombok David Harnish Part II Mysticism and Devotionalism 3 "The Muslim Sisterhood": Transnational Feminism(s) and the Work of Indonesian Women in Cross-Cultural Perspective Anne Rasmussen 4 Brai in Performance: Devotion and Art in Java Matthew Isaac Cohen 5 Self-Defense and Music in Muslim Contexts in West Java Uwe U. P?tzold Part III Global Currents and Discourse 6 From "Dust" to Platinum: Global Currents Through the Malay World of Musical Islam Charles Capwell 7 "Authentic" Islamic Sound? Orkes Gambus Music, the Arab Idiom and Sonic Symbols in Indonesian Islamic Musical Arts Birgit Berg 8 The Discourse on Islam and Music in West Java, with Emphasis on the Music Group, ath-Thawaf Wim van Zanten Part IV Contemporary Performative Worlds 9 "Art with a Muslim Theme" and "Art with a Muslim Flavor" among Women of West Aceh Margaret Kartomi 10 Islam, Politics, and the Dynamic of Contemporary Music in Indonesia R. Franki Notosudirdjo 11 Morality and its (Dis)contents: Dangdut and Islam in Indonesia Andrew Weintraub Epilogue Judith Becker Glossary Index

Editorial Reviews

"Absolutely essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the complex diversity of music in Indonesia today." —Prof. R. Anderson Sutton, School of Music, University of Wisconsin-Madison

"Divine Inspirations illustrates and confounds the perennially contested line between religion and culture in Islam. This pioneering volume reanimates Islamic studies in Indonesia and beyond by revealing the many performative paths to the divine." —Engseng Ho, author of The Graves of Tarim: Genealogy and Mobility across the Indian Ocean

"The influence of Islam on the arts has long been overlooked in Western studies of contemporary Indonesia. This timely and original book changes that entirely. It will become the standard for the study of the arts in Indonesia and a model for similar studies in the broader Muslim world." —Robert Hefner, Director, Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs, Boston University

"[A] groundbreaking volume...Extremely successful in its aims and will be very well received within the circles of Southeast Asian studies and ethnomusicology." —Indonesia

"Essential reading for anyone studying Islam or music in Indonesia, for individuals seeking to understand the diversity of Islamic practices throughout the world, and for those interested in how arts interact with and actively shape the expression of Islam...[with] increasing academic agendas, budgets, and numbers of faculty lines devoted to the study of Islam, Divine Inspirations offers a timely ethnomusicological contribution to this project. —Ethnomusicology

From the Publisher