Writing the Past, Inscribing the Future

History as Prophecy in Colonial Java

Nonfiction, History, Asian, Southeast Asia
Cover of the book Writing the Past, Inscribing the Future by Nancy K. Florida, Duke University Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Nancy K. Florida ISBN: 9780822378662
Publisher: Duke University Press Publication: August 24, 1995
Imprint: Duke University Press Books Language: English
Author: Nancy K. Florida
ISBN: 9780822378662
Publisher: Duke University Press
Publication: August 24, 1995
Imprint: Duke University Press Books
Language: English

Located at the juncture of literature, history, and anthropology, Writing the Past, Inscribing the Future charts a strategy of how one might read a traditional text of non-Western historical literature in order to generate, with it, an opening for the future. This book does so by taking seriously a haunting work of historical prophecy inscribed in the nineteenth century by a royal Javanese exile—working through this writing of a colonized past to suggest the reconfiguration of the postcolonial future that this history itself apparently intends. After introducing the colonial and postcolonial orientalist projects that would fix the meaning of traditional writing in Java, Nancy K. Florida provides a nuanced translation of this particular traditional history, a history composed in poetry as the dream of a mysterious exile. She then undertakes a richly textured reading of the poem that discloses how it manages to escape the fixing of "tradition." Adopting a dialogic strategy of reading, Florida writes to extend—as the work’s Javanese author demands—this history’s prophetic potential into a more global register.
Babad Jaka Tingkir, the historical prophecy that Writing the Past, Inscribing the Future translates and reads, is uniquely suited for such a study. Composing an engaging history of the emergence of Islamic power in central Java around the turn of the sixteenth century, Babad Jaka Tingkir was written from the vantage of colonial exile to contest the more dominant dynastic historical traditions of nineteenth-century court literature. Florida reveals how this history’s episodic form and focus on characters at the margins of the social order work to disrupt the genealogical claims of conventional royal historiography—thus prophetically to open the possibility of an alternative future.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

Located at the juncture of literature, history, and anthropology, Writing the Past, Inscribing the Future charts a strategy of how one might read a traditional text of non-Western historical literature in order to generate, with it, an opening for the future. This book does so by taking seriously a haunting work of historical prophecy inscribed in the nineteenth century by a royal Javanese exile—working through this writing of a colonized past to suggest the reconfiguration of the postcolonial future that this history itself apparently intends. After introducing the colonial and postcolonial orientalist projects that would fix the meaning of traditional writing in Java, Nancy K. Florida provides a nuanced translation of this particular traditional history, a history composed in poetry as the dream of a mysterious exile. She then undertakes a richly textured reading of the poem that discloses how it manages to escape the fixing of "tradition." Adopting a dialogic strategy of reading, Florida writes to extend—as the work’s Javanese author demands—this history’s prophetic potential into a more global register.
Babad Jaka Tingkir, the historical prophecy that Writing the Past, Inscribing the Future translates and reads, is uniquely suited for such a study. Composing an engaging history of the emergence of Islamic power in central Java around the turn of the sixteenth century, Babad Jaka Tingkir was written from the vantage of colonial exile to contest the more dominant dynastic historical traditions of nineteenth-century court literature. Florida reveals how this history’s episodic form and focus on characters at the margins of the social order work to disrupt the genealogical claims of conventional royal historiography—thus prophetically to open the possibility of an alternative future.

More books from Duke University Press

Cover of the book Anthropology and the Racial Politics of Culture by Nancy K. Florida
Cover of the book Groove Tube by Nancy K. Florida
Cover of the book Women Build the Welfare State by Nancy K. Florida
Cover of the book Strip Cultures by Nancy K. Florida
Cover of the book Black behind the Ears by Nancy K. Florida
Cover of the book Millennial Capitalism and the Culture of Neoliberalism by Nancy K. Florida
Cover of the book Frontiers of Capital by Nancy K. Florida
Cover of the book Marxism, Colonialism, and Cricket by Nancy K. Florida
Cover of the book Stolen Life by Nancy K. Florida
Cover of the book Black into White by Nancy K. Florida
Cover of the book New Languages of the State by Nancy K. Florida
Cover of the book Pathways to Prohibition by Nancy K. Florida
Cover of the book The Privatization of Hope by Nancy K. Florida
Cover of the book State Formation and Democracy in Latin America, 1810-1900 by Nancy K. Florida
Cover of the book Domesticating Democracy by Nancy K. Florida
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy