Available:*
Library | Item Barcode | Call Number | Material Type | Item Category 1 | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... | 30000010202832 | BP63.I52 H42 2004 | Open Access Book | Book | Searching... |
On Order
Summary
Summary
"For two decades now, Stephen C. Headley has been one of the most original and systematic ethnographers of Javanese religion and cultural history. No one in contemporary Javanese ethnography has combed through the annals of nineteenth and twentieth century scholarship with as careful an eye for the variety of Javanese traditions. None combines this historical ethnography with as careful and unusual body of contemporary ethnography. Headley's new book brings these long-developed skills to bear on contemporary religious change in the Surakarta region of Central Java. In his analysis of the Durga ritual complex, Headley sheds light on one of the most unusual court traditions to have survived in an era of deepening Islamization. Headley's analysis of this ritual complex, and its implications for our understanding of popular Javanese religion, deserves to be read by all serious students of Java, as well as anyone interested in religion in Indonesia. However, Headley moves well beyond this unusual ritual complex, to take us through the twists and turns of religious culture and politics in what is one of the richest but also most troubled of cultural regions in Java. The result is a rich, multi-layered, and fascinating study, one that changes forever our understanding of Javanese tradition in a Java becoming Islamic." Robert Hefner, Institute on Religion and World Affairs, Boston University.
Reviews 1
Choice Review
This book is an absolute must for all collections in Southeast Asian studies, religious studies, and anthropology. In unusual ethnographic detail combined with historical depth, social anthropologist Headley (Centre National de Recherche Scientifique, Paris) explores the varieties of religious experience characteristic of Javanese Islam across a wide-ranging landscape of religious belief. His historically charged ethnography of the hold that the Hindu goddess Durga maintains in Muslim communities illustrates some of the ways that Islam has remained Javanese in the face of reform and purifying movements that have been active in central Java for centuries. Headley argues that the union of Durga with mystical Islam should not be seen as just another example of religious syncretism but, rather, that these Durga cults in central Java are indicative of historical processes in which the Javanese embraced Islam on their own terms. Headley examines this contemporary pluralistic cosmos as it relates to a modernity at large that favors certain forms of individualism. The end result is a dense description of religious movements in Java that Indonesian, Southeast Asian, and religious studies specialists, as well as those interested in comparative studies of Islam, will find fascinating and a crucial addition to their libraries. ^BSumming Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates and above. S. Ferzacca University of Lethbridge
