In The Encoded Cirebon Mask: Materiality, Flow, and Meaning along Java’s Islamic
Northwest Coast, Laurie Margot Ross situates masks and masked dancing in the Cirebon region of Java (Indonesia) as an original expression of Islam. This is a different view from that of many scholars, who argue that canonical prohibitions on fashioning idols and imagery prove that masks are mere relics of indigenous beliefs that Muslim travelers could not eradicate. Making use of archives, oral histories, and the performing objects themselves, Ross traces the mask’s trajectory from a popular entertainment in Cirebon—once a portal of global exchange—to a stimulus for establishing a deeper connection to God in late colonial Java, and eventual links to nationalism in post-independence Indonesia.
"A mountain of fascinating information." – Benedict Anderson, Aaron L. Binenkorb Late Professor Emeritus of Government and International Studies, Cornell University
Laurie Margot Ross, Ph.D. (2009), University of California, Berkeley, is a researcher, curator, and educator of Islamic visual culture and performance, based in New York. She was an SSRC Transregional fellow at Cornell University and also taught at UC Berkeley.
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