Download or read book The Ten Thousand Things written by Maria Dermout and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2014-11-25 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set between Holland and a remote Indonesian island, this intimate magical realism novel offers “an offbeat narrative that has the timeless tone of a legend” (Time). “Dermoût’s sentences came at me like a soft knowing dagger, depicting a far-off land that felt to me like the blood of all the places I used to love.” —Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild The Ten Thousand Things is at once novel of shimmering strangeness—and familiarity. It is the story of Felicia, who returns with her baby son from Holland to the Spice Islands of Indonesia, to the house and garden that were her birthplace, over which her powerful grandmother still presides. There Felicia finds herself wedded to an uncanny and dangerous world, full of mystery and violence, where objects tell tales, the dead come and go, and the past is as potent as the present. First published in Holland in 1955, Maria Dermoût's novel was immediately recognized as a magical work, like nothing else Dutch—or European—literature had seen before. The Ten Thousand Things is an entranced vision of a far-off place that is as convincingly real and intimate as it is exotic, a book that is at once a lament and an ecstatic ode to nature and life.

Download or read book Leiden Oriental Connections written by W. Otterspeer and published by BRILL. This book was released on 1989 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For review see: J. van Goor, in: Bijdragen en mededelingen betreffende de geschiedenis der Nederlanden, jrg. 110, afl. 1 (1995); p. 137-140.

Download or read book Colonial Collections Revisited written by Pieter ter Keurs and published by Phoenix Books, Inc.. This book was released on 2007 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The story of colonial collecting is complex and full of contradictions. Collectors often appreciated the 'other' cultures where they obtained collections, but at the same time they had a close relationship with the colonial authorities who were willing to subjugate societies with military violence. This book addresses colonial collecting with examples from the Dutch East Indies and, by means of comparison, with a discussion about collecting in British India. Since the 1990s the phenomenon of collecting has become an important part of anthropological discourse. This development touches upon the foundations of the discipline, since it throws light on how the white colonizers dealt with local cultures, and thus on how the formation of the anthropological discourse took place. The study of collecting can help us to develop an anthropology of intentionality, instrumentality and desire, as Anthony Shelton argues in one of the contributions to this book. Objects do not stop 'to live' when collected. Margaret Wiener discusses the magic of the kris, which is influential even in Europe, far from the context in which the magic is created. Other chapters treat in detail the military entanglement with collecting in the Dutch East Indies. There is also attention for ethnographic collecting in the context of scholarly activities, particularly in the chapter by Ruth Barnes. The broad picture of colonial collecting ,as presented in this book, includes an analysis of the appropriation of the Indonesian Hindu-Buddhist culture by means of collecting Javanese antiquities, detailed descriptions of colonial wars (North Sumatra, South Sulawesi, Bali and Lombok) and a discussion of the cultural heritage of the Ethische Politiek. With contributions by Ruth Barnes, Francine Brinkgreve, Hari Budiarti, Brian Durrans, Wahyu Ernawati, Pieter ter Keurs, Susan Legêne, Pauline Lunsingh Scheurleer, Anthony Shelton, Harm Stevens, David Stuart-Fox and Margaret Wiener.

Download or read book The Seduction of Culture in German History written by Wolf Lepenies and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2006-03-26 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Allied bombing of Germany, Hitler was more distressed by the loss of cultural treasures than by the leveling of homes. Remarkably, his propagandists broadcast this fact, convinced that it would reveal not his callousness but his sensitivity: the destruction had failed to crush his artist's spirit. It is impossible to begin to make sense of this thinking without understanding what Wolf Lepenies calls The Seduction of Culture in German History. This fascinating and unusual book tells the story of an arguably catastrophic German habit--that of valuing cultural achievement above all else and envisioning it as a noble substitute for politics. Lepenies examines how this tendency has affected German history from the late eighteenth century to today. He argues that the German preference for art over politics is essential to understanding the peculiar nature of Nazism, including its aesthetic appeal to many Germans (and others) and the fact that Hitler and many in his circle were failed artists and intellectuals who seem to have practiced their politics as a substitute form of art. In a series of historical, intellectual, literary, and artistic vignettes told in an essayistic style full of compelling aphorisms, this wide-ranging book pays special attention to Goethe and Thomas Mann, and also contains brilliant discussions of such diverse figures as Novalis, Walt Whitman, Leo Strauss, and Allan Bloom. The Seduction of Culture in German History is concerned not only with Germany, but with how the German obsession with culture, sense of cultural superiority, and scorn of politics have affected its relations with other countries, France and the United States in particular.

Download or read book Indonesia written by Pieter ter Keurs and published by Kit Pub. This book was released on 2006 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During their colonial rule over Indonesia, the Dutch collected art objects. For each object they exported to The Netherlands they had to leave a similar object in Indonesian care. In most cases the best quality objects remained in Indonesia. Thus a collection was built that consists of two complementary parts. This book describes the history of this collection and provides a unique insight into the way colonial powers collected art and at the same time tried to be just. In December 2005, the two halves of the collection were displayed together for the first time ever in De Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam. This book marks that historic occasion. The Dutch and Indonesian collections are the top two Indonesian Art collections in the world. This book shows the highlights of both these collections in relation to each other. All objects were photographed especially for this book; many of the objects are unique and have never been photographed before.