Office: CLE C218
Hours:
Phone: 721-6272
Email: mbodden@uvic.ca

(Indonesian-Malay Language; Southeast Asian Culture & Literature; Indonesian Theatre & Literature: Southeast Asian Cinema; Graphic Narratives from and About Asia and Asians)

I took my PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of Wisconsin. The subject of my thesis was The Appropriation of Bertolt Brecht's ideas of theatre in Grassroots Theatre Movements in Indonesia and the Philippines.

My current projects involve a study of the theater and drama work of party-affiliated cultural groups during Indonesia’s Soekarno era (1950-65), and an examination of the connections between cosmopolitanism and commitment to nation in recent Indonesian fiction, film, performance, and graphic narratives. I have also translated and published the work of several Indonesian writers-poetry by Saraswati Sunindyo, Nurhidayat Poso, and Afrizal Malna; plays and short stories by Putu Wijaya; short stories, plays, and essays by Seno Gumira Ajidarma; and most recently, six plays by a variety of writers for the 3 volume The Lontar Anthology of .Indonesian Drama.

I am interested in the way art and culture are intertwined with social and political discourses and contexts, and am particularly drawn to the creative responses culture can make to oppressive social conditions, as well as the ways it engages with, resists, or attempts to adapt to globalization and the now dominant neo-liberal economic ideology.

Selected Publications

Resistance on the National Stage: Theater and Politics in Late New Order Indonesia (Athens, Ohiio: Ohio University Press, 2010)

The Lontar Anthology of Indonesian Drama, Volume 2: Building a National Theater (editor and translator for 5 of 13 plays included) (Jakarta: Lontar Foundation, 2010)

“Things Growing on the Table.” Translation of an Afrizal Malna play in Cobina Gillitt, ed., The Lontar Anthology of Indonesian Drama Volume 3: New Directions, 1965- 1998 (Jakarta: The Lontar Foundation, 2010): 435-449.

“Modern Drama, Politics, and the Postcolonial Aesthetics of Left-Nationalism in North Sumatra: The Forgotten Theater of Indoensia’s Lekra, 1955-65 in Tony Day and Maya Liem, eds., Cultures at War: The Cold War and Cultural Expression in Southeast Asia (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program Publications, 2010): 45-80.

“Membuat Drama Asing Berbicara kepada Penonton Indonesia: Univeralisme dan Identitas Pasca-Kolonial dalam Teater-Seni Indonesia Modern” (How to Make Foreign Plays Speak to Indonesian Audiences: Universality and Postcolonial Identity in Indonesian Modern Art Theatre) in Henri Chambert-Loir, ed., Sadur: Sejarah terjemahan di Indonesia dan Malaysia (Adaptation: The History of Translation in Indonesia and Malaysia) (Jakarta: Kepustakaan Populer Gramedia, Edole francaise d’Extrreme-Orient Forum Jakarta-Paris, and Pusat Bahasa, Universitas Padjadjaran, 2009): 911-929.

"Introduction" to Special issue of Review of Indonesian and Malaysian Affairs on New Writing and Theatre by Women in Indonesia, co-authored with Tineke Hellwig, 41.2 (2007): 1-24.

"Shattered Families: 'Transgression', Cosmopolitanism, and Experimental Form in the Fiction of Djenar Maesa Ayu," Review of Indonesian and Malaysian Affairs 41.2 (2007): 95-125.

"Languages of Traumas, Bodies, and Myths: Learning to speak again in post-1998 Indonesian Theatre," in Arts, Popular Culture, and Social Change in the New Indonesia, Michael Leaf and Kusno Abidin, ed., 119-151. Vancouver: UBC Institute of Asian Research, Centre for Southeast Asian Research.
[ Languages of Traumas, Bodies, and Myths ]

"'Tradition', 'Modernism', and the Struggle for Cultural Hegemony in Indonesian National Art Theatre", Indonesia and the Malay World Vol. 35 No. 101 (March 2007): 63-91.

"Rap in Indonesian Youth Music of the 1990s: "Globalization", "Outlaw Genres", and Social Protest," Asian Music (Summer/Fall 2005): 1-26.

"Satuan-Satuan Kecil and Uncomfortable Improvisations in the Late Night of the New Order: Democratization, Postmodernism, and Postcoloniality" in Keith Foulcher and Tony Day, eds., Clearing Space: Postcolonial Readings of Modern Indonesian Literature (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2002): 293-324.

Courses