عنوان

Bodies of Sound, Agents of Muslim Malayness: Malaysian Identity Politics and the Symbolic Ecology of the Gambus Lute

Number

TL49788

.Language of Text, Soundtrack etc

انگلیسی

Title Proper

Bodies of Sound, Agents of Muslim Malayness: Malaysian Identity Politics and the Symbolic Ecology of the Gambus Lute

General Material Designation

[Thesis]

First Statement of Responsibility

Joseph M. Kinzer

Subsequent Statement of Responsibility

Sunardi, Christina

Name of Publisher, Distributor, etc.

University of Washington

Date of Publication, Distribution, etc.

2017

Specific Material Designation and Extent of Item

234

Text of Note

Committee members: Campbell, Patricia; Giebel, Christoph; Ho, Meilu; Schuyler, Philip; Sears, Laurie

Text of Note

Place of publication: United States, Ann Arbor; ISBN=978-0-355-59772-1

Dissertation or thesis details and type of degree

Ph.D.

Discipline of degree

Music

Body granting the degree

University of Washington

Text preceding or following the note

2017

Text of Note

In this dissertation, I show how Malay-identified performing arts are used to fold in Malay Muslim identity into the urban milieu, not as an alternative to Kuala Lumpur's contemporary cultural trajectory, but as an integrated part of it. I found this identity negotiation occurring through secular performance traditions of a particular instrument known as the gambus (lute), an Arabic instrument with strong ties to Malay history and trade. During my fieldwork, I discovered that the gambus in Malaysia is a potent symbol through which Malay Muslim identity is negotiated based on various local and transnational conceptions of Islamic modernity. My dissertation explores the material and virtual pathways that converge a number of historical, geographic, and socio-political sites-including the National Museum and the National Conservatory for the Arts, Culture, and Heritage-in my experiences studying the gambus and the wider transmission of muzik Melayu (Malay music) in urban Malaysia. I argue that the gambus complicates articulations of Malay identity through multiple agentic forces, including people (musicians, teachers, etc.), the gambus itself (its materials and iconicity), various governmental and non-governmental institutions, and wider oral, aural, and material transmission processes. Thus, I define transmission in its widest sense to include any mode of transmitting cultural information through performance. To focus the discussion, I isolate the gambus as a potent symbol and anchor from which cultural identity transmission emanates.

Southeast Asian studies; Music; Islamic Studies

Subject Term

Communication and the arts;Social sciences;Gambus;Islam;Malay;Malaysia;Oud;Southeast Asia

Swapan, Md Shaiful Islam

Sunardi, Christina

Subdivision

Music

University of Washington

Call Number

2015962239; 10688218

Electronic name

p

[Thesis]

276903

a

Y