Errington/Cohen 9308179 This project is a detailed study of shadow puppet theaters in Cirebon, West Java, Indonesia which combines ethnographic, historical, and ethnohistorical research. These theaters are attended one to several times a week by village dwelling Javanese. Theatrical performances incorporate themes from local, national, and international events and juxtapose them to Javanese ideas about social relations, morality, and concepts of personhood. To the Javanese, puppet theater is not a trivial form of entertainment but rather a way in which local, national, and world events are translated to local people in a cultural idiom that is easily understood. As a result, puppet theater can be viewed as a lens or filter that serves to interpret events that occur outside the rural villages where most Javanese live. Aside from the interpretation of world events, puppet theater is an arena for the active constitution or reconstitution of Javanese ideas of self and personhood. This project will investigate what axioms and assumptions of Javanese social structure are represented in shadow puppet theater, how performances analyze, probe, and play with normative ideas, and what ramifications (if any) theatrical performances have for everyday sociocultural life and the domain of ordinary reality. Data will be gained by interviewing theatrical performers and puppet theater audience members as well as correlating current performances with national events and correlating descriptions of old performances with the historical events that inspired them. This project should help us understand how the Javanese perceive world events, how they make sense of them, and relate them to their own cultural values. In a more general sense it will enhance our comparative understanding of the forms and forums that non-Western peoples employ to interpret the world. *** erwal@nsf.gov (Internet); tbaerwal@nsf (Bitnet); T.BAERWALD (Omnet) Enclosures: Proposal SBR 9319015 Review form "Alternated formats" sheet - PAGE 1 - v ` l SOCIAL, BEHAVIORAL, AND ECONOMIC RESEARCH GEOGRAPHY AND REGIONAL SCIENCE PROGRAM 1800 Õ Õ ! ! ! F e e Õ Õ ( Times New Roman Symbol & Arial * * * " h D R E ^ r errington cohen abstract abstract%thesis award abstract errington cohen Raymond Hames Raymond Hames
