“The Land of Five Towers” at UC Berkeley “The Land of Five Towers” of Ahmad Fuadi has been selected to be one of required reference novels for several courses at the University of California, Berkeley. Jeff Hadler, professor and Chair of the Department of South & Southeast Asian Studies, UC Berkeley uses the novel in his course which according to him, I teach The Land of Five Towers in my undergraduate classes because it can be read on so many levels. In a literary history class, I teach it as part of a set of artfully constructed Alam Melayu childhood memoirs, along with the Hikayat Abdullah and Radjabs Village Childhood (Semasa Ketjil Dikampung), and we can discuss notions of nationalism, and effect of education, and changing ideas of self in Indonesia and the Malay World. I teach it in my class on Islam in Southeast Asia as part of a unit on the pesantren, the Islamic boarding school. And in classes on culture and society Fuadis novel illustrates the tensions between the village and city, the outer regions and Java. It does all that, and the students love it because its a fun read. Note from AMINEF: Both Ahmad Fuadi and Jeff Hadler are Fulbright program alumni. The former earned his master’s degree at George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs. The latter was a Fulbright scholar conducting research in West Sumatera.
Posted on: Mon, 28 Apr 2014 05:05:51 +0000
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