A Certain Age

by Mrazek, Rudolf

• ISBN13: 9780822346852
• ISBN10: 0822346850
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-03-26
• Publisher: Duke Univ Pr

Summary

A Certain Ageis an unconventional, evocative work of history and a series of moving reflections on memory, modernity, space, time, and the limitations of traditional historical narratives. Throughout the 1990s, Rudolf Mraacute;zek visited Indonesia, where he recorded lengthy interviews with elderly intellectuals in and around Jakarta. With few exceptions, they were part of an urban elite born under colonial rule and educated at Dutch schools. Since the early twentieth century, through the late colonial era and national revolution, well into independence after 1945, these intellectuals were prominent in Jakarta, where they injected their ideas of modernity, progress, and freedom into local and national discussion.When he began his interviews, Mraacute;zek expected to discuss phenomena such as the transition from colonialism to postcolonialism. His interviewees wanted to share more personal recollections. Their stories form the backbone ofA Certain Age. Fragments of their conversations are embedded in descriptions of the locations where the interviews were conducted. Mraacute;zek brings to bear insights from thinkers including Walter Benjamin, Bertold Brecht, Le Corbusier, and Marcel Proust, and from his reflections on his youth in Prague, another metropolis with its own experience of passages and revolution. Architectural and spatial tropes organize the book. Thresholds, windowsills, and sidewalks come to seem more apt as descriptors of historical transitions than colonial and postcolonial, or modern and postmodern. Asphalt-covered surfaces, homes, classrooms, fences, and windows organize movement, perceptions, and selves in relation to others.A Certain Ageis a portal into questions about how the past informs the present and how historical accounts are inevitably partial and incomplete.

Table of Contents

Preface: Promenades

Technical Note

Bypasss and Flyovers

The Walls

The Fences

The Classroom

The Window

Postscript. Sometimes Voices

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.