The Forest Withdrawn
A Historiographical Trope for Mediating Change in Cirebonese Chronicles
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2884577 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Zi Hao Tan (0000-0002-0071-0956, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 180 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 1-35 |
| Publication date | 2024-04-17 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Bijdragen tot de taal- land- en volkenkunde / Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0006-2294 • E-ISSN: 2213-4379 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1163/22134379-bja10057 |
| OpenAlex | W4394961281 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 33 |
Historical chronicles in Southeast Asia often designate the forest as an area where animals and spirits prowl, where heroes meditate or journey across. But the forest is neither a mere setting nor a passive witness to the unfolding of events. Using nineteenth- and twentieth-century historical chronicles from Cirebon, West Java, this article examines how the forest is storied to mediate the past. Discussion is centred around three narrative topoi: the first concerns the establishment of new settlements, as prefigured through forest-clearing; the second accentuates the forest's rhetorical function as a site of disappearance during Islamization; and the third analyses the creaturely figure Menjangan Wulung, who sabotages the Cirebonese sultanate and lurks in the wilderness. An inquisitive reading of these episodes reveals the forest to be a historiographical trope. Conceived as a topography of concealment, the forest exemplifies a withdrawn reality where contentious pasts are subdued yet sustained, preserving continuity amidst change
Archaeology · Art · Combretaceae · Geography · Historiography · Islam · Islamization · Linguistics · Literature · Narrative · Rhetorical question · Trope (literature · Wilderness · Witness · Asian Studies and History · Ecology · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Philosophy · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies
Biological Sources of Nerve Growth Factor
The Art of Not Being Governed
Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde
Religion, State, and Society
Early Tenth Century Java from the Inscriptions
Asian Perceptions of Nature
How Forests Think
Friction
Tending the Spirit’s Shrine
Managing Cultural Landscapes
Southeast Asia in the 9th to 14th centuries
Journeys, Palaces and Landscapes in the Javanese Imaginary. Some Preliminary Comments Based on the Kakawin Sumanasāntaka
The Maiden in the Forest
To Speak with Cloth
International Journal of Middle East Studies
Purity and Danger
Narrating knowledge; Reflections on the encyclopedic impulse in literary texts from Indonesian and Malay worlds
Natural Potency and Political Power
"Journeys and metaphors; Some preliminary observations about the natural world of seashore and forested mountains in epic "kakawin
Beyond the Sacred Forest
Temporalities in Southeast Asian Historiography
The Seen and Unseen Worlds in Java, 1726-1749
Pawangs on the Frontier
The Role of Structural Organisation and Myth in Javanese Historiography
Animals in Four Worlds
Working the land; Babad as forest clearing and the analogy between land and human fertility in Nusa Penida (Bali)
Folklore and Tradition in Javanese Society
Writing the Past, Inscribing the Future
Hindu Javanese
Introduction
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |