Research Catalog
Alluring monsters : the Pontianak and cinemas of decolonization
- Title
- Alluring monsters : the Pontianak and cinemas of decolonization / Rosalind Galt.
- Author
- Galt, Rosalind
- Publication
- New York : Columbia University Press, 2021.
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Performing Arts Research Collections to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | MFL 21-3455 | Performing Arts Research Collections - Theatre |
Details
- Description
- xii, 290 pages : illustrations (black and white); 25 cm.
- Summary
- "As famous in Southeast Asia as Dracula is in the West, the pontianak is a terrifying, fanged female vampire who is a much-loved and much-feared monster in Malay cultures. In traditional folklore, the pontianak is a woman who has died as a result of male violence or childbirth and whose return upsets the gender, political, and social norms of Malay society. A central figure in traditional Malay culture, the pontianak was also a crucial figure in postcolonial Malaysia and Singapore, and a staple of their national cinemas. The return to pre-colonial myth during the founding of the postcolonial nations of Malaysia and Singapore reveals cinema's role in popular culture's depiction of and engagement with the tensions of decolonization. Rosalind Galt argues that the postcolonial pontianak registers a series of intersecting anxieties: about femininity and modernity; about local and transnational cultural influences; about the relationship of Islam to indigenous beliefs; and about urbanization and globalization. Rosalind Galt begins her study in colonial Malay when the film industry was an amalgam of Indian, Chinese, Malaysian, and British influences and follows the pontianak film from the 1950s to Singapore's independence in 1965 to the present where it has reemerged in Malaysia as religious-based censorship has loosened in the 2000s. In addition to the films themselves, Galt considers how these films traveled around the region, and their reception by fans around the world"--
- Series Statement
- Film and culture
- Uniform Title
- Film and culture.
- Subject
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (pages [263]-276) and index.
- Contents
- Introduction: on the trail of the pontianak -- Popular horror and the anticolonial imaginary -- Troubling gender with the pontianak -- Race, religion, and Malay identities -- Who owns the kampung? heritage, history, and postcolonial space -- Animism as form: a pontianak theory of the forest.
- Call Number
- MFL 21-3455
- ISBN
- 9780231201322
- 023120132X
- 9780231201339
- 0231201338
- LCCN
- 2021004547
- OCLC
- 1240262812
- Author
- Galt, Rosalind, author.
- Title
- Alluring monsters : the Pontianak and cinemas of decolonization / Rosalind Galt.
- Publisher
- New York : Columbia University Press, 2021.
- Type of Content
- text
- Type of Medium
- unmediated
- Type of Carrier
- volume
- Series
- Film and cultureFilm and culture.
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references (pages [263]-276) and index.
- Research Call Number
- MFL 21-3455