Nik Setiadarma

crumbles of time

Blog

  • Feeling Time

    Feeling Time

    When Brigitta Isabella wrote her piece in May 2016, I was in the middle of preparing for my travel to Manchester, UK, to study international development. I, back then, had no serious interest in history as a question because I was still convinced I would do work on policy analysis and such and such. “1955,… Read more

  • Toni Cade Bambara, “Gorilla, My Love”

    Toni Cade Bambara, “Gorilla, My Love”

    The joy of reading great, funny, and witty stories always overcome my sinister view of many things. I read Bambara’s short stories and writing this short note in bed as I’m currently struggling to recover from omicron. Her stories ease some pain, as I’m excited about the brilliance of her crafts. The plots, the style,… Read more

  • Natsuko Imamura, Lucy North (tr), “The Woman in the Purple Skirt”

    Natsuko Imamura, Lucy North (tr), “The Woman in the Purple Skirt”

    What a thrill! A kind of thrill that makes me … oh no oh shit oh why. The Woman in the Purple Skirt was not a nameless character, but the narrator, the Woman in the Yellow Cardigan, made her so (and herself too). We saw the Purple Skirt woman from the narrator’s eyes–she acted like… Read more

  • Merve Emre, “Paraliterary”

    Merve Emre, “Paraliterary”

    “Bad readers were not born; they were made,” wrote Merve Emre in her first book Paraliterary. She starts the discussion by citing Vladimir Nabokov’s “Good Readers and Good Writers” who, as a teacher, was frustrated with American readers’ aesthetic. But as Emre shows, the emergence of “bad readers” in the US was not so far… Read more

  • Nancy Florida, “Writing the Past, Inscribing the Future”

    Nancy Florida, “Writing the Past, Inscribing the Future”

    To read with care and diligence, to study with utmost loving care, to feel the meaning and intent. Writing The Past, Inscribing The Future by Nancy Florida is one such book. Engaging with one text reserved in Kraton Surakarta, Babad Jaka Tingkir, Florida presents an illuminating work about the text and the history of Javanese… Read more

  • Meghan K. Roberts, “Sentimental Savants”

    Meghan K. Roberts, “Sentimental Savants”

    What family and married life could do for Enlightenment thinkers? The persisting myth says the family had little to do with philosophy. The story of Jean-Jacques Rousseau abandoning his children has allowed this myth to persist. But an extensive feminist and gender literature on domestic works and social reproduction have given us so many insights… Read more