People_
Professor Emeritus Peter Worsley
PhD (Leiden), BA hons (Sydney)
Professor Emeritus
Address
A18 - Brennan MacCallum Building
The University of Sydney
Details
Member of Sydney Southeast Asia Centre
Peter Worsley was Professor of Indonesian and Malayan Studies at the University of Sydney between 1973 and 2000 and is now Professor Emeritus. He is also Visiting Fellow at the Faculty of Asian Studies at the Australian National University, where he and Dr Supomo are working on an annotated edition and translation of the old Javanese epic kakawin Sumansåntaka
- Social and cultural history of premodern Southeast Asia
- Indonesian, Balinese and ancient Javanese literature and visual arts.
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Kakawin Sumanasåntaka
The project will produce an edition, translation and annotation of the ancient Javanese kakawin epic poem, Sumanasåntaka. It is a collaborative project with Dr Supomo of the Faculty of Asian Studies, Australian National University. -
The political meaning of the bas-reliefs of the Rama story at Candi Prambanan in Central Java.
The project examines transformations of the epic Sanskrit idea of the cakravartin, ‘the universal ruler’, in ancient Java. -
The Ancient Javanese Environment.
The project explores how the inhabitants of Java in the period before the 16th century apprehended the world in which they lived. More specifically it sets out to describe the literary and mythic context in which works of epic kakawin represent the landscapes of Java. It also raises in a preliminary way the extent to which these same works contain reliable empirical information about the Javanese environment prior to the 16th century. -
Narrative and Social Change in Bali.
This project seeks to explore the interrelationship between narrative, orality and literacy, state formation and political culture in Bali. It examines the ways in which Balinese know, evaluate and experience their social and cultural existence through certain forms of narrative, and how they use that knowledge to reproduce the social and cultural conditions of their. At the present time the project is focussed on a study of Kamasan paintings, in particular the Brayut narrative in mss and paintings.
Selected publications
Publications
Selected Grants
2008
- ARC Linkage LP0883981 Understanding Balinese paintings: collections, narrative, aesthetics and socie, Campbell S, Vickers A, Worsley P,
2007
- Understanding Balinese paintings: collections, narrative, aesthetics and society, Vickers A, Worsley P, Monaghan P, Christidis L, Australian Research Council (ARC)/Linkage Projects (LP)