SUMARSAM is Winslow-Kaplan Professor of Music at Wesleyan University. His books include Gamelan: Cultural Interaction and Musical Development in Central Java (1995) and Javanese Gamelan and the West (2013). He was the recipient of the American Council of Learned Societies and the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (2016-17), the Indonesian Presidential Satyalancana Cultural Award (2018), and the Yale Institute of Sacred Music Fellowship (2019-20).
""This ambitious and extremely well researched book by one of the most prolific and insightful scholars on Javanese performing arts opens refreshingly new lines of inquiry into the cultural worlds in which these arts have developed over many centuries. Expanding far beyond his previous works, focusing on Javanese gamelan, Prof. Sumarsam opens doors to broader cultural issues, ranging from myth and literature to current Indonesian politics.""--Anderson Sutton, Professor, Ethnomusicology/University of Hawaii at Mānoa ""Wayang's history, practice, and mythos are traced using historical lenses of tantrism, Sufism, and political implosions, as well as contemporary dakwah (Islamic preaching) and Intangible Cultural Heritage. Personal practice, and archival and field research combine, illuminating wayang arts, lahir (container/outside) and batin (soul/inside).""--Kathy Foley, Distinguished Professor Emerita, Theater Arts, University of California at Santa Cruz