Patricia Hardwick traveled to Indonesia this year to complete a ten-month Senior Scholar Research Fullbright. While there, she was affiliated with Universitas Indonesia. Hardwick has also been an Adjunct Associate Professor and a Research Associate-in-Residence at Hofstra University since September of 2018.
Patricia’s research in Indonesia aims to contextualize the role of contemporary cultural flows that continue to shape Indonesian Malay theatrical traditions and expressions of Indonesian Malay Identity in Riau Islands Province. She also investigated the historical and cultural flows between the Riau Islands, West and Central Java, the Northeast Coast of Peninsular Malaysia, and Southern Thailand to explore the exchange of ideas, performers, and performance practices in this region. Hardwick writes: “In an era in which ownership of intangible cultural heritage is often contested in the culturally interconnected world of maritime Southeast Asia, an examination of the historical and contemporary influence of Pasisir cultural flows on performance forms, will provide perspective on the ways in which people and performing arts circulated in the region in the period before colonial rule and the emergence of modern nation-states.”
The title of Hardwick’s project is “Malay Chronicles, Thai Drama, Javanese Tales: Indonesian Malay Identity, Pasisir Cultural Flows and the Performing Arts in Riau Islands Province”.
The College of Arts