http://s-pores.com/2008/01/mendicant/ new directions in singapore studies Thu, 26 Jan 2012 22:43:22 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 http://s-pores.com/2008/01/mendicant/#comment-428 Edgar Sat, 02 Jan 2010 08:22:38 +0000 http://s-pores.com/?p=103#comment-428 Thanks a lot Prof Koh for all the heads-up and pointing the way towards a more nuanced reading! Thanks a lot Prof Koh for all the heads-up and pointing the way towards a more nuanced reading!

]]> http://s-pores.com/2008/01/mendicant/#comment-427 Koh Tai Ann Thu, 31 Dec 2009 17:40:12 +0000 http://s-pores.com/?p=103#comment-427 D J Enright passed away seven years to the day on New Year's Eve, 2002 and as a former student of his in the early sixties, I recall on this New Year's Eve (2009) his meticulous attention, both as teacher and poet, to meaning and sense with regard to everything one wrote and consequently, the importance of getting the details right, for the sum depends on the exactness as well as the fullest implications of its parts. It seems to me that several statements and arguments in Liao's piece could be more nuanced (but there's no space here to go into this). A symptom (or perhaps cause) is the neglect of significant detail and thus its implications: eg, in Note 4, the full title of my essay included in the festschrift for Enright's 70th birthday is “The Mendicant Professor: a Self-confessed Liberal in Singapore, 1960 - 1970”. His being a liberal in Singapore was at the heart of his critique of the PAP's then anti-"Yellow Culture" campaign (the many implications of which Liao's article does not explore and to which Mr Lee Kuan Yew's own Memoirs make ironic reference -- going some way towards explaining why no further action was taken against the 'politicallyinnocent' Professor at the time: he was both wrong and right). My essay published in 1990, 30 years after the event intended to put the whole "Affair" into perspective by looking at the issue from both sides in the context of the times, in terms of ideology (Enright's as much as the PAP's),local politics and (post)colonial sensitivities. I also noted that years after Enright had made his call for Singapore to be more culturally open, Mr Rajaratnam (who was once Minister of Culture) was to make the same call -- something that Enright was later to mention as having vindicated him. (He would find much to be ironic about in the current 'liberal' cultural scene, of which government-encouraged bar top dancing to raise Singapore's "buzz" quotient, is not among the most eye-brow raising.) Liao also fails to note and cite (perhaps did not know) that Enright published a new edition of his Memoirs of a Mendicant Professor (Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1990) where he deleted a chapter and added an Epilogue. There in retrospect, he characteristically questioned the liberal stance; but he none the less thought it preferable to 'the alternative' (ie, being illiberal). D J Enright passed away seven years to the day on New Year’s Eve, 2002 and as a former student of his in the early sixties, I recall on this New Year’s Eve (2009) his meticulous attention, both as teacher and poet, to meaning and sense with regard to everything one wrote and consequently, the importance of getting the details right, for the sum depends on the exactness as well as the fullest implications of its parts. It seems to me that several statements and arguments in Liao’s piece could be more nuanced (but there’s no space here to go into this). A symptom (or perhaps cause) is the neglect of significant detail and thus its implications: eg, in Note 4, the full title of my essay included in the festschrift for Enright’s 70th birthday is “The Mendicant Professor: a Self-confessed Liberal in Singapore, 1960 – 1970”. His being a liberal in Singapore was at the heart of his critique of the PAP’s then anti-”Yellow Culture” campaign (the many implications of which Liao’s article does not explore and to which Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s own Memoirs make ironic reference — going some way towards explaining why no further action was taken against the ‘politicallyinnocent’ Professor at the time: he was both wrong and right). My essay published in 1990, 30 years after the event intended to put the whole “Affair” into perspective by looking at the issue from both sides in the context of the times, in terms of ideology (Enright’s as much as the PAP’s),local politics and (post)colonial sensitivities. I also noted that years after Enright had made his call for Singapore to be more culturally open, Mr Rajaratnam (who was once Minister of Culture) was to make the same call — something that Enright was later to mention as having vindicated him. (He would find much to be ironic about in the current ‘liberal’ cultural scene, of which government-encouraged bar top dancing to raise Singapore’s “buzz” quotient, is not among the most eye-brow raising.) Liao also fails to note and cite (perhaps did not know) that Enright published a new edition of his Memoirs of a Mendicant Professor (Manchester: Carcanet Press, 1990) where he deleted a chapter and added an Epilogue. There in retrospect, he characteristically questioned the liberal stance; but he none the less thought it preferable to ‘the alternative’ (ie, being illiberal).

]]> http://s-pores.com/2008/01/mendicant/#comment-52 April 2006 in Malaysia and Singapore - tutorial aa14135 Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:50:47 +0000 http://s-pores.com/?p=103#comment-52 [...] s/pores » Once Upon a Time, a Mendicant Professor in Singapore ... [...] [...] s/pores » Once Upon a Time, a Mendicant Professor in Singapore … [...]

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