new directions in singapore studies
Posted in 6 the arts I on Mar 19th, 2010
C. J. W.-L. Wee
The Artists’ General Assembly (AGA) – a week-long arts festival organised by both The Artists’ Village and the 5th Passage Artists Ltd. – took place from 26 December 1993 to the early hours of 1 January 1994, at the then-5th Passage Gallery at the Parkway Parade Shopping Centre in Marine Parade. [...]
Posted in 6 the arts I on Mar 19th, 2010
Wong Souk Yee
The theatre company Third Stage was formed in 1983 by a group of drama dabblers who wanted to see life in Singapore played out on the local stage in all its glory and decay. They felt that drama in English in post-colonial Singapore had arrived at its third stage of development.
They traced [...]
Posted in 6 the arts I on Mar 19th, 2010
Jason Wee
Editors: this essay was originally written for the catalogue of Raised, a mini-art carnival that was part of the Singapore Art Show 2007 [see postscript]. See the Raised blog for documentation by the project artists, Amanda Heng, Shenu Hamidun, Siti Salihah bte Mohd Omar, Sriridya Nair, Nurul Huda Farid, Joshua Yang, Justin Loke and [...]
Posted in 4 if on Jul 25th, 2009
李慧玲 : Lee Huay Leng
English version
Translated by Francis Lim Khek Gee, with additional translation by Tan Siok Siok
我们回到上海时，赶紧把在汕头买的潮语配音《白雪公主》卡通片拿出来播放，听着皇后用潮州话问那镜子：“魔镜，魔镜，世界上那个芝娘最美丽？”全家人都被逗乐了。
Posted in 3 commemoration on Jun 16th, 2009
CN Chen
It is usual not to expect too much of a glossy and beautifully bound book destined to decorate the top of a coffee table but the National University of Singapore centennial celebration publication Imagination, Openness and Courage was an exception. Its lead article was a masterly dissertation by Professor Wang Gungwu on the state [...]
Posted in 2 archives & memory II on Feb 26th, 2008
Wang Gungwu
Text of the public lecture given on 8 July 2007 in conjunction with the official opening of the National University of Singapore Bukit Timah Campus.
A new University of Malaya was founded in 1949 in the shadow of the Malayan emergency and the communist victory in China. For the next decade, there was for many [...]
Posted in 2 archives & memory on Jan 10th, 2008
Wang Gungwu
The Singapore Heritage Society presented a public talk by Professor Wang Gungwu, then Director of the East Asia Institute, on 10 April 2006 at the National Library, entitled “Learning Me Your Language”. Professor Wang discussed the politics of decolonization and English language writing in Singapore/Malaya in the early 1950s, a period when he [...]
Posted in 2 archives & memory on Jan 10th, 2008
Edgar Liao
Few young Singaporeans today would know of Dennis Joseph Enright, a name that might ring only faint bells to some from older generation. As Professor of English at the University of Malaya in Singapore, he had taught for a decade between 1960 and 1970. Enright is inadvertently remembered for his role as key antagonist [...]
Posted in 2 archives & memory on Jan 10th, 2008
Hong Lysa
‘In preparation/preparedness for being forgotten’, (beiwanglu, 备忘录 ) the Chinese title for Tan Pin Pin’s Invisible City (2007) involves an overlapping process, both bracing oneself for that inevitability yet also doing what one can to forestall memories from being lost. Tan Pin Pin’s camera documents individuals who in varying phases of their lives have [...]
Posted in 1 inauguration on Apr 10th, 2007
Daniel PS Goh
Nowadays, being forty-one years of age marks the middle of one’s life. It can be a time for reflection on what we have achieved and what we want to do in the remaining future. It can also be a time for denial, when the past is consumed as mere nostalgia and the present [...]
