“Popular Nanyang” conference programme

Located in the heart of Nanyang, Singapore and Malaya/Malaysia are well known sites of vibrant Chinese cultural production. After World War Two, alongside literature written by intellectuals, other cultural forms with wider appeal have enriched the everyday lives of Chinese in Singapore and Malaya/Malaysia. From mass publishing, to theatre, to radio broadcast, to film and television, the less-studied mix of old and new media technologies were entangled with complex commercial and ideological concerns. Playing host to a dynamic ensemble of media ecologies enlivened by multiple languages and Chinese topolects, Singapore and Malaya/Malaysia jointly offer a special site to reconsider what it means for culture to be—or become— “popular” from the 1945 to the 1970s, when “Nanyang” struggles as the most suitable geographical term to frame what later became known as “Southeast Asia.” Featuring international scholars and local experts, this bilingual conference aims to reclaim the significance of diasporic and local Chinese popular culture for both social memory and scholarly research.

Although the International Conference on “Popular Nanyang: Re-thinking Chinese Cultures in Post-war Singapore and Malaya/Malaysia” has concluded, you may wish to download the conference programme here

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To read report on the conference (written in Chinese) by Liao Yiran, go to: https://blog.nus.edu.sg/chinesepopcultures/report-on-popular-nanyang-conference-nov-2023-by-liao-yiran/