The Singapore Research Nexus (SRN) at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Research Division, NUS invites you to a Virtual Event featuring recent research in the humanities and social sciences on Singapore.
Academics from NUS will present their studies on the themes of 1) Cultural Policy and Heritage, 2) Citizenship, Community, and the Public Sphere, and 3) Pedagogy, Education, and Development.
Please register early through the link below. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing instructions about joining the webinar. You are free to join and leave the webinar at a time of your convenience.
Please note that the webinar may be recorded by the Singapore Research Nexus. For enquiries, please contact us at nexus@nus.edu.sg.
Date: Thursday, 26 November 2020
Time: 10 AM to 4:50 PM (SGT)
Registration at Zoom: https://nus-sg.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_IlxCcG5eR4CbHbMkDST7fw
Full Programme available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/187NzhwQJyImvHVxJwgRVADETJVVcFtvu/view?usp=sharing
Schedule
| 26 NOVEMBER 2020 (Thursday) | |
| 10:00 – 10:10 | REGISTRATION |
| 10:10 – 10:15 | WELCOME REMARKS |
| Lionel Wee | Professor and Vice Dean of Research, NUS FASS | |
| 10:15 – 12:20 | PANEL 1 – CULTURAL POLICY AND HERITAGE |
| 10:15 – 10:20 | Introduction of Researchers
Priya Jaradi | Lecturer, NUS History |
| 10:20 – 10:40 | White Walls Don’t Say Much: Creative Placemaking in Singapore
T.C. Chang | Associate Professor, NUS Geography |
| 10:40 – 11:00 | Singapore Chronicles: Theatre
Robin Loon | Associate Professor, NUS English Language and Literature |
| 11:00 – 11:20 | Heritagescaping the Southern Islands of Singapore “from below”
Hamzah Bin Muzaini | Assistant Professor, NUS Southeast Asian Studies |
| 11:20 – 11:40 | Community Arts and Culture Initiatives in Singapore: Spatial Opportunities and Impacts
Zdravko Trivic | Assistant Professor, NUS Architecture |
| 11:40 – 12:20 | Q & A |
| 12:20 – 13:20 | LUNCH BREAK |
| 13:20 – 14:55 | PANEL 2 – PEDAGOGY, EDUCATION, AND DEVELOPMENT |
| 13:20 – 13:25 | Introduction of Researchers
Lee Li Neng | Lecturer, NUS Psychology |
| 13:25 – 13:45 | Getting Ahead in Singapore: How Neighborhoods, Gender, and Ethnicity Affect Enrollment into Elite Schools
Vincent Chua | Associate Professor, NUS Sociology |
| 13:45 – 14:05 | The Promise and Pitfalls of Gradeless Learning: Responses to an Alternative Approach to Grading
Chris McMorran | Associate Professor, NUS Japanese Studies |
| 14:05 – 14:25 | Research from the Generative Space of the Classroom: Balancing Time and Impact
Kamalini Ramdas | Senior Lecturer, NUS Geography |
| 14:25 – 14:55 | Q & A |
| 14:55 – 15:10 | TEA BREAK |
| 15:10 – 16:45 | Panel 3 – CITIZENSHIP, COMMUNITY, AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE |
| 15:10 – 15:15 | Introduction of Researchers
Elvin Ong | Senior Tutor, NUS Political Science |
| 15:15 – 15:35 | Perceived Electoral Fairness and Media Use: Evidences from two General Elections
Weiyu Zhang | Associate Professor, NUS Communications and New Media |
| 15:35 – 15:55 | The Burdens of Ethnicity: Chinese Communities in Singapore and Their Relations with the PRC
Chong Ja Ian | Associate Professor, NUS Political Science |
| 15:55 – 16:15 | Citizenship and multilingual (homo)nationalism in Singapore’s Pink Dot discourse
Michelle M. Lazar | Associate Professor, NUS English Language and Literature |
| 16:15 – 16:45 | Q & A |
| 16:45 – 16:50 | CLOSING REMARKS |
| Elaine Lynn-Ee Ho | Associate Professor and Assistant Dean of Research, NUS FASS | |
About the Participants
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Associate Professor T. C. Chang is a tourism geographer by training, and has research interests in urban, social-cultural and tourism geographies. His research interests include Southeast Asian tourism, vernacular architecture and heritage, arts, culture, and creativity in Asian cities. A/P Chang was Assistant Dean (Alumni and External Relations, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, NUS) in 2008-2010 and Vice Dean (External Relations and Student Life, June 2010-December 2015). He was awarded the NUS Outstanding Educator Award 2006 and the Annual Teaching Excellence Award 2008. |
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Robin Loon is Associate Professor at the NUS Department of English Language and Literature. His current research/teaching interests include popular culture and performance, Singapore Theatre (with special focus on Singapore English Language Theatre), media, and performance. An active participant in the Singapore English Language Theatre scene since 1991, he has also written for the local stage. His work in theatre now mainly involves dramaturgy and play-writing.
A/P Loon conceptualized and ran Singapore’s first Dramaturg Apprentice Programme at Centre 42 in 2015 and co-organized the inaugural Asian Dramaturgs’ Network Symposium in 2016, founded by Dr Lim How Ngean. In 2014, together with Casey Lim, Chiu Chien Seen, and Michele Lim, A/P Loon set up Centre 42, a up-stream content-creation centre for Singapore theatre in partnership with the National Arts Council. |
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Assistant Professor Hamzah bin Muzaini is a cultural geographer at the Department of Southeast Asian Studies, NUS. His primary work explores the politics of remembering and forgetting, particularly as this intersects with issues of war, heritage, landscape, and postcoloniality. While his primary work has been centred on how the heritage of the Second World War has commemorated in Singapore and Malaysia, he is also broadening this into understanding the phenomenon of cultural theme parks in East Malaysia, migrant heritage making ‘from below’ among the Moluccans in the Netherlands, and the practices and politics of heritagizing the Southern Islands in Singapore (with emphasis on St John’s, Lazarus, and Seringat Islands). He has published in internationally refereed journals and is co-author/editor of Contested Memoryscapes: the Politics of Second World War Commemoration in Singapore (2016, Routledge, with Brenda Yeoh) and After Heritage: Critical Issues of Heritage from Below (2018, Edward Elgar, with Claudio Minca). |
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Zdravko Trivic is Assistant Professor at the NUS Department of Architecture, School of Design and Environment (SDE). He works closely with CSAC (Centre for Sustainable Asian Cities), CARE (Centre for Ageing Research in the Environment) and CFA (Centre For the Arts), NUS. His research interests include: multi-sensorial urbanism, health-supportive and ageing-friendly design, urban space in high-density contexts, creative placemaking and community participation. Dr Trivic is the author of Community Arts and Culture Initiatives in Singapore: Understanding the Nodal Approach (NY, London; New York: Routledge, 2020) and the co-author of Re-framing Urban Space: Urban Design for Emerging Hybrid and High-density Conditions (with Cho and Heng; New York: Routledge, 2016), among other publications. He is the recipient of two outstanding paper awards at the UIA 2017 Seoul World Architects Congress. |
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Priya Jaradi is senior lecturer at the Department of History. She is Convenor for Art History, a collaboration between National University of Singapore (NUS) and the National Gallery Singapore. Former Curator at the Asian Civilisations Museum, she combines her curatorial and scholarly interests in teaching and research. Her past publications with Oxford University Press and Marg reveal her interests in art collecting and princely modernities in South Asia. Her current research for the NUS Museum examines India-Singapore museum exchange within the context of Cold War diplomacy, the Non-Aligned Movement, and decolonization. She is a recipient of the Getty Foundation Grant for 2020 and 2021. In keeping with the multi-disciplinary ethos of her past projects, Dr Jaradi hopes to grow the Faculty’s Art History Minor and inspire students to emerge as practitioners, curators, and scholars. |
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Vincent Chua is Associate Professor at the NUS Department of Sociology. He received his PhD in Sociology from the University of Toronto in November 2010. His main research area is social networks with an emphasis on social capital – primarily how institutional factors such as labour markets and education affect the job search and networking practices of people. His other research area is the sociology of education. |
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Chris McMorran is Associate Professor at the NUS Department of Japanese Studies. A cultural geographer of contemporary Japan, his research analyzes how identity and meaning are built, practiced, experienced, and read in cultural landscapes. He has studied these processes through the lenses of tourism and labor, which has led to publications in Mobilities, Landscape Journal, Area, Tourism Geographies, and in a 2018 volume titled Rethinking Japanese Feminisms. This work will appear in the forthcoming book, Last Resort: Labor, Tourism, and Identity in Japan (University of Hawai’i Press).
A/P McMorran is also interested in the geographies of teaching and learning. Along these lines, in 2018 he was awarded a LIFT Grant ($70K) to research podcasting as a teaching and learning tool and to produce the “Home on the Dot” podcast, which takes inspiration from student research projects to analyze the multifaceted meanings of home in Singapore. In 2020, Season 3, which is devoted to stories of how Covid-19 has impacted home, began airing. |
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Kamalini Ramdas is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Geography. She teaches modules in social and cultural geography. Dr Ramdas is particularly interested in the spatialities of gender, sexuality, and ‘race’ and the application of social theory in geography. Her specific areas of interest include feminist care ethics, critical geographies of familyhood, and community and queer politics. |
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Dr Lee Li Neng is a Lecturer at the NUS Department of Psychology. He is interested in looking at how education shapes perceptions on learning and developing the youth holistically, especially in the areas of critical thinking, curiosity, and creativity. Concurrently, he is also interested in innovations and advances in education, and how technology can be utilised to provide a more personalised form of education for individuals and support the development of good teaching. |
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Weiyu Zhang is Associate Professor at the Department of Communications and New Media, National University of Singapore. She holds a Ph.D. in Communication from Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on civic engagement and ICTs, with an emphasis on Asia. She is the author of the book The Internet and New Social Formation in China: Fandom Publics in the Making (Routledge, 2016). Her published articles have appeared in Journal of Communication, Communication Theory, Communication Research, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, Information, Communication, & Society, New Media & Society, Computers & Education, Public Understanding of Science, the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, and many other journals. She recently completed a project that develops and examines an online platform for citizen deliberation. #CivicTech #OnlineDeliberation #FanActivism |
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Chong Ja Ian is Associate Professor at the NUS Department of Political Science. The focus of his teaching and research is on international relations, especially IR theory, security, Chinese foreign policy, and international relations in the Asia-Pacific. Of particular interest to him are issues that stand at the nexus of international and domestic politics, such as influences on nationalism and the consequences of major power competition on the domestic politics of third countries. A/P Chong is author of External Intervention and the Politics of State Formation — China, Indonesia, Thailand, 1893-1952 (Cambridge, 2012), which received the 2013 Best Book Award from the International Security Studies Section of the International Studies Association. He was a Harvard-Yenching Visiting Scholar in 2019-2020. |
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Michelle M. Lazar is Associate Professor and Head of the NUS Department of English Language and Literature. A linguist, she specialises in critical discourse studies, gender and sexuality, media and politics, and multimodal discourse analysis. Michelle is founding editor of the Routledge Critical Studies in Discourse monograph series, is an advisory board member of the Oxford Language, Gender, and Sexuality book series, and is on the editorial boards of Critical Discourse Studies, Discourse & Society, Social Semiotics, and Gender & Language. |
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Dr Elvin Ong is Senior Tutor in the Department of Political Science at the National University of Singapore. He was previously a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Institute of Asian Research (IAR) at the University of British Columbia. His primary research interests are in the politics and policies of authoritarian regimes, with specific focus on the formation of opposition coalitions contesting against a dominant incumbent. His book manuscript, Opposing Power: Building Opposition Alliances in Electoral Autocracies, is under contract with the University of Michigan Press, Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies Series. |
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Lionel Wee is Professor at the Department of English Language and Literature, National University of Singapore and Vice Dean of Research at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. A linguist, he is interested in language policy (especially in Southeast Asia), the grammar of Singapore English, metaphorical discourse, and general issues in sociolinguistics and pragmatics. He has published in the Journal of Pragmatics, Discourse Studies, Language in Society, Journal of Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, and Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, among others. |
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Elaine Lynn-Ee Ho is Associate Professor at the Department of Geography and Senior Research Fellow at the Asia Research Institute (ARI), National University of Singapore. She is also Assistant Dean (Research Division) at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Her research addresses how citizenship is changing as a result of multi-directional migration flows in the Asia-Pacific. She is author of Citizens in Motion: Emigration, Immigration and Re-migration Across China’s Borders (2019, Stanford University Press). Her current research focuses on two domains: first, transnational ageing and care in the Asia-Pacific; and second, im/mobilities and diaspora aid at the China-Myanmar border. She is Editor of Social and Cultural Geography, and serves on several journal editorial boards. |