In this webinar, Dr Quinton Temby and Ms Elina Ciptadi look at the ways COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation have spread online in Southeast Asia and illustrate efforts to counter such untruths.
In this seminar, Professor Edwin Wieringa examines examples of manuscripts from the 19th-century Court of Yogyakarta held in the National Library of Singapore and discusses the politics of representation and meaning-making in producing these illuminated manuscripts.
Social media is having an ever increasing impact on politics and everyday life. This Regional Social and Cultural Studies (RSCS) workshop examined the key drivers of change in the social media landscape over the past decade, and discussed issues contributing to the rapidly shifting information societies across Southeast Asia.
A substantial share of foreign direct investments have been directed towards extractive resources and their infrastructures in Mainland Southeast Asia. This Regional Social and Cultural Studies (RSCS) workshop examined issues concerning resource extraction and commodification in the region, the stakeholders involved, and their effect on local economies.
In this seminar, Dr Oliver Tappe examined the complex nature of the mining practices in Laos, and assessed the adverse impact of the industry on the rural villages in the country.
REGIONAL SOCIAL AND CULTURAL STUDIES PROGRAMME
The Politics of Art in Southeast Asia Seminar Series
About the Seminar
The consequence of the 1932 Revolution on the development of Thai modern art was the shift of art patronage from the court to a “commoner” government. In 1933, the management of the Fine Art Department (Krom Silpakorn), the national organisation responsible for the preservation, support, and promotion of arts and culture in Thailand, was transferred from the Royal Institute (Ratchabanditsabha) to the Ministry of Education. At the zenith of the revolutionary regime, the Fine Art Department, founded in 1912 during the reign of King Vajiravudh (King Rama VI, r. 1910-1925), promoted art representing the working class as a subject matter and Western realism as a stylistic preference. This resulted in the creation of a new aesthetic canon: the strong, desirable armoured body, symbol of the revolution’s commoner ready to work and sacrifice for the nation. This seminar will discuss this canon, its promotion of the ideal Thai body, and how it was, in fact, a critique of the upper class. This politics of the body was primarily manifest in the art of sculpture and promoted through Constitutional Fairs between 1937 and 1938. I will elaborate further on how these fairs served as a tool for nation-building and for the eradication of social hierarchy.
About the Speaker
Thanavi Chotpradit is a lecturer in modern and contemporary Thai art history in the Department of Art History, Faculty of Archaeology, at Silpakorn University, Bangkok, Thailand. She is also a member of the editorial collective Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art, a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to the study of contemporary and modern art in Southeast Asia. She received her PhD in art history from Birkbeck, University of London, under a Royal Thai Government Scholarship. Dr Chotpradit’s areas of interest include modern and Thai contemporary art in relation to memory studies, war commemoration, and Thai politics.
Registration
To register, please fill in this form and email to iseasevents2@iseas.edu.sg by 13 April 2018.
REGIONAL SOCIAL AND CULTURAL STUDIES PROGRAMME
About the Seminar
Urban development in Ho Chi Minh City is simultaneously a highly bureaucratic and flexible process, a paradox born out of the city’s development at the nexus of state and market practice—what is now referred to as late socialism. Decentralized government agencies and foreign investors who bring capital and infrastructural expertise to the city negotiate a wide range of city making possibilities. The result is an urban landscape made piecemeal, with each urban development project built, more often than not, in defiance of city plans.
While Ho Chi Minh City produces comprehensive infrastructure plans according to modern rational planning principles, each project is subsequently disassembled and disarticulated in order to deal with Vietnam’s decentralized governing regime and meet the demands of foreign investors, each of whom compete with one another and bring their specific and contrasting historical logics of development. Thus, infrastructure projects are not only diverse in type (i.e. roads, power plants, transportation systems, water management, etc.) but are also conditioned by source and type of investment and by the contingent and conditional connections they forge with government agencies. This diversity creates an array of infrastructure projects, each standing upon their own set of “infrastructures of infrastructure” made up of the different logics of development, various and conflicting legal and regulatory frameworks, historical developments, and principles of planning and growth.
The seminar shows how these differences condition the material outcomes of completed projects in the city by examining the World Bank’s Green Transportation Bus Rapid Transit System and its eventual disarticulation through competition with other foreign investment projects, most notably rail and metro projects that are currently under construction in the city.
About the Speaker
Hun Kim is a Visiting Fellow in the Vietnam Studies Programme at the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. He holds a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning with a designated emphasis in Global Metropolitan Studies from the University of California at Berkeley. His research interests include: urban social-spatial transformation under late-socialist and postsocialist regimes, inter-Asian circuits of investment capital in land development, infrastructure and real estate, development theory and governance. His book project, entitled, “Reform Capital: Hedging Saigon’s Urban Future” examines government reforms that facilitate inter-Asian capital flows into urban real estate projects in Saigon, Vietnam.
Registration
For registration, please fill in this form and email to <iseasevents2@iseas.edu.sg> by 1 August 2017.
REGIONAL SOCIAL AND CULTURAL STUDIES PROGRAMME
LAUNCH OF
About the Seminar
Singapore was the hub of Malay cultural and intellectual expression. Malay journalism first began with the Jawi Peranakan community in 1876, and since then, Singapore was destined to be a site for Malay publishing. The growth of numerous newspapers became channels for intellectual, cultural and political expression, accommodation and resistance. What made this possible was that Singapore’s cultural-geographical location saw the collusion of colonial communication and maritime activities, to that of newspapers and journalism. Until World War II, Singapore was a market-place for the Malay-Muslim community expressing a diversity of beliefs and identities.
Tolerance, and a tinge of republicanism were canons of the day.
Yusof Ishak was at the centre of this fateful interplay of history, geography and nationhood. The milieu and vibrancy of intellectual and journalistic activities inspired progress for the Malays alongside other communities. This culminated in his founding of Utusan Melayu – a newspaper that manifested a strong sense of Malay identity, but that was at the same time liberal enough to accommodate the views of other communities. Singapore was a world where diasporic communities converged, after all, and their search for expression ushered in an era of inter-ethnic cooperation that propelled Yusof ultimately to the position of President of Singapore.
About the Speaker
Professor Dato’ Dr Ahmad Murad Merican is a faculty member at the Centre for Policy Research and International Studies (CenPRIS), Universiti Sains Malaysia, Pulau Pinang, and an adjunct professor at the National Academy of Arts, Culture and Heritage (ASWARA) in Kuala Lumpur. He was a visiting professor at Universitas Andalas in West Sumatera in 2006 and has helped to establish the media and journalism program there. Professor Ahmad Murad was the first recipient of the Honorary President Resident Fellowship, Perdana Leadership Foundation 2009-2011.
Professor Ahmad Murad began his career as a journalist with the Malaysian National News Agency (BERNAMA) in the early 1980s. He is a columnist for the New Sunday Times and the New Straits Times, and a contributor to Bahasa Melayu dailies and periodicals such as Utusan Malaysia, founded by Yusof Ishak as Utusan Melayu in 1939. His interest in journalism, social science, and public advocacy was inspired by the scions and descendants of a 16th-century Minangkabau family which runs to more than 11 generations now, among them Tun Yusof Ishak, and his younger brother Aziz, and also Sulaiman Ahmad (the youngest brother of Tun Yusof’s father, Ishak), an intellectual in his own right who was a journalist and editor in Singapore in the 1930s.
He has a PhD in the history and philosophy of science and baccalaureates in Political Science and Journalism and has written 11 books on media, social science and history. He founded the Institute of Journalism Studies in a Malaysian public university in 2005, and sits on the panel of the Malaysian Journalism Awards and has been chairman of the Malaysian Journalism Laureate Awards. His latest book is titled In Other Words: Ideas on Journalism, Social Science and Society (2017).
About the Book
ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute is proud to launch this pictorial volume on Yusof Ishak, which consists of a biography of the man and a large collection of pictures depicting his eventful life.
Yusof Ishak, the first president of Singapore, was very much a child of his times. Being in the thick of things, he had a pioneering role in many aspects of late colonialism and in the early nation building process in Singapore. Of his generation of young and gifted men and women, few would achieve the profound impact that he came to have on his society and country. It is often forgotten today that he was the man who established the highly influential Malay-language newspaper, Utusan Melayu. His principles as a journalist, however, did not allow him to continue running the newspaper for too long after independence came to the Federation of Malaya. Yusof Ishak’s good ties with the newspaper’s lawyer, Lee Kuan Yew, and the mutual respect these two men had for each other saw him rising to become the Head of State of Singapore for three terms, first as Yang di-Pertuan Negara in 1959, and then for two terms as President of an independent republic in 1965. Always by his side was his charming and capable wife, Noor Aishah. His life was a hectic and meaningful one, and remains an inspiration for future generations of Singaporeans and Southeast Asians.
About the Author
Dr Ooi Kee Beng is the Deputy Director of ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore. His book, The Reluctant Politician: Tun Dr Ismail and His Time (2006) won the “Award of Excellence for Best Writing Published in Book Form on Any Aspect of Asia (Non-Fiction)” at the Asian Publishing Convention Awards 2008, while Continent, Coast, Ocean: Dynamics of Regionalism in Eastern Asia (Ed., 2007), was named “Top Academic Work” in 2008 by the ASEAN Book Publishers Association (ABPA).
His other noted works include The Eurasian Core and Its Edges: Dialogues with Wang Gungwu on the History of the World (2015); Merdeka for the Mind. Essays on Malaysian Struggles in the 21st Century (2015); The Third ASEAN Reader (Ed., 2015); Young and Malay. Growing up in Multicultural Malaysia (Ed., 2015); Lim Kit Siang: Defying the Odds (2015); Young and Malay: Growing Up in Multicultural Malaysia (2015); In Lieu of Ideology: An Intellectual Biography of Goh Keng Swee (2010); March 8: Eclipsing May 13 (2008); and Lost in Translation. Malaysia under Abdullah (2008). He is a columnist for The Edge, Malaysia (2011- ); editor of Trends in Southeast Asia (2013- ); and founder-editor of ISEAS Perspective (2012- ) and Penang Monthly (2009- ).
About the Discussant
Dr Norshahril Saat is a Fellow with ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. In June 2015, he was awarded a PhD in International, Political and Strategic Studies by the Australian National University (ANU) under the MUIS postgraduate scholarship scheme. His research interests are mainly on Southeast Asian politics and contemporary Islamic thought. In 2015, he published Faith, Authority and the Malays: The Ulama in Contemporary Singapore. In 2016, he co-edited Majulah!: 5o years of Malay/Muslim Community in Singapore. His articles have recently been published in journals such as Asian Journal of Social Science (AJSS), The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs, Contemporary Islam: Dynamics of Muslim Life, Review of Indonesian and Malaysian Affairs, and Studia Islamika. Dr Norshahril’s pioneering work on Singapore’s first President, Mr Yusof Ishak, was published in 2015 on the occasion of the renaming of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) to ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute.
Programme
Registration
For registration, please fill in this form and email to <iseasevents2@iseas.edu.sg> by 3 May 2017.
REGIONAL SOCIAL AND CULTURAL STUDIES PROGRAMME
Arts in Southeast Asia Seminar Series
About the Seminar
In a post Khmer Rouge world Cambodian culture is often defined by its connection to the past, yet many young Cambodian artists and designers are looking towards the future to create a new understanding of what it means to be Cambodian. This paper examines the role Cambodian contemporary artists play in helping to develop a post Khmer Rouge national identity, through examining the current events, which are transforming the Cambodian art world. Focus over the last two decades, in regards to defining Cambodian national identity, has shifted wildly from control over language, morality, and dress code to implementation of nationalistic business practices, and political reform. Control over the arts has only recently become a topic of public concern, yet for decades the artistic community has struggled with the formulation of a post Khmer Rouge voice. This paper will closely look at what is traditionally defined as “Cambodian”, and will question how contemporary artists choose to represent these elements, or for that matter, to ignore them. These artists are constantly pushing against pre-conceived notions of what it means to be Cambodian, and are striving to show both Cambodian’s and the world that their national identity is filled with more than just sacred temples and Apsara dancers.
About the Speaker
Christine Ege grew up in Northern California, but has spent the last 12 years living outside of the United States. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Art History from Franklin University in Lugano, Switzerland and her Master’s Degree in East Asian Art from Sotheby’s Institute of Art in London. She has been living in Cambodia for the last six years, where she has been involved on a day-to-day basis with emerging artistic talent. She is currently the Director of The Institute for Executive, Professional, and Community Education and Head of the Digital Arts and Design Department at Zaman University. She teaches many courses in the fields of art and design, with focuses on art history, business practices in art, web design, and animation. She is currently working on research related to buying and selling practices in the Cambodian contemporary art market. Her research focuses on evaluating business practices and market potential to understand how to get Cambodians more active in the local market.
Registration
To register, please fill in this form and email it to <iseasevents2@iseas.edu.sg> by Tuesday, 11 April 2017.
REGIONAL SOCIAL AND CULTURAL STUDIES PROGRAMME
Arts in Southeast Asia Seminar Series
About the Seminar
Political violence is not uncommon in Southeast Asia. This seminar looks at artistic articulations of political violence in Indonesia and Thailand. Two controversial incidents, namely the Indonesian mass killings of 1965-1966 and the bloodshed on 6 October 1976 in Thailand, were ignited by
anti-communism sentiments and resulted in acts of violence from respective states. The consequences of these two political events are gradually and slowly addressed today but the process of justice and reconciliation is still far from complete.
The seminar will discuss the construction of state narratives and describe how current forms of arts such as documentary films are used to counter the state’s narratives in both countries. These documentaries, directed by foreigners and local film makers, have played significant roles in giving voice to victims and exposing the trivialisation of violence. 40 Years of Silence: An Indonesian Tragedy (2009), The Act of Killing (2012), The Look of Silence (2014), Pulau Buru: Tanah Air Beta (2016), Silence-Memories (2014) and Respectfully Yours (2016) are documentaries revealing the stories and memories of victims and perpetrators from the two incidents.
This seminar will argue that these films have become testimonial artworks in revealing victims maltreatment and exposing how violence and impunity have become the norm. Such artworks are also responsible for paving the way for ‘alternative memories’ for the nation.
About the Speaker
Chontida Auikool is a lecturer from International Studies (ASEAN-China) programme, Thammasat University, Bangkok. She earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Southeast Asian Studies and completed her Master’s Degree in International Relations from Thammasat University. Her research interests include Indonesia, Chinese Indonesian, conflict and violence, and Southeast Asian film. She published articles such as “The Ambivalent of Chinese – Indonesian Position in Medan, Indonesia” in Journal Lakon (Airlangga University), “Ethnic Relations in Transnational Context: The Case Study of Chinese Indonesians-Indonesians in Medan after Suharto” in The Asian Conference on Arts & Humanities proceedings, “Breaking Silence of Indonesian Mass Killings between 1965 and 1966” in TU-UGM Research Seminar Making Southeast Asia and Beyond proceedings and a short article “Indomie: Political Food and Hidden Hugger in Indonesia” in Sarakadee Magazine. She is also a member of Film Kawan, an informal group organising Southeast Asian film events in Bangkok. She also published film reviews for the ASEAN film column in a Thai Magazine, Bioscope. She reviewed films such as Yasmine, Cinta Tapi Beda, As You Were, Sayang Disayang, Lilet Never Happened, The Tales of Waria.
Registration
To register, please fill in this form and email it to <iseasevents2@iseas.edu.sg> by 30 March 2017.