I will be giving a short talk on my current project on modern Malay print romance at Leiden University on 30th March 2022 via Zoom. For more info on registration, click here.
About the talk:
What is the significance of place and space in the print culture of Malay romance? My presentation demonstrates how print romance is made possible by the relations of production and the production of space across interlocking scales – the local, national, and global. It considers the scalar-spatial transition from factory floor to the page by working-class Malay women who, as mobile subjects, are mobilised by state-sponsored affirmative action, neoliberalism and global manufacturing industry. Since the 1970s, Malaysia has been the site of global electronics manufacturing performed by generations of young factory workers who redefined modern gender, sexuality, and intimacy in Malay society. Decades later, the same places of global manufacturing have been reinvented as sites of education, social mobility and Islamic middle-class aspiration for women. They have also become places and spaces for the production and consumption of print romance. In my brief presentation, I discuss the role of place and space in the production of intimacy and argue that mobility is a key category in understanding the social significance of modern print romance.
Alicia Izharuddin 