Angry Malay Woman

How to teach Gender and Sexuality in Malaysia

It was a huge privilege to teach Gender and Sexuality at the University of Malaya between August 2015 and June 2019. Right from the outset of my appointment, I overhauled the syllabus to reflect current, local and global debates in the field of feminist and queer theory. I felt that it was absolutely pertinent to… Continue reading How to teach Gender and Sexuality in Malaysia

Structures of feeling and dark laughter: A few more publications for 2019

Utter neglect has plagued this blog yet again. To my detriment I’m sure. I’ve missed opportunities to properly self-promote my work on this blog, the very place that launched my life in writing. To remedy that, here are some rather belated updates. 1. Back in February 2018, my friends Adil Johan, Nazry Bahrawi and me… Continue reading Structures of feeling and dark laughter: A few more publications for 2019

Pink diamonds and a pink Lamborghini: Reflections on personal narrative, charisma, and rethinking shame as political affect

Note: This was a paper presented at the International Conference on Gender and Sexuality in Asia (CoGen 2018) in Monash University, Sunway Malaysia in November 2018. Friends who have followed my research and talks in recent years know it’s a product of years of my fascination with Dato Vida. Vignette 1: In a music video… Continue reading Pink diamonds and a pink Lamborghini: Reflections on personal narrative, charisma, and rethinking shame as political affect

The New Malay Woman, a modern cosmopolitan subject

Plenty of research are re-discovering cosmopolitan female subjects and the ‘modern girl’ in the late colonial and early postcolonial eras. In my own work, I’ve added to the list the ‘New Malay Woman’ who was more than a consumer and image, but a literary voice and agent of change: [She is ] independent, highly-educated, urban… Continue reading The New Malay Woman, a modern cosmopolitan subject

New publications

I am guilty for not updating this blog, but my written work have been appearing elsewhere! Among them include an article in Signs journal, something I’ve been working on the past few years on unveiling and non-veiling practices among Malay-Muslim women and their reconstruction of self and identity. Another article is now published in Kajian… Continue reading New publications

Toughness in academia is never enough

I’ve been self-censoring myself for too long. Mostly out of fear of being poor again and of losing out on opportunities. But then I realised, much to my despair, that one can never win as a woman in academia, especially in Malaysian academia. It shouldn’t take long to identify sexism in academia. But it requires… Continue reading Toughness in academia is never enough

‘Romantic’ sexual violence, mediated intimacy and the single Muslim woman in Malaysia

“Romance imagines peace, security, and ease precisely because there is dissension, insecurity, and difficulty” (Janice Radway, Reading the Romance 1984, p. 15) Lately I’ve become very interested in how heterosexual Malay-Muslim women talk about romantic intimacy in their pursuit of potential partners, and why sexual violence features so significantly in Malay language romance novels. The… Continue reading ‘Romantic’ sexual violence, mediated intimacy and the single Muslim woman in Malaysia

On women’s laughter in Malay horror (Part 2)

This is Part 2 of a two-part post on the pontianak and women’s laughter in Malaysian horror cinema. Read Part 1. Consider laughter’s capacity to upset and as a vehicle of resistance. More specifically when women laugh at men, laughing at patriarchy, laughing at power, laughing from below. Situated below speech in the register of… Continue reading On women’s laughter in Malay horror (Part 2)

#MeToo and the deafening Malaysian silence

I’ve talked about sexual harassment quite a bit. In light of the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the global domino effect it had across other industries and institutions within and outside the US, it seemed inevitable that Malaysian liberal circles felt compelled to join in the conversation, albeit in small-scale curated debates and scattered hashtag activism… Continue reading #MeToo and the deafening Malaysian silence

On women’s laughter in Malay horror (Part 1)

This is an edited version of a conference paper presented at the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies conference in Seoul, South Korea in July 2017 The meaning of laughter, seen as springing from humour and moral degradation, has been a matter of philosophical preoccupation with human morality since the ancient time of Aristotle. And for much of… Continue reading On women’s laughter in Malay horror (Part 1)