Angry Malay Woman

Madrid

When I visited Madrid for the first time last December, I was spellbound by the city. It seemed like a good time to visit. December is gentler in Spain than in northwestern Europe and I was rewarding myself for having completed a major project. With A in tow, we inhaled what Madrid had to offer… Continue reading Madrid

New publication [January 2025]

Back in May 2022, I was invited to a lovely workshop organised by Cüneyt Çakırlar at Nottingham Trent University. It was my first time in the ancient, much spruced-up city of Nottingham, the northern English spring gently warmed my cheeks. The workshop would eventually produce a new edited volume, Transnational Horror: Folklore, Genre, and Cultural… Continue reading New publication [January 2025]

Spirals and labyrinths

A mysterious manuscript by an unknown author, a found object, is duly published by one Peter Cornell who claims authorship and gives it the title Ways of Paradise (2024, translated by Saskia Vogel). It is a work of Casaubonian ambition, but with more success and humility, gaining cult status when it was first published in… Continue reading Spirals and labyrinths

New publication (June 2024)

2024 is a bit of a bumper year, a ‘full house’ of publications for me: a journal article, book chapter, video essay, and literary magazine article. Of the four, I am especially pleased that my latest journal article on the public personality and entrepreneur Dato Seri Vida is now published in the Religion and Gender… Continue reading New publication (June 2024)

Film x reading group event in Singapore (June 2024)

When I started my first academic job at the University of Malaya, I was determined to take, in my own limited way and with varying degrees of success, the tutorial session outside the university confines. These were organised as monthly feminist reading groups that invited members of the public to join in a discussion of… Continue reading Film x reading group event in Singapore (June 2024)

Lady-in-Waiting

Maybe I am destined for the shit life. Despite attempts to escape, I am back here again. When will this shittiness end? Do I just wait around for this slow bleak season to pass? If I wait too long, would I have wasted my life? While I wait, I find myself slowly sinking into a… Continue reading Lady-in-Waiting

New publications 2024

Earlier this year, after more than a year of online tutorials and mentoring with leading film scholars of video-graphic production funded by an AHRC project led by Alison Peirse, I was proud to see my first ever video essay published in MAI: Feminism and Visual Culture. It is part of a Special Issue edited by… Continue reading New publications 2024

A story from the past for Valentine’s Day 2023

There was once a perfume merchant who lived in the 3rd century BC called Upagupta. One day, he caught the eye of the beautiful courtesan Vasavadutta. Desiring his audience, she sent her servant to arrange a meeting with him. He declines her invitation to meet him, however, responding enigmatically that he will see her ‘when… Continue reading A story from the past for Valentine’s Day 2023

‘Between laughter and silence’

Part of the joy of being in the business of teaching and learning is that the learning never quite ends, and if you’re lucky, you get masterclasses from with some of the greatest minds in the business. I was incredibly privileged to attend a personal tutorial session with Professor Catherine Grant recently to work on… Continue reading ‘Between laughter and silence’

Reading the Malay-Indonesian Film syllabus

It’s now 4th week of term, and so obviously I’m only sharing this for the benefit of non-students of this course. Designed for final year undergraduates majoring in Malay Studies, this course is an intensive critical engagement with key film and scholarly texts on Malay/Singaporean and Indonesian cinema. It was a pleasure creating this syllabus,… Continue reading Reading the Malay-Indonesian Film syllabus