Since submitting my most recent book manuscript to my publisher in June, I threw myself into films; watching a feature a day or across several days on most days of the week, several shorts a day, nearly all on the Criterion Channel, at the last ASEACC conference in Chiang Mai, the Painting with Light art… Continue reading Avid film-watching, watching films avidly
Research and publications
A golden year in Leiden
There’s nothing like being high above a colony of water lilies floating across the Rapenburg on a bright summer’s day. The buildings that flank the canal cast languid shadows over the water and passers-by on foot and bicycles. After taking a picture of this scene on my phone, I told myself: I want to remember… Continue reading A golden year in Leiden
Lunch time Malay men
A fond memory growing up with a weekend father was him taking me and my younger sister to a long leisurely lunch on Friday afternoons, then ice cream at Swensen’s. My sister and I were aware that he was bunking off Friday prayer at the mosque to spend time with us, which was time better… Continue reading Lunch time Malay men
Grey hell
Luis Buñuel once noted (half jokingly) that the universality of faith had disappeared in the twentieth century because the church had so exaggerated the supposed horrors of hell that no one could take it seriously anymore. If now, at the beginning of the third millennium, we take a look back at the twentieth century, perhaps… Continue reading Grey hell
Be like Insiang
Lino Brocka’s film from 1976, Insiang, opens in a slaughterhouse. Hung by their hind legs, loud squealing pigs meet their end by a decisive stab down the neck. We never meet anymore pigs, alive or dead, later in the film, which means this is but a grisly foreshadowing for things to come. As viewers, we… Continue reading Be like Insiang
The secret pleasures of peer review
The work of reviewing manuscripts is something many academics complain about; it’s mostly uncompensated labour done for rich publishing conglomerates. Journal platforms do offer reviewers a means to get their reviewing work ‘recognised’, but it is more data collection than actual recognition or compensation. It’s common to hear, usually from male academics, that we should… Continue reading The secret pleasures of peer review
‘Gender ideology extremism’
It’s funny how minds with a mission to dominate and repress think alike. They repeat the same words (‘gender ideology’) and target the same vulnerable groups (transgender women) in the name of ‘protecting’ women and even women’s rights. In one of the many executive orders issued within the first one hundred days of Trump’s second… Continue reading ‘Gender ideology extremism’
Dark days ahead for gender
After the truly woeful ruling by the UK’s supreme court last week – that only ‘biological’ women can be legally classified as women – I needed to pause all my work and better understand what is going on. For years, I was aware of an offshoot of British feminism who call themselves ‘gender critical’ campaigners… Continue reading Dark days ahead for gender
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]
Alicia Izharuddin 