Research and publications

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

‘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

From ‘nowhere’ to ‘somewhere’

In her famous essay on situated knowledges, Donna Haraway writes about why the place of ‘subjugated knowledges’ is more politically privileged and ‘preferred’ over the position of established authoritative knowledge: ‘… they are preferred because in principle they are least likely to allow the denial of the critical and interpretive core of all knowledge. They… Continue reading From ‘nowhere’ to ‘somewhere’

Voiceover exercise for Doing Women’s Global Horror Film History

For the second exercise of the AHRC-funded project, I have created an experimental voiceover video that combines an unrelated audio recording with scenes from a horror film, in this case Amanda Nell Eu’s It’s Easier to Raise Cattle (Lagi Senang Jaga Sekandang Lembu, 2017). Amanda’s film is excellent for this exercise; it’s largely devoid of… Continue reading Voiceover exercise for Doing Women’s Global Horror Film History