Asiatic: IIUM Journal of English Language and Literature
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Keith Tan, Mission Pioneers of Malaya: Origins, Architecture and Legacy of Our Pioneering Schools
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Building a Malaysian Community Online: An Analysis of That Effing Show and Online Responses to It
Full text linkUpon achieving independence in 1957, Malaysia became a sovereign political entity. Now, fifty-seven years later, there is still uncertainty as to whether the state has developed into a nation. I question the extent to which all Malaysians are allowed to be part of a larger, national community within the politically-constructed framework of the state. For politically-expedient reasons, citizens are constructed as being fundamentally different from each other, and these differences have had a deep and damaging effect on their perceptions of their place, and the place of others, within the social framework. This has been compounded by the lack of space for open discussion of these issues. I wish to argue in this paper that the growth of the Internet and the burgeoning of social media have created a space within which a broader and more inclusive sense of community can be considered, examined and argued about, thus perhaps being allowed to grow and develop further. In order to examine this subject, I will be analysing a popular Malaysian web show called That Effing Show, which comments on Malaysian politics and society. What makes That Effing Show worth taking a closer look at, is the fact that it is disseminated via the internet, and is easily accessible on YouTube. The medium allows for immediate and visible responses from viewers. It is, therefore, a far more dialogical medium than traditional print media. This paper will analyse both the content of the shows and the responses generated in the comments section
Diasporic Writer’s Self-Orientalisation or Self-Reflexivity: American Orientalist Discourse and the Rejection of Eileen Chang’s The Rouge of the North
Full text linkBy adopting the rules of exclusion in the Foucauldian idea of discourse, this paper explores why The Rouge of the North by Eileen Chang, a diasporic writer, was rejected for publication in the United States. During the early years of the Cold War, a “positive†stereotypical image of Chinese Americans as assimilable was constructed in the American Orientalist discourse, to win over Asian and American minds. Because the more negative image of the characters in the novel did not comply with this image, it was excluded from circulation. This invalidates some current accusations of Chang as self-orientalising. This paper contends that labelling diasporic writers like Chang as self-orientalisng dismisses the ambivalence of the construction of the stereotypes of Orientals in Orientalist discourse. Besides, the label ignores Chang's conscious refusal to contribute to the epistemic production desired by American hegemonic power to facilitate its function. Her refusal demonstrates her self-reflexivity as an intellectual, rather than self-orientalisation
Tagore and Transition: Saving the World for Fun
Full text linkHow do we respond to seeing our world under threat: from climate change, resource depletion, species extinctions, land degradation? We surely want to do what we can to save it, but what for? Do we aim to avert the most extreme threats in order to continue abusing the world, and probably making most people miserable? Perhaps we can find ways to save the world and make people happier at the same time. Two initiatives a century apart – Tagore and Transition – make conviviality, creativity and celebration central to their approach to world change. The poet and polymath Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) aimed for cooperative self-reliance for Indian villages, seeking to overcome caste, class and religious divisions. He emphasised the importance of arts and crafts, including performing plays and music together. A similar ethos is evident in today’s Transition Initiatives – now numbering thousands in over forty countries. A study has shown that participants value conviviality and enjoyment equally with making progress towards the goals of moving their local economy away from dependence on fossil fuels. There is a circumstantial connection between Tagore and Transition in that the first Transition Town was established in Totnes, near Dartington, where Tagore’s colleague and friend Leonard Elmhirst carried out his own experiment in rural reconstruction, modelled on Tagore’s. In this paper, I examine the aims and approaches of Tagore and Transition to test the idea that community self-help focussed on personal freedom and satisfaction is a viable and attractive solution to today’s social and ecological crisis.Â
“Eating Wordsâ€: Alimentary Motifs in Shirley Geok-lin Lim’s Poetry
No full textIn diasporic literature, alimentary motifs tend to play oppositional roles in relation to nostalgia: either they are evoked to reify longing for homeland, or to disavow it. Closely linked to these roles, and especially pertinent to immigrant women, is also food’s function as critique of ideology. This essay explores food and food-related motifs in Shirley Geok-lin Lim’s poems to elicit the paradox of nostalgia inherent in them, while also demonstrating their further complication of nostalgia as a concept