Academic literature on the topic 'Singaporean fiction (English)'

This article focuses on historicising Singaporean English/Singlish and tracing its genealogy as a demotic language to understand the changing relationship between Singlish and the Singaporean state. It takes as an entry point a recent infomercial-style music video featuring the well-known fictive Singlish-speaking character Phua Chu Kang that was released by the Singaporean government in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. It encouraged residents to get vaccinated for their own protection and was widely circulated across mainstream news media as well as other platforms. Mining the character of Phua Chu Kang, previously fiercely criticised by the government for speaking Singlish, the article historicises Singlish and its shifting place in Singapore’s cultural politics and language policy. It demonstrates how the language has shifted from a previous position as a state antagonist to a demotic language now actively mobilised by the state. In so doing, it updates extant understandings of Singlish in relation to language policy and culture in Singapore where antagonism has given way to a relationship of ambivalence with the state. More broadly, it also highlights the instrumental value of mobilising a demotic language for its persuasive potential within speech communities that have an affinity for it.

As an international school which is an affiliation of Al-Irsyad Singapore, the curriculum applied at Al-IrsyadSatya Islamic School, Kotabaru Parahyangan, Bandung is Cambridge and national curriculae. Thus, the language usedin the classroom and in school area is English. The combination of the two curriculae causes two cultures (English andIndonesian) to meet.The teaching-learning activities conducted by teachers who were participants of the workshop isbasically the area where the two cultures meet. It is within this frame that postcolonial context becomes necessary as anapproach lens of the writing activity conducted in the workshop within the scheme of Community Engagement. Thisarticle describes the workshop on writing autogiobraphical fiction in the scheme of postcolonial autobiography forteachers of the English Department, Al-Irsyad Satya Islamic School, Kotabaru Parahyangan, Bandung. The participantswere teachers whose daily responsibilities are related to teaching-learning activities in English. This workshop is projectedto assist teachers in having consciousness both within themselves and their surroundings, and also the ability to identifytheir positions in the global world. The main activity of this workshop is writing fiction whose materials related topersonal experiences

Review of Tony Bex & Richard J. Watts (eds), Standard English: the widening debate. London: Routledge. 1999. Pp. xi + 312. Hardback £50, ISBN 0 415 191629; paperback £15.99, ISBN 0 415 191637.According to D'Souza (1999) the question of standard English ‘is one of the great, unresolved problems that we are carrying into the twenty-first century’ (p. 271). Why should this question be so important and why so unresolved? And what does the book under review here add to our possible understanding of this issue? There are a number of significant issues here. First, there is the question of definition: what is a standard language? From this follows the ontological question as to whether they actually exist or are merely convenient (or inconvenient) fictions. Are we talking about spoken or written language? And in the global context, there are questions such as whether a global standard of international English exists or is emerging? Or is international intelligibility always a negotiation of possibilities with no obvious standard? And how do the new standard Englishes of Singapore, India, or Hong Kong relate both to all the other forms of English within those countries and to the other regionalized standards as well as the possible international standard? From definitional questions we move on to more political and pedagogical ones: Are standard languages hegemonic forms to be opposed? Are standard languages hegemonic forms to be acquired? Does access to standard language give people greater social and economic mobility, or is this another myth associated with standard languages?

-Leonard Y. Andaya, Michel Jacq-Hergoualc'h, The Malay Peninsula; Crossroads of the maritime silk road (100 BC-1300 AD). [Translated by Victoria Hobson.] Leiden: Brill, 2002, xxxv + 607 pp. [Handbook of oriental studies, 13. -Greg Bankoff, Resil B. Mojares, The war against the Americans; Resistance and collaboration in Cebu 1899-1906. Quezon city: Ateneo de Manila University, 1999, 250 pp. -R.H. Barnes, Andrea Katalin Molnar, Grandchildren of the Ga'e ancestors; Social organization and cosmology among the Hoga Sara of Flores. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2000, xii + 306 pp. [Verhandeling 185.] -Peter Boomgaard, Emmanuel Vigneron, Le territoire et la santé; La transition sanitaire en Polynésie francaise. Paris: CNRS Éditions, 1999, 281 pp. [Espaces et milieux.] -Clara Brakel-Papenhuyzen, Raechelle Rubinstein, Beyond the realm of the senses; The Balinese ritual of kekawin composition. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2000, xv + 293 pp. [Verhandelingen 181.] -Ian Caldwell, O.W. Wolters, History, culture, and region in Southeast Asian perspectives. Ithaca, NY: Southeast Asia program, Cornell University/Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian studies, 1999, 272 pp. [Studies on Southeast Asia 26.] -Peter van Diermen, Jonathan Rigg, More than the soil; Rural change in Southeast Asia. Harlow, Essex: Prentice Hall / Pearson education, 2001, xv + 184 pp. -Guy Drouot, Martin Stuart-Fox, Historical dictionary of Laos. Second edition. Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, 2001, lxi + 527 pp. [Asian/Oceanian historical dictionaries series 35.] [First edition 1992.] -Doris Jedamski, Elsbeth Locher-Scholten, Women and the colonial state; Essays on gender and modernity in the Netherlands Indies 1900-1942. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2000, 251 pp. -Carool Kersten, Robert Hampson, Cross-cultural encounters in Joseph Conrad's Malay fiction. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000, xi + 248 pp. -Victor T. King, C. Michael Hall ,Tourism in South and Southeast Asia; Issues and cases. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann, 2000, xiv + 293 pp., Stephen Page (eds) -John McCarthy, Bernard Sellato, Forest, resources and people in Bulungan; Elements for a history of settlement, trade and social dynamics in Borneo, 1880-2000. Jakarta: Center for international forestry research (CIFOR), 2001, ix + 183 pp. -Naomi M. McPherson, Michael French Smith, Village on the edge; Changing times in Papua New Guinea. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002, xviii + 214 pp. -Gert J. Oostindie, Peter van Wiechen, Vademecum van de Oost- en West-Indische Compagnie Historisch-geografisch overzicht van de Nederlandse aanwezigheid in Afrika, Amerika, Azië en West-Australië vanaf 1602 tot heden. Utrecht: Bestebreurtje, 2002, 381 pp. -Gert J. Oostindie, C.L. Temminck Groll, The Dutch overseas; Architectural Survey; Mutual heritage of four centuries in three continents. (in cooperation with W. van Alphen and with contributions from H.C.A. de Kat, H.C. van Nederveen Meerkerk and L.B. Wevers), Zwolle: Waanders/[Zeist]: Netherlands Department for Conservation, [2002]. 479 pp. -Gert J. Oostindie, M.H. Bartels ,Hollanders uit en thuis; Archeologie, geschiedenis en bouwhistorie gedurende de VOC-tijd in de Oost, de West en thuis; Cultuurhistorie van de Nederlandse expansie. Hilversum: Verloren, 2002, 190 pp. [SCHI-reeks 2.], E.H.P. Cordfunke, H. Sarfatij (eds) -Henk Schulte Nordholt, Tony Day, Fluid iron; State formation in Southeast Asia. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002, xii + 339 pp. -Nick Stanley, Nicholas Thomas ,Double vision; Art histories and colonial histories in the Pacific. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999, xii + 289 pp., Diane Losche, Jennifer Newell (eds) -Heather Sutherland, David Henley, Jealousy and justice; The indigenous roots of colonial rule in northern Sulawesi. Amsterdam: VU Uitgeverij, 2002, 106 pp. -Gerard Termorshuizen, Piet Hagen, Journalisten in Nederland; Een persgeschiedenis in portretten 1850-2000. Amsterdam: Arbeiderspers, 2002, 600 pp. -Amy E. Wassing, Bart de Prins, Voor keizer en koning; Leonard du Bus de Gisignies 1780-1849; Commissaris-Generaal van Nederlands-Indië. Amsterdam: Balans, 2002, 288 pp. -Robert Wessing, Michaela Appel, Hajatan in Pekayon; Feste bei Heirat und Beschneidung in einem westjavanischen Dorf. München: Verlag des Staatlichen Museums für Völkerkunde, 2001, 160 pp. [Münchner Beiträge zur Völkerkunde, Beiheft I.] -Nicholas J. White, Matthew Jones, Conflict and confrontation in South East Asia, 1961-1965; Britain, the United States, Indonesia and the creation of Malaysia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, xv + 325 pp. -Edwin Wieringa, Peter Riddell, Islam and the Malay-Indonesian world; Transmission and responses. London: Hurst, 2001, xvii + 349 pp. -Edwin Wieringa, Stuart Robson ,Javanese-English dictionary. (With the assistance of Yacinta Kurniasih), Singapore: Periplus, 2002, 821 pp., Singgih Wibisono (eds) -Henk Schulte Nordholt, Edward Aspinall ,Local power and politics in Indonesia; Decentralisation and democracy. Sin gapore: Institute of Southeast Asian studies, 2003, 296 pp. [Indonesia Assessment.], Greg Fealy (eds) -Henke Schulte Nordholt, Coen Holtzappel ,Riding a tiger; Dilemmas of integration and decentralization in Indonesia. Amsterdam: Rozenburg, 2002, 320 pp., Martin Sanders, Milan Titus (eds) -Henk Schulte Nordholt, Minako Sakai, Beyond Jakarta; Regional autonomy and local society in Indonesia. Adelaide: Crawford House, 2002, xvi + 354 pp. -Henk Schulte Nordholt, Damien Kingsbury ,Autonomy and disintegration in Indonesia. London; RoutledgeCurzon, 2003, xiv + 219 pp., Harry Aveling (eds)

The use of the family home as a setting for television sitcoms (situation comedies) has long been recognised for its ability to provide audiences with an identifiable site of ontological security (much discussed by Giddens, Scannell, Saunders and others). From the beginnings of American sitcoms with such programs as Leave it to Beaver, and through the trail of The Brady Bunch, The Cosby Show, Roseanne, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and on to Home Improvement, That 70s Show and How I Met Your Mother, the US has led the way with screenwriters and producers capitalising on the value of using the suburban family dwelling as a fixed setting. The most obvious advantage is the use of an easily constructed and inexpensive set, most often on a TV studio soundstage requiring only a few rooms (living room, kitchen and bedroom are usually enough to set the scene), and a studio audience. In Singapore, sitcoms have had similar successes; portraying the lives of ‘ordinary people’ in their home settings. Some programs have achieved phenomenal success, including an unprecedented ten year run for Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd from 1996-2007, closely followed by Under One Roof (1994-2000 and an encore season in 2002), and Living with Lydia (2001-2005). This article furthers Blunt and Dowling’s exploration of the “critical geography” of home, by providing a focused analysis of home-based sitcoms in the nation-state of Singapore. The use of the home tells us a lot. Roseanne’s cluttered family home represents a lived reality for working-class families throughout the Western world. In Friends, the seemingly wealthy ‘young’ people live in a fashionable apartment building, while Seinfeld’s apartment block is much less salubrious, indicating (in line with the character) the struggle of the humble comedian. Each of these examples tells us something about not just the characters, but quite often about class, race, and contemporary societies. In the Singaporean programs, the home in Under One Roof (hereafter UOR) represents the major form of housing in Singapore, and the program as a whole demonstrates the workability of Singaporean multiculturalism in a large apartment block. Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd (PCK) demonstrates the entrepreneurial abilities of even under-educated Singaporeans, with its lead character, a building contractor, living in a large freestanding dwelling – generally reserved for the well-heeled of Singaporean society. And in Living with Lydia (LWL) (a program which demonstrates Singapore’s capacity for global integration), Hong Kong émigré Lydia is forced to share a house (less ostentatious than PCK’s) with the family of the hapless Billy B. Ong. There is perhaps no more telling cultural event than the sitcom. In the 1970s, The Brady Bunch told us more about American values and habits than any number of news reports or cop shows. A nation’s identity is uncovered; it bares its soul to us through the daily tribulations of its TV households. In Singapore, home-based sitcoms have been one of the major success stories in local television production with each of these three programs collecting multiple prizes at the region-wide Asian Television Awards. These sitcoms have been able to reflect the ideals and values of the Singaporean nation to audiences both at ‘home’ and abroad. This article explores the worlds of UOR, PCK, and LWL, and the ways in which each of the fictional homes represents key features of the multi-ethnic, multi-cultural Singapore. Through ownership and regulation, Singaporean TV programs operate as a firm link between the state and its citizens. These sitcoms follow regular patterns where the ‘man of the house’ is more buffoon than breadwinner – in a country defined by its neo-Confucian morality, sitcoms allow a temporary subversion of patriarchal structures. In this article I argue that the central theme in Singaporean sitcoms is that while home is a personal space, it is also a valuable site for national identities to be played out. These identities are visible in the physical indicators of the exterior and interior living spaces, and the social indicators representing a benign patriarchy and a dominant English language. Structure One of the key features of sitcoms is the structure: cold open – titles – establishing shot – opening scene. Generally the cold opening (aka “the teaser”) takes place inside the home to quickly (re)establish audience familiarity with the location and the characters. The title sequence then features, in the case of LWL and PCK, the characters outside the house (in LWL this is in cartoon format), and in UOR (see Figure 1) it is the communal space of the barbeque area fronting the multi-story HDB (Housing Development Board) apartment blocks. Figure 1: Under One Roof The establishing shot at the end of each title sequence, and when returning from ad breaks, is an external view of the characters’ respective dwellings. In Seinfeld this establishing shot is the New York apartment block, in Roseanne it is the suburban house, and the Singaporean sitcoms follow the same format (see Figure 2). Figure 2: Phua Chu Kang External Visions of the Home This emphasis on exterior buildings reminds the viewer that Singaporean housing is, in many ways, unique. As a city-state (and a young one at that) its spatial constraints are particularly limiting: there simply isn’t room for suburban housing on quarter acre blocks. It rapidly transformed from an “empty rock” to a scattered Malay settlement of bay and riverside kampongs (villages) recognisable by its stilt houses. Then in the shadow of colonialism and the rise of modernity, the kampongs were replaced in many cases by European-inspired terrace houses. Finally, in the post-colonial era high-rise housing began to swell through the territory, creating what came to be known as the “HDB new town”, with some 90% of the population now said to reside in HDB units, and many others living in private high-rises (Chang 102, 104). Exterior shots used in UOR (see Figure 3) consistently emphasise the distinctive HDB blocks. As with the kampong housing, high-rise apartments continue notions of communal living in that “Living below, above and side by side other people requires tolerance of neighbours and a respect towards the environment of the housing estate for the good of all” (104). The provision of readily accessible public housing was part of the “covenant between the newly enfranchised electorate and the elected government” (Chua 47). Figure 3: Establishing shot from UOR In UOR, we see the constant interruption of the lives of the Tan family by their multi-ethnic neighbours. This occurs to such an extent as to be a part of the normal daily flow of life in Singaporean society. Chang argues that despite the normally interventionist activities of the state, it is the “self-enforcing norms” of behaviour that have worked in maintaining a “peaceable society in high-rise housing” (104). This communitarian attitude even extends to the large gated residence of PCK, home to an almost endless stream of relatives and friends. The gate itself seems to perform no restrictive function. But such a “peaceable society” can also be said to be a result of state planning which extends to the “racial majoritarianism” imposed on HDB units in the form of quotas determining “the actual number of households of each of the three major races [Chinese, Malay and Indian] … to be accommodated in a block of flats” (Chua 55). Issues of race are important in Singapore where “the inscription of media imagery bears the cultural discourse and materiality of the social milieu” (Wong 120) perhaps nowhere more graphically illustrated than in the segregation of TV channels along linguistic / cultural lines. These 3 programs all featured on MediaCorp TV’s predominantly English-language Channel 5 and are, in the words of Roland Barthes, “anchored” by dint of their use of English. Home Will Eat Itself The consumption of home-based sitcoms by audiences in their own living-rooms creates a somewhat self-parodying environment. As John Ellis once noted, it is difficult to escape from the notion that “TV is a profoundly domestic phenomenon” (113) in that it constantly attempts to “include the audiences own conception of themselves into the texture of its programmes” (115). In each of the three Singaporean programs living-rooms are designed to seat characters in front of a centrally located TV set – at most all the audience sees is the back of the TV, and generally only when the TV is incorporated into a storyline, as in the case of PCK in Figure 4 (note the TV set in the foreground). Figure 4: PCK Even in this episode of PCK when the lead characters stumble across a pornographic video starring one of the other lead characters, the viewer only hears the program. Perhaps the most realistic (and acerbic) view of how TV reorganises our lives – both spatially in the physical layout of our homes, and temporally in the way we construct our viewing habits (eating dinner or doing the housework while watching the screen) – is the British “black comedy”, The Royle Family. David Morley (443) notes that “TV and other media have adapted themselves to the circumstances of domestic consumption while the domestic arena itself has been simultaneously redefined to accommodate their requirements”. Morley refers to The Royle Family’s narrative that rests on the idea that “for many people, family life and watching TV have become indistinguishable to the extent that, in this fictional household, it is almost entirely conducted from the sitting positions of the viewers clustered around the set” (436). While TV is a central fixture in most sitcoms, its use is mostly as a peripheral thematic device with characters having their viewing interrupted by the arrival of another character, or by a major (within the realms of the plot) event. There is little to suggest that “television schedules have instigated a significant restructuring of family routines” as shown in Livingstone’s audience-based study of UK viewers (104). In the world of the sitcom, the temporalities of characters’ lives do not need to accurately reflect that of “real life” – or if they do, things quickly descend to the bleakness exemplified by the sedentary Royles. As Scannell notes, “broadcast output, like daily life, is largely uneventful, and both are punctuated (predictably and unpredictably) by eventful occasions” (4). To show sitcom characters in this static, passive environment would be anathema to the “real” viewer, who would quickly lose interest. This is not to suggest that sitcoms are totally benign though as with all genres they are “the outcome of social practices, received procedures that become objectified in the narratives of television, then modified in the interpretive act of viewing” (Taylor 14). In other words, they feature a contextualisation that is readily identifiable to members of an established society. However, within episodes themselves, it as though time stands still – character development is almost non-existent, or extremely slow at best and we see each episode has “flattened past and future into an eternal present in which parents love and respect one another, and their children forever” (Taylor 16). It takes some six seasons before the character of PCK becomes a father, although in previous seasons he acts as a mentor to his nephew, Aloysius. Contained in each episode, in true sitcom style, are particular “narrative lines” in which “one-liners and little comic situations [are] strung on a minimal plot line” containing a minor problem “the solution to which will take 22 minutes and pull us gently through the sequence of events toward a conclusion” (Budd et al. 111). It is important to note that the sitcom genre does not work in every culture, as each locale renders the sitcom with “different cultural meanings” (Nielsen 95). Writing of the failure of the Danish series Three Whores and a Pickpocket (with a premise like that, how could it fail?), Nielsen (112) attributes its failure to the mixing of “kitchen sink realism” with “moments of absurdity” and “psychological drama with expressionistic camera work”, moving it well beyond the strict mode of address required by the genre. In Australia, soap operas Home and Away and Neighbours have been infinitely more popular than our attempts at sitcoms – which had a brief heyday in the 1980s with Hey Dad..!, Kingswood Country and Mother and Son – although Kath and Kim (not studio-based) could almost be counted. Lichter et al. (11) state that “television entertainment can be ‘political’ even when it does not deal with the stuff of daily headlines or partisan controversy. Its latent politics lie in the unavoidable portrayal of individuals, groups, and institutions as a backdrop to any story that occupies the foreground”. They state that US television of the 1960s was dominated by the “idiot sitcom” and that “To appreciate these comedies you had to believe that social conventions were so ironclad they could not tolerate variations. The scripts assumed that any minute violation of social conventions would lead to a crisis that could be played for comic results” (15). Series like Happy Days “harked back to earlier days when problems were trivial and personal, isolated from the concerns of a larger world” (17). By the late 1980s, Roseanne and Married…With Children had “spawned an antifamily-sitcom format that used sarcasm, cynicism, and real life problems to create a type of in-your-face comedy heretofore unseen on prime time” (20). This is markedly different from the type of values presented in Singaporean sitcoms – where filial piety and an unrelenting faith in the family unit is sacrosanct. In this way, Singaporean sitcoms mirror the ideals of earlier US sitcoms which idealise the “egalitarian family in which parental wisdom lies in appeals to reason and fairness rather than demands for obedience” (Lichter et al. 406). Dahlgren notes that we are the products of “an ongoing process of the shaping and reshaping of identity, in response to the pluralised sets of social forces, cultural currents and personal contexts encountered by individuals” where we end up with “composite identities” (318). Such composite identities make the presentation (or re-presentation) of race problematic for producers of mainstream television. Wong argues that “Within the context of PAP hegemony, media presentation of racial differences are manufactured by invoking and resorting to traditional values, customs and practices serving as symbols and content” (118). All of this is bound within a classificatory system in which each citizen’s identity card is inscribed as Chinese, Malay, Indian or Other (often referred to as CMIO), and a broader social discourse in which “the Chinese are linked to familial values of filial piety and the practice of extended family, the Malays to Islam and rural agricultural activities, and the Indians to the caste system” (Wong 118). However, these sitcoms avoid directly addressing the issue of race, preferring to accentuate cultural differences instead. In UOR the tables are turned when a none-too-subtle dig at the crude nature of mainland Chinese (with gags about the state of public toilets), is soon turned into a more reverential view of Chinese culture and business acumen. Internal Visions of the Home This reverence for Chinese culture is also enacted visually. The loungeroom settings of these three sitcoms all provide examples of the fashioning of the nation through a “ubiquitous semi-visibility” (Noble 59). Not only are the central characters in each of these sitcoms constructed as ethnically Chinese, but the furnishings provide a visible nod to Chinese design in the lacquered screens, chairs and settees of LWL (see Figure 5.1), in the highly visible pair of black inlaid mother-of-pearl wall hangings of UOR (see Figure 5.2) and in the Chinese statuettes and wall-hangings found in the PCK home. Each of these items appears in the central view of the shows most used setting, the lounge/family room. There is often symmetry involved as well; the balanced pearl hangings of UOR are mirrored in a set of silk prints in LWL and the pair of ceramic Chinese lions in PCK. Figure 5.1: LWL Figure 5.2: UOR Thus, all three sitcoms feature design elements that reflect visible links to Chinese culture and sentiments, firmly locating the sitcoms “in Asia”, and providing a sense of the nation. The sets form an important role in constructing a realist environment, one in which “identification with realist narration involves a temporary merger of at least some of the viewer’s identity with the position offered by the text” (Budd et al. 110). These constant silent reminders of the Chinese-based hegemon – the cultural “majoritarianism” – anchors the sitcoms to a determined concept of the nation-state, and reinforces the “imaginative geographies of home” (Blunt and Dowling 247). The Foolish “Father” Figure in a Patriarchal Society But notions of a dominant Chinese culture are dealt with in a variety of ways in these sitcoms – not the least in a playful attitude toward patriarchal figures. In UOR, the Tan family “patriarch” is played by Moses Lim, in PCK, Gurmit Singh plays Phua and in LWL Samuel Chong plays Billy B. Ong (or, as Lydia mistakenly refers to him Billy Bong). Erica Sharrer makes the claim that class is a factor in presenting the father figure as buffoon, and that US sitcoms feature working class families in which “the father is made to look inept, silly, or incompetent have become more frequent” partly in response to changing societal structures where “women are shouldering increasing amounts of financial responsibility in the home” (27). Certainly in the three series looked at here, PCK (the tradesman) is presented as the most derided character in his role as head of the household. Moses Lim’s avuncular Tan Ah Teck is presented mostly as lovably foolish, even when reciting his long-winded moral tales at the conclusion of each episode, and Billy B. Ong, as a middle-class businessman, is presented more as a victim of circumstance than as a fool. Sharrer ponders whether “sharing the burden of bread-winning may be associated with fathers perceiving they are losing advantages to which they were traditionally entitled” (35). But is this really a case of males losing the upper hand? Hanke argues that men are commonly portrayed as the target of humour in sitcoms, but only when they “are represented as absurdly incongruous” to the point that “this discursive strategy recuperates patriarchal notions” (90). The other side of the coin is that while the “dominant discursive code of patriarchy might be undone” (but isn’t), “the sitcom’s strategy for containing women as ‘wives’ and ‘mothers’ is always contradictory and open to alternative readings” (Hanke 77). In Singapore’s case though, we often return to images of the women in the kitchen, folding the washing or agonising over the work/family dilemma, part of what Blunt and Dowling refer to as the “reproduction of patriarchal and heterosexist relations” often found in representations of “the ideal’ suburban home” (29). Eradicating Singlish One final aspect of these sitcoms is the use of language. PM Lee Hsien Loong once said that he had no interest in “micromanaging” the lives of Singaporeans (2004). Yet his two predecessors (PM Goh and PM Lee Senior) both reflected desires to do so by openly criticising the influence of Phua Chu Kang’s liberal use of colloquial phrases and phrasing. While the use of Singlish (or Singapore Colloquial English / SCE) in these sitcoms is partly a reflection of everyday life in Singapore, by taking steps to eradicate it through the Speak Good English movement, the government offers an intrusion into the private home-space of Singaporeans (Ho 17). Authorities fear that increased use of Singlish will damage the nation’s ability to communicate on a global basis, withdrawing to a locally circumscribed “pidgin English” (Rubdy 345). Indeed, the use of Singlish in UOR is deliberately underplayed in order to capitalise on overseas sales of the show (which aired, for example, on Australia’s SBS television) (Srilal). While many others have debated the Singlish issue, my concern is with its use in the home environment as representative of Singaporean lifestyles. As novelist Hwee Hwee Tan (2000) notes: Singlish is crude precisely because it’s rooted in Singapore’s unglamorous past. This is a nation built from the sweat of uncultured immigrants who arrived 100 years ago to bust their asses in the boisterous port. Our language grew out of the hardships of these ancestors. Singlish thus offers users the opportunity to “show solidarity, comradeship and intimacy (despite differences in background)” and against the state’s determined efforts to adopt the language of its colonizer (Ho 19-20). For this reason, PCK’s use of Singlish iterates a “common man” theme in much the same way as Paul Hogan’s “Ocker” image of previous decades was seen as a unifying feature of mainstream Australian values. That the fictional PCK character was eventually “forced” to take “English” lessons (a storyline rapidly written into the program after the direct criticisms from the various Prime Ministers), is a sign that the state has other ideas about the development of Singaporean society, and what is broadcast en masse into Singaporean homes. Conclusion So what do these home-based sitcoms tell us about Singaporean nationalism? Firstly, within the realms of a multiethnic society, mainstream representations reflect the hegemony present in the social and economic structures of Singapore. Chinese culture is dominant (albeit in an English-speaking environment) and Indian, Malay and Other cultures are secondary. Secondly, the home is a place of ontological security, and partial adornment with cultural ornaments signifying Chinese culture are ever-present as a reminder of the Asianness of the sitcom home, ostensibly reflecting the everyday home of the audience. The concept of home extends beyond the plywood-prop walls of the soundstage though. As Noble points out, “homes articulate domestic spaces to national experience” (54) through the banal nationalism exhibited in “the furniture of everyday life” (55). In a Singaporean context, Velayutham (extending the work of Morley) explores the comforting notion of Singapore as “home” to its citizens and concludes that the “experience of home and belonging amongst Singaporeans is largely framed in the materiality and social modernity of everyday life” (4). Through the use of sitcoms, the state is complicit in creating and recreating the family home as a site for national identities, adhering to dominant modes of culture and language. References Blunt, Alison, and Robyn Dowling. Home. London: Routledge, 2006. Budd, Mike, Steve Craig, and Clay Steinman. Consuming Environments: Television and Commercial Culture. New Jersey: Rutgers UP, 1999. 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"At Home in Singaporean Sitcoms: Under One Roof, Living with Lydia and Phua Chu Kang." M/C Journal 10.4 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/09-pugsley.php>. APA Style Pugsley, P. (Aug. 2007) "At Home in Singaporean Sitcoms: Under One Roof, Living with Lydia and Phua Chu Kang," M/C Journal, 10(4). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/09-pugsley.php>.

Stigma is one of the chief reasons for treatment-avoidant behaviour among people with mental health conditions. Stigmatising attitudes are spread through multiple determinants, including but not limited to: (i) individual beliefs; (ii) interpersonal influences; (iii) local cultural values and (iv) shared culture such as depictions in television shows. Our research indicates that popular television shows are currently understudied vectors for narratives that alternately reify or debunk assumptions and stereotypes about people with mental health conditions. Although such shows are fictional, they influence perception by normalising ‘common sense’ assumptions over extended periods of time. Consequently, representations of patients, psychiatrists and treatments influence knowledge and understanding of mental health and treatment-seeking behaviour. While storytelling about sickness can inspire possibilities and bestow meaning on traumatic experiences, fictional narratives written without sufficient care can have the inverse effect of curtailing horizons and limiting expectations. Problematic portrayals of patients, mental health professionals and psychological interventions are often reductive and may increase stigma and prevent treatment-seeking behaviour. This article analyses the representation of hypnotherapy and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) in Singaporean television dramas that attract a wide, mainstream audience. Our diverse team investigated dramas in all four of the official languages of Singapore: English, Mandarin Chinese, Bahasa Melayu and Tamil. We found that depictions of hypnotherapy tend to produce problematic images of mental health professionals as manipulative, able to read minds, engaging in criminal behaviour, lacking in compassion and self-interested. Meanwhile, representations of ECT typically focus on the fear and distress of the patient, and it is primarily depicted as a disciplinary tool rather than a safe and effective medical procedure for patients whose condition is severe and refractory to pharmacotherapy and behavioural interventions. These depictions have the potential to discourage treatment-seeking behaviour—when early intervention has found to be crucial—among vulnerable populations.

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Historically, science and medicine have been a great source of inspiration for fiction writers. Mary Shelley, in the 1831 introduction to her novel Frankenstein said she was been inspired, in part, by discussions about scientific experiments, including those of Darwin and Galvani. Shelley states “perhaps a corpse would be re-animated; galvanism had given token of such things: perhaps the component parts of a creature might be manufactured, brought together, and endued with vital warmth” (10). Countless other authors have followed her lead, from H.G. Wells, whose mad scientist Dr Moreau takes a lead from Shelley’s Dr Frankenstein, through to popular contemporary writers of adult fiction, such as Michael Crichton and Kathy Reichs, who have drawn on their scientific and medical backgrounds for their fictional works. Science and medicine themed fiction has also proven popular for younger readers, particularly in dystopian settings. Reichs has extended her writing to include the young adult market with Virals, which combines forensic science with the supernatural. Alison Allen-Grey’s 2009 novel, Lifegame, deals with cloning and organ replacement. Nathan Hobby’s The Fur is based around an environmental disaster where an invasive fungal-fur grows everywhere, including in people’s internal organs. Catherine Jinks’ Piggy in the Middle incorporates genetics and biomedical research into its horror-science fiction plot. Brian Caswell’s young adult novel, Cage of Butterflies uses elements of neuroscience as a plot device. However, although Caswell’s novel found commercial and critical success—it was shortlisted in the 1993 Children’s Book Council of Australia (CBCA) Book of the Year Awards Older Readers and was reprinted several times—neuroscience is a field that writers of young adult fiction tend to either ignore or only refer to on the periphery. This paper will explore how neuroscientific and dystopian elements interact in young adult fiction, focusing on the current trend for neuroscientific elements to be something that adolescent characters are subjected to rather than something they can use as a tool of positive change. It will argue that the time is right for a shift in young adult fiction away from a dystopian world view to one where the teenaged characters can become powerful agents of change. The term “neuroscience” was first coined in the 1960s as a way to hybridise a range of disciplines and sub-disciplines including biophsyics, biology and chemistry (Abi-Rached and Rose). Since then, neuroscience as a field has made huge leaps, particularly in the past two decades with discoveries about the development and growth of the adolescent brain; the dismissal of the nature versus nurture dichotomy; and the acceptance of brain plasticity. Although individual scientists had made discoveries relating to brain plasticity in adult humans as far back as the 1960s, for example, it is less than 10 years since neuroplasticity—the notion that nerve cells in human brains and nervous systems are malleable, and so can be changed or modified by input from the environment—was accepted into mainstream scientific thinking (Doidge). This was a significant change in brain science from the once dominant principle of localisation, which posited that specific brain functions were fixed in a specific area of the brain, and that once damaged, the function associated with a brain area could not improve or recover (Burrell; Kolb and Whishaw; Doidge). Furthermore, up until the late 1990s when neuroscientist Jay Giedd’s studies of adolescent brains showed that the brain’s grey matter, which thickens during childhood, thins during adolescence while the white matter thickens, it was widely accepted the human brain stopped maturing at around the age of twelve (Wallis and Dell). The research of Giedd and others showed that massive changes, including those affecting decision-making abilities, impulse control and skill development, take place in the developing adolescent brain (Carr-Gregg). Thus, within the last fifteen years, two significant discoveries within neuroscience—brain plasticity and the maturation of the adolescent brain­—have had a major impact on the way the brain is viewed and studied. Brian Caswell’s Cage of Butterflies, was published too early to take advantage of these neuroscientific discoveries. Nevertheless the novel includes some specific details about how the brains of a group of children within the story, the Babies, have been altered by febrile convulsions to create an abnormality in their brain anatomy. The abnormality is discovered by a CAT scan (the novel predates the use of fMRI brain scans). Due to their abnormal brain anatomy, the Babies are unable to communicate verbally but can communicate telepathically as a “shared mind” with others outside their small group. It is unlikely Caswell would have been aware of brain plasticity in the early 1990s, nevertheless, in the narrative, older teens are able to slowly understand the Babies by focusing on their telepathic messages until, over time, they can understand them without too much difficulty. Thus Caswell has incorporated neuroscientific elements throughout the plot of his novel and provided some neuroscientific explanation for how the Babies communicate. In recent years, several young adult novels, both speculative and contemporary, have used elements of neuroscience in their narratives; however, these novels tend to put neuroscience on the periphery. Rather than embracing neuroscience as a tool adolescent characters can use for their benefit, as Caswell did, neuroscience is typically something that exists around or is done to the characters; it is an element over which they have no control. These novels are found across several sub-genres of young adult fiction, including science fiction, speculative fiction and contemporary fiction. Most place their narratives in a dystopian world view. The dystopian settings reinforce the idea that the world is a dangerous place to live, and the teenaged characters living in the world of the novels are at the mercy of powerful oppressors. This creates tension within the narrative as the adolescents battle authorities for power. Without the ability to use neuroscientific advantages for their own gain, however, the characters’ power to change their worlds remains in the hands of adult authorities and the teenaged characters ultimately lose the fight to change their world. This lack of agency is evident in several dystopian young adult novels published in recent years, including the Uglies series and to a lesser extent Brain Jack and Dark Angel. Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series is set in a dystopian future world and uses neuroscientific concepts to both reinforce the power of the ruling regime and give limited agency to the protagonists. In the first book in the series, Uglies, the science supports the narrative where necessary but is always subservient to the action. Westerfeld’s intended the Uglies series to focus on action. Westerfield states “I love a good action sequence, and this series is of full of hoverboard chases, escapes through ancient ruins, and leaps off tall buildings in bungee jackets” (Books). Nevertheless, the brain’s ability to rewire itself—the neuroscientific concept of brain plasticity—is a central idea within the Uglies series. In book one, the protagonist Tally Youngblood is desperate to turn 16 so she can join her friends and become a Pretty. However, she discovers the operation to become a Pretty involves not just plastic surgery to alter her looks: a lesion is inflicted on the brain, giving each Pretty the equivalent of a frontal lobotomy. In the next book, Pretties, Tally has undergone the procedure and then becomes one of the elite Specials, and in the third instalment she eventually rejects her Special status and returns to her true nature. This latter process, one of the characters explains, is possible because Tally has learnt to rewire her brain, and so undo the Pretty operation and the procedure that made her a Special. Thus neuroscientific concepts of brain injury and recovery through brain plasticity are prime plot devices. But the narrative offers no explanations for how Tally and some others have the ability to rewire their brains to undo the Pretty operation while most do not. The apparent complexity of the neuroscience is used as a surface plot device rather than as an element that could be explored to add narrative depth. In contrast, the philosophical implications of recent neuroscientific discoveries, rather than the physical, are explored in another recent young adult novel, Dark Angel. David Klass’ novel, Dark Angel, places recent developments in neuroscience in a contemporary setting to explore the nature of good and evil. It tells the story of 17-year-old Jeff, whose ordinary, small-town life implodes when his older brother, Troy, comes home on parole after serving five years for manslaughter. A school assignment forces Jeff to confront Troy’s complex nature. The science teacher asks his class “where does our growing knowledge of the chemical nature of the brain leave us in terms of... the human soul? When we think, are we really making choices or just following chemical pathways?” (Klass 74). This passage introduces a neuroscientific angle into the plot, and may refer to a case brought before the US Supreme Court in 2005 where the court admitted a brief based on brain scans showing that adolescent brains work differently than adult brains (Madrigal). The protagonist, Jeff, explores the nature of good and evil through this neuroscientific framework as the story's action unfolds, and examines his relationship with Troy, who is described in all his creepiness and vulnerability. Again through the teacher, Klass incorporates trauma and its impact on the brain from a neuroscientific perspective: There are psychiatrists and neurologists doing studies on violent lawbreakers...who are finding that these felons share amazingly similar patterns of abusive childhoods, brain injuries, and psychotic symptoms. (Klass 115)Jeff's story is infused with the fallout of his brother’s violent past and present, yet there is no hint of any trauma in Jeff’s or Troy’s childhoods that could be seen as a cause for Troy’s aberrant behaviour. Thus, although Klass’ novel explores more philosophical aspects of neuroscience, like Westerfeld’s novel, it uses developments in neuroscience as a point of interest. The neuroscience in Dark Angel is not embedded in the story but is a lens through which to view the theme of whether people are born evil or made evil. Brain Jack and Being are another two recent young adult novels that explore physical and philosophical aspects of modern neuroscience to some extent. Technology and its possible neurological effects on the brain, particularly the adolescent brain, is a field of research popularised by English neuroscientist Baroness Susan Greenfield. Brian Falkner’s 2010 release, Brain Jack, explores this branch of neuroscience with its cautionary tale of a hands-free device—a cap with small wires that attach to your head called the neuro-headset­—that allows you to control your computer with your thoughts. As more and more people use the neuro-headset, the avatar designed to help people learn to use the software develops consciousness and its own moral code, destroying anyone who it considers a threat by frying their brains. Like Dark Angel and Uglies, Brain Jack keeps the neuroscience on the periphery as an element over which the characters have little or no control, and details about how the neuro-headset affects the brain of its wearers, and how the avatar develops consciousness, are not explored. Conversely, Kevin Brooks’ novel Being explores the nature of consciousness outside the field of neuroscience. The protagonist, Robert, goes into hospital for a routine procedure and discovers that instead of internal organs, he has some kind of hardware. On the run from authorities who are after him for reasons he does not understand, Robert tries frantically to reconstruct his earliest memories to give him some clue as to who, or what, he really is: if he does not have normal human body parts, is he human? However, whether or not he has a human brain, and the implications of either answer for his consciousness, is never addressed. Thus, although the novels discussed above each incorporate neuroscience to some degree, they do so at a cursory level. In the case of Being this is understandable as neuroscience is never explicitly mentioned; rather it is a possible sub-text implied through the theme of consciousness. In Dark Angel, through the teacher as mouthpiece, neuroscience is offered up as a possible explanation for criminal behaviour, which causes the protagonist to question his beliefs and judgements about his brother. However, in Uglies, and to a lesser extent in Brain Jack, neuroscience is glossed over when more detail may have added extra depth and complexity to the novels. Fast-paced action is a common element in much contemporary young adult fiction, and thus it is possible that Westerfeld and Falkner both chose to sacrifice complexity for the sake of action. In Uglies, it is likely this is the case, given Westerfeld’s love of action sequences and his attention to detail about objects created exclusively for his futuristic world. However, Brain Jack goes into explicit detail about computer hacking. Falkner’s dismissal of the neuroscientific aspects of his plot, which could have added extra interest, most likely stems from his passion for computer science (he studied computer science at university) rather than a distaste for or ignorance of neuroscience. Nevertheless Falkner, Westerfeld, Brooks, and to a lesser extent Klass, have each glossed over a source of potential power that could turn the dystopian worlds of their novels into one where the teenaged protagonists hold the power to make lasting change. In each of these novels, neuroscientific concepts are generally used to support a bleak or dystopian world view. In Uglies, the characters have two choices: a life as a lobotomised Pretty or a life on the run from the authorities, where discovery and capture is a constant threat. The USA represented in Brain Jack descends into civil war, where those unknowingly enslaved by the avatar’s consciousness fight against those who refuse to wear the neuro-headsets. The protagonist in Being lives in hiding from the secret authorities who seek to capture and destroy him. Even in Dark Angel, the neuroscience is not a source of comfort or support for the protagonist, whose life, and that of his family, falls apart as a consequence of his older brother’s criminal actions. It is only in the 1990s novel, Cage of Butterflies, that characters use a neuroscientific advantage to improve their situation. The Babies in Caswell’s Cage of Butterflies are initially victims of their brain abnormality; however, with the help of the teenaged characters, along with two adult characters, they are able to use their “condition” to help create a new life for themselves. Telepathically communicating through their “shared mind,” the Babies coordinate their efforts with the others to escape from the research scientists who threaten their survival. In this way, what starts as a neurological disability is turned into an advantage. Cage of Butterflies illustrates how a young adult novel can incorporate neuroscience into its narrative in a way that offers the young adults agency to make positive changes in their lives. Furthermore, with recent neuroscientific discoveries showing that adolescence is a vital time for brain development and growth, there is potential for neuroscience to be explored as an agent of positive change in a new wave of young adult fiction, one that adopts a non-dystopian (if not optimistic) world view. Dystopian young adult fiction has been enjoying enormous popularity in western publishing in the past few years with series such as Chaos Walking, Hunger Games and Maze Runner trilogies topping bestseller lists. Dystopian fiction’s appeal to young adult audiences, states Westerfeld, is because: Teenagers’ lives are constantly defined by rules, and in response they construct their identities through necessary confrontations with authority, large and small. Imagining a world in which those authorities must be destroyed by any means necessary is one way of expanding that game. ("Teenage Wastelands")Teenagers often find themselves in trouble, and are almost as often like to cause trouble. Placing them in a fictional dystopian world gives them room to fight authority; too often, however, the young adult protagonists are never able to completely escape the world the adults impose upon them. For example, the epilogue of James Dashner’s The Maze Runner tells the reader the surviving group have not escaped the makers of the maze, and their apparent rescuers are part of the same group of adult authorities. Caswell’s neurologically evolved Babies, along with their high IQ teenage counterparts, however, provide a model for how young protagonists can take advantage of neuroscientific discoveries to cause trouble for hostile authorities in their fictional worlds. The power of the brain harnessed by adolescents, alongside their hormonal changes, is by its nature a recipe for trouble: it has the potential to give young people an agency and power adults may fear. In the everyday, lived world, neuroscientific tools are always in the hands of adults; however, there needs to be no such constraint in a fictional world. The superior ability of adolescents to grow the white matter of their brains, for example, could give rise to a range of fictional scenarios where the adolescents could use their brain power to brainwash adults in authority. A teenage neurosurgeon might not work well in a contemporary setting but could be credible in a speculative fiction setting. The number of possible scenarios is endless. More importantly, however, it offers a relatively unexplored avenue for teenaged characters to have agency and power in their fictional worlds. Westerfeld may be right in his assertion that the current popularity of dystopian fiction for young adults is a reaction to the highly monitored and controlled world in which they live ("Teenage Wastelands"). However, an alternative world view, one where the adolescents take control and defeat the adults, is just as valid. Such a scenario has been explored in Cory Doctorow’s For the Win, where marginalised and exploited gamers from Singapore and China band together with an American to form a global union and defeat their oppressors. Doctorow uses online gaming skills, a field of expertise where youth are considered superior to adults, to give his characters power over adults in their world. Similarly, the amazing changes that take place in the adolescent brain are a natural advantage that teenaged characters could utilise, particularly in speculative fiction, to gain power over adults. To imbue adolescent characters with such power has the potential to move young adult fiction beyond the confines of the dystopian novel and open new narrative pathways. The 2011 Bologna Children’s Book Fair supports the view that western-based publishing companies will be looking for more dystopian young adult fiction for the next year or two (Roback). However, within a few years, it is possible that the popularity of zombies, werewolves and vampires—and their dominance of fictional dystopian worlds—will pass or, at least change in their representations. The “next big thing” in young adult fiction could be neuroscience. Moreover, neuroscientific concepts could be incorporated into the standard zombie/vampire/werewolf trope to create yet another hybrid to explore: a zombie virus that mutates to give a new breed of undead creature superior intelligence, for example; or a new cross-breed of werewolf that gives humans the advantages of the canine brain with none of the disadvantages. The capacity and complexity of the human brain is enormous, and thus it offers enormous potential to create exciting young adult fiction that explores new territory, giving the teenaged reader a sense of their own power and natural advantages. In turn, this is bound to give them infinite potential to create fictional trouble. References Abi-Rachedm, Rose. “The Birth of the Neuromolecular Gaze.” History of the Human Sciences 23 (2010): 11-36. Allen-Gray, Alison. Lifegame. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009. Brooks, Kevin. Being. London: Puffin Books, 2007. Burrell, Brian. Postcards from the Brain Museum. New York: Broadway, 2004. Carr-Gregg, Michael. The Princess Bitchface Syndrome. Melbourne: Penguin Books. 2006. Caswell, Brian. A Cage of Butterflies. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press, 1992. Dashner, James. The Maze Runner. Somerset, United Kingdom: Chicken House, 2010. Doctorow, Cory. For the Win. New York: Tor, 2010. Doidge, Norman. The Brain That Changes Itself. Melbourne: Scribe, 2007. Falkner, Brian. Brain Jack. New York: Random House, 2009. Hobby, Nathan. The Fur. Fremantle: Fremantle Press, 2004. Jinks, Catherine. Piggy in the Middle. Melbourne: Penguin, 1998. Klass, David. Dark Angel. New York: HarperTeen, 2007. Kolb, Bryan, and Ian Whishaw. Fundamentals of Human Neuropscychology, New York, Worth, 2009. Lehrer, Jonah. “The Human Brain Gets a New Map.” The Frontal Cortex. 2011. 10 April 2011 ‹http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/04/the-human-brain-atlas/›. Madrigal, Alexis. “Courtroom First: Brain Scan Used in Murder Sentencing.” Wired. 2009. 16 April 2011 ‹http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/11/brain-scan-murder-sentencing/›. Reichs, Kathy. Virals. London: Young Corgi, 2010. Roback, Diane. “Bologna 2011: Back to Business at a Buoyant Fair.” Publishers Weekly. 2011. 17 April 2011 ‹http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-industry-news/article/46698-bologna-2011-back-to-business-at-a-buoyant-fair.html›. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. London: Arrow Books, 1973. Wallis, Claudia, and Krystina Dell. “What Makes Teens Tick?” Death Penalty Information Centre. 2004. 10 April 2011 ‹http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/what-makes-teens-tick-flood-hormones-sure-also-host-structural-changes-brain-can-those-explain-behav›. Wells, H.G. The Island of Dr Moreau. Melbourne: Penguin, 1896. Westerfeld, Scott. Uglies. New York: Simon Pulse, 2005. ———. Pretties. New York: Simon Pulse, 2005. ———. Specials. New York: Simon Pulse, 2006. ———. Books. 2008. 1 Sep. 2010 ‹http://www.scottwesterfeld.com/author/books.htm›. ———. “Teenage Wastelands: How Dystopian YA Became Publishing’s Next Big Thing.” Tor.com 2011. 17 April 2011 ‹http://www.tor.com/blogs/2011/04/teenage-wastelands-how-dystopian-ya-became-publishings-next-big-thing›.

This chapter charts to growth of the sf magazine in other English speaking countries, chiefly Canada, Australia and Eire, but also South Africa and Singapore. This brought other national identities into science fiction, with a wide range of approaches from Canada’s remote individuality to Australia’s recognition of its aboriginal influences.

The discourse of Islamic thought should not be confined to the normative fields of fiqh, usuluddin, shari’ah laws and tafsir. It can also be seen in literature, even though this discipline has been marginal to Islamic studies. This chapter aims to address this gap. It begins from the acknowledgment that literary fiction channels and shapes Islamic thought if we consider the well-known cases of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses and Naguib Mahfouz’s Awlad Haritna. Like their peers in Muslim cultures elsewhere, Malay/Muslim writers in Singapore, too, have engaged deeply with Islamic thought in their works. What are their sensibilities? This article will explore their works as aspiration and critique of the state of Islamic practices in the Republic. It considers Malay literature produced in both Bahasa and English. First, it will situate Singapore Malay literature within the region of Muslim Southeast Asia by tracing its responses to ideas such as Sastera Islam in Malaysia and Sastera Profetik in Indonesia. Then, it will consider selected contemporary works from Malay writers in Singapore in order to arrive at a sense of the evolution and trajectory of Islamic thought in contemporary literature.

The third chapter examines the MFU, a film organisation affiliated with the post-war British colonial government, and its multilingual colonial films. The MFU produced a large number of historical and geographical documentaries in support of the British colonial regime and the Singaporean and Malayan autonomous governments. The film unit also directed the production and filming of many propaganda films and feature films accompanied by recordings and commentaries in different languages and Chinese topolects. These films vigorously promoted Cold War ideology to the Malayan people, and all theatres in Malaya were compelled to screen these films. The ultimate goal of the MFU was to interpellate a Malayan identity in order to eradicate the threat posed by communist ideology. This chapter considers films made by the MFU alongside Cold War archival materials gathered from The British Film Institute, The UK National Archives, Imperial War Museums, The British Library, National Archives of Singapore, the National Film Department of Malaysia, and 1950s–1960s reportage on the MFU in US, UK, and local newspapers in Chinese and English. It will explore how Chinese New Village settlers and Malayan communists were represented in semi-realistic/semi-fictional moving images during the Cold War period. This chapter aims to reconsider the question of whether the aim of the MFU really was to hasten the end of empire, or if it was an extension of the imperialist machinery of state in S.E. Asia.