Malaysian Cinema in the New Millennium offers a new approach to the study of multiculturalism in cinema by analysing how a new wave of filmmakers champion cultural diversity using cosmopolitan themes. Adrian Lee offers a new inquiry of Malaysian cinema that examines how the ‘Malaysian Digital Indies’ (MDI) have in recent years repositioned Malaysian cinema within the global arena. The book shines a new light on how politics and socioeconomics have influenced new forms and genres of the post-2000s generation of filmmakers, and provides a clear picture of the interactions between commercial cinema and politics and socioeconomics in the first two decades of the new millennium. It also assesses how the MDI movement was successful in creating a transnational cinema by displacing and deterritorialising itself from the context of the national, and illustrates how MDI functions as a site for questioning and proposing a new national identity in the era of advanced global capitalism and new Islamisation. Covering all these interrelated topics, Lee’s book is a pioneering and comprehensive work in the study of Malaysian cinema in the recent decades. ‘Lee is well versed in theories of transnational and postcolonial studies and provides detailed and knowledgeable information about this period of filmmaking in Malaysia. I believe this book will make a valuable contribution to the studies of film in Southeast Asia.’ —Olivia Khoo, Monash University, Australia ‘The author comprehensively discusses the rise of Malaysian Digital Indies (MDI) in post-2000 Malaysia, the revival of form and aesthetics in comparison to mainstream films, the MDI’s emergence in the Malaysian context, and finally the MDI’s incorporation into the mainstream films.’ —Nunna Prasad, Abu Dhabi University, United Arab Emirates

In the early 1990s, the animist and Hindu traces in adat, or Malay custom, became contentious for resurgent Islam in Malaysia. Reclaiming Adat focuses on the filmmakers, intellectuals, and writers who reclaimed adat to counter the homogenizing aspects of both Islamic discourse and globalization in this period. They practised their project of recuperation with an emphasis on sexuality and a return to archaic forms such as magic and traditional healing. Using close textual readings of literature and film, Khoo Gaik Cheng reveals the tensions between gender, modernity, and nation. Khoo weaves a wealth of cultural theory into a rare analysis of Malay cinema and the work of new Malaysian anglophone writers. Reclaiming Adat makes an essential contribution to our knowledge of the complexities embedded in modern Malaysian culture, politics, and identity.

Singapore and Malaysia are rapidly modernising, globalising Asian states which, although being distinct nations since 1965, share common elements in the on-going struggle over the meaning of gender and sexuality in their societies. This is the first book to discuss a range of discourses around gender in these two countries. Women and the Politics of Representation in Southeast Asia: Engendering Discourse in Singapore and Malaysia seeks to give an overview of how gender and representation come together in various configurations in the history and contemporary culture of both nations. It examines the discursive construction of gender, sexuality and representation in a variety of areas, including the politics of everyday life, education, popular culture, literature, film, theatre and photography. Chapters examine a range of tropes such as the Orientalist "Sarong Party Girl," the iconic "Singapore Girl" of Singapore Airlines, and the figure of pious Muslim femininity celebrated by Malaysian NGO IMAN, all of which play important roles in delineating limitations for gender roles. The collection also draws attention to resistance to these gender boundaries in theatre, film, blogs and social media, and pedagogy. Bringing together research from a variety of humanistic and social science fields, such as film, material culture, semiotics, literature and pedagogy, the book is a comprehensive feminist survey that will be of use for students and scholars of Women’s Studies and Asian Studies, as well as on courses on gender, media and popular culture in Asia.

The Islamic World is an outstanding guide to Islamic faith and culture in all its geographical and historical diversity. Written by a distinguished international team of scholars, it elucidates the history, philosophy and practice of one of the world's great religious traditions. Its grounding in contemporary scholarship makes it an ideal reference source for students and scholars alike. Edited by Andrew Rippin, a leading scholar of Islam, the volume covers the political, geographical, religious, intellectual, cultural and social worlds of Islam, and offers insight into all aspects of Muslim life including the Qur’an and law, philosophy, science and technology, art, literature, and film and much else. It explores the concept of an ‘Islamic’ world: what makes it distinctive and how uniform is that distinctiveness across Muslim geographical regions and through history?

This book explores the significance of Shakespeare in contemporary world cinema for the first time. Mark Thornton Burnett draws on a wealth of examples from Africa, the Arctic, Brazil, China, France, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Singapore, Tibet, Venezuela, Yemen and elsewhere.

In 1938, noting that the bulk of the Indian population formed a "e;landless proletariat"e; and despairing of the ability of the factionalized Indian community to unite in pursuit of common objectives, activist K.A. Neelakanda Ayer forecast that the fate of Indians in Malaya would be to become "e;Tragic orphans"e; of whom India has forgotten and Malaya looks down upon with contempt"e;. Ayer's words continue to resonate; as a minority group in a nation dominated politically by colonially derived narratives of "e;race"e; and ethnicity and riven by the imperatives of religion, the general trajectory of the economically and politically impotent Indian community has been one of increasing irrelevance. This book explores the history of the modern Indian presence in Malaysia, and traces the vital role played by the Indian community in the construction of contemporary Malaysia. In this comprehensive new study, Carl Vadivella Belle offers fresh insights on the Indian experience spanning the period from the colonial recruitment of Indian labour to the post-Merdeka political, economic and social marginalization of Indians. While recent Indian challenges to the political status quo - a regime described as that of "e;benign neglect"e; - promoted Indian hopes of reform, change and uplift, the author concludes that the dictates of political discourse permeated by the ideologies of communalism offer limited prospects for meaningful change.