Theorizing the Southeast Asian City as Text examines the ways in which culture, ethnicity, languages, traditions, governance, policies and histories interplay in the creation of the urban experiences in contemporary Southeast Asian cities. It focuses on the ways in which urban spatial forms are textual experiences, subject to interpretative strategies and the influence of other discourses. In addition it also analyzes the experiences of modernization in such cities, but also in terms of the strategies of containment, refurbishment, and loss which this has occasioned.

Theorizing the Southeast Asian City as Text examines the ways in which culture, ethnicity, languages, traditions, governance, policies and histories interplay in the creation of the urban experiences in contemporary Southeast Asian cities. It focuses on the ways in which urban spatial forms are textual experiences, subject to interpretative strategies and the influence of other discourses. In addition it also analyzes the experiences of modernization in such cities, but also in terms of the strategies of containment, refurbishment, and loss which this has occasioned.

Theorizing the Southeast Asian City as Text examines the ways in which culture, ethnicity, languages, traditions, governance, policies and histories interplay in the creation of the urban experiences in contemporary Southeast Asian cities. It focuses on the ways in which urban spatial forms are textual experiences, subject to interpretative strategies and the influence of other discourses. In addition it also analyzes the experiences of modernization in such cities, but also in terms of the strategies of containment, refurbishment, and loss which this has occasioned.

The rise of independent cinema in Southeast Asia, following the emergence of a new generation of filmmakers there, is among the most significant recent developments in global cinema. The advent of affordable and easy access to digital technology has empowered startling new voices from a part of the world rarely heard or seen in international film circles. The appearance of fresh, sharply alternative, and often very personal voices has had a tremendous impact on local film production. This book documents these developments as a genuine outcome of the democratization and liberalization of film production. Contributions from respected scholars, interviews with filmmakers, personal accounts and primary sources by important directors and screenwriters collectively provide readers with a lively account of dynamic film developments in Southeast Asia. Interviewees include Lav Diaz, Amir Muhammad, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Eric Khoo, Nia Dinata and others. Tilman Baumgärtel taught film and media studies in Germany, Austria and the Philippines before joining Royal University of Phnom Penh in 2009. He has curated international film series and art exhibitions, and has also published books on independent cinema, Internet art, computer games and the German director Harun Farocki. His blog can be found at http://southeastasiancinema.wordpress.com

Chapters on Asia features selected papers written by scholars who have been awarded the National Library’s Lee Kong Chian Research Fellowship. These works examine the history and heritage of Singapore and the region, and contain fresh research based on materials and resources from the collections of the National Library and National Archives of Singapore.

This volume discusses the urban history and cultural landscape of Singapore in relation to theories of textual dialogics, multiculturalism and the cultural and political unconscious. Multidisciplinary in approach, it takes as its data not only government policy and official discourses, and the more quantitative elements of population census information on religion, income, race and nationality, but also a wide range of related cultural discourses in film, literature, media texts, social behaviour and other interventions and interpretations of the city. The main parameters of Singapore’s socio-national construction—public housing, social elitism, racial and linguistic plurality and their management, colonial remnants and their transformation—are explained and analysed in terms of Singapore’s colonial past, its rapid modernization, and its current push to compete as a global city and tourist destination. This multidisciplinary book should be of interest to a correspondingly wide readership, including architects and urban planners, political scientists, cultural analysts and theorists, colonial discourse scholars, urban geographers and sociologists, Asian studies specialists, graduate and undergraduate students in the above areas, and a general readership interested in cities and cultures. “This is a remarkable book. By taking a series of readings of Singapore’s urban culture, it chronicles the emergence of a new city form which, through the coming together of quite particular narratives of modernity, nationhood and identity may well be providing a much more general spatial model for Asian cities. Simultaneously, it provides a gripping account of how to read the possibilities and tensions that this model throws up.” —Nigel J. Thrift, Oxford University “Goh’s theoretically sophisticated and creative analysis of Singapore’s society, space and culture and his brilliant critique of the city’s official policies of self-representation is a marvellous tour de force. An astute urban semiotician and interpreter of cultural signs, Goh draws on films, figures and fiction to provide a fascinating reading of a city preparing for global competition. Questions of ethnicity, class, sexuality, national identity, architecture and space are brought together in an imaginative—as well as provocative—exercise of symbolic explication and analysis. Essential for studies of Asian urbanism and a model for students of the (so-called) ‘global city’.” —Anthony King, State University of New York at Binghamton “In Contours of Culture Robbie Goh has achieved what many specialists in cultural studies have attempted only metaphorically, by successfully fusing the materiality of spatiality with the symbolic realm of cultural processes. The result is an absorbing and nuanced interpretation of the meaning of the landscapes of Singapore, where space serves as a text that reflects and reproduces the political cultures of a global city in a state of constant re-invention.” —David Ley, University of British Columbia, Canada

One of the main problems faced by teachers and students who have a scholarly interest in Southeast Asia is the lack of general, user-friendly texts in the social sciences. The absence of an introduction to the sociology of Southeast Asia is especially unfortunate. This volume attempts to meet these needs. This is, then, the first sole-authored introductory sociology text on Southeast Asia that focuses on change and development in the region, provides an overview of the important sociological and political economy writings, and considers the key concepts and themes in the field since 1945. Some multiauthored works do exist but these either are outdated or focus on specialized topics. Aimed primarily at undergraduates up to the final year, it will also be a useful reference work for post-graduates and researchers who lack such a general work.