Events

CHAIRPERSON

Dr Zezhou Yang, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore

PROGRAMME

ABSTRACT

This roundtable discussion centers on the themes of John Lee Candelaria’s recently published book, War Memorialization and Nation-Building in Twentieth-Century Southeast Asia (Routledge, 2025), which explores how Southeast Asian states have strategically deployed war memory as instruments of nation-building and collective identity formation. Through a cross-case analysis of the Philippines, Thailand, and Singapore, the book interrogates the politics of remembrance that underpin official commemorative practices in the region.

The discussion will address critical questions at the intersection of history, memory, and power: How have states curated war narratives to reinforce political legitimacy? What accounts for the conspicuous silences and deliberate forgetting that characterize certain aspects of war memory? In what ways do memorial sites function as spaces of both reconciliation and contestation?

The roundtable brings into conversation Jennifer Yip, Hamzah Bin Muzaini, and Mark Ravinder Frost, bringing in expertise in heritage studies, historical geography, and memory politics to bear on these questions. The discussion seeks to illuminate how Southeast Asian nations negotiate traumatic pasts while constructing contemporary political identities—a process telling of the region’s arduous relationships with colonialism, nationalism, and modernity.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

John Lee Candelaria is Assistant Professor of History at the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Hiroshima University, Japan. He earned his BA (2008) and MA (2014) in History from the University of the Philippines Diliman, and his PhD from Hiroshima University (2022). He specializes in peace and conflict studies, memory and heritage politics, and Southeast Asian history, with particular expertise on the Philippines. His research employs archival sources, visual texts, and digital media to examine war memorialization, peace processes, and the intersection of peace and sustainability. His articles have appeared in journals such as Memory Studies, International Journal of Heritage Studies, and Asian Journal of Political Science. Most recently, he published the book, War Memorialization and Nation-Building in Twentieth-Century Southeast Asia (Routledge, 2025). Outside academe, he co-hosts and produces PODKAS, a podcast aiming to make Philippine history, politics, and society accessible to broader audiences.

Jennifer Yip is Assistant Professor in the Department of History, National University of Singapore. She is a historian of modern war, strategy, and the socio-economic effects of war mobilization, with a focus on Republican China. Prior to joining the department, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Clements Center for National Security and an affiliate of the Asia Policy Program at the University of Texas at Austin. Her monograph, Grains of Conflict: The Struggle for Food in China’s Total War, 1937–1945, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2025.

Hamzah Bin Muzaini is Associate Professor with the Department of Southeast Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. A cultural and heritage geographer by background, his research interests include the practices/politics of war commemoration in Singapore and Malaysia, cultural theme parks, migration heritage, and the intersection between heritage and vices. He is the co-author of Contested Memoryscapes: The Politics of War Commemoration in Singapore (with Brenda Yeoh, Routledge, 2016) and co-editor of After Heritage: Critical Perspectives on Heritage from Below (with Claudio Minca, Edward Elgar, 2018). Supported by National Heritage Board Heritage Research Grants, he is currently focused on revealing the hidden histories and vernacular memories of the many communities that used to live on Singapore’s many offshore southern islands.

Mark Ravinder Frost is Associate Professor of Public History at University College London, with research interests in war, empire and decolonization in modern Asia, and their place in popular memory. He is the author of Singapore: A Biography (2009; 2012, co-authored by Yu-mei Balasingamchow) which in 2010 won the Asia Pacific Publishers Association Gold Medal and was selected as a CHOICE “Outstanding Academic Title”. This book was based on his work as Content Director and Senior Scriptwriter for the National Museum of Singapore’s award-winning Singapore History Gallery (2006–2015). Currently, he leads the War Memoryscapes in Asia Project (WARMAP) and the Living with Violent Heritage: Contests and Coexistence in Post-War Sri Lanka exchange (LiVHERe). Mark has also been involved in other exhibition and history documentary ventures. Scene Unseen, his first feature-length history documentary (which explores Singapore’s underground music scene from the late-1970s to early 2000s, and which he wrote, co-devised and co-produced) premiered at the Singapore International Film Festival in February 2021 and won the Best Documentary on Music award at the Bangkok International Documentary Awards Festival the following year.

REGISTRATION

Registration is closed, and instructions on how to participate in this hybrid talk has been sent out to registered attendees. Please write to ziqi@nus.edu.sg if you would like to attend the event.