Events

CHAIRPERSON

Dr Yang Yang, Department of Chinese Studies, National University of Singapore

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to address intracultural and intercultural connections that are forged within Anglophone writings produced by Chinese Bruneian writers. The temporal qualities of the past, present and future are contemplated when examining the cultural dimensions of Chinese Bruneian literary works as they underscore intracultural and intercultural conversations within the nation, region and global realm. Differentiated generational experiences over time traverse historical crossings, attest to personal struggles and anticipate future trajectories for the Chinese who are portrayed in the chosen literary texts. Drawing on a nascent body of Chinese Bruneian writings in English, this paper discusses the ways that a novel, play, and selected poems delineate the Chinese Bruneian experience across cultural and timely connections within the Southeast Asian region and beyond. While the term of diaspora enhances inter-Asia links between Brunei Darussalam and China, this paper will focus on contemporary instantiations of identity displayed in intimate struggles and complex livelihoods of younger generations who distinguish themselves from their past origins or roots in the Chinese motherland. Departing from initial ideas of their diasporic background, present and future orientations of Chinese identity accentuate and inculcate intra-Asia cultural formulations of community through dual demands of localization and globalization. The localization of ethnic Chinese in Southeast Asia, but also globalization processes that influence their intra- and inter-Asia connectivity, offers a productive discourse to conceptualize the Chinese Bruneian community across time and space.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER & DISCUSSANT

Hannah Ming Yit Ho is a National University of Singapore fellow (Southeast Asia). She is involved with the Inter-Asia Engagement research cluster at the Asia Research Institute (ARI), National University of Singapore (NUS). She served as the Bruneian national team leader on the NUS-ARI research project “Living with COVID-19 in Southeast Asia: Personal Experiences of Crisis, Control and Community”. She is also Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Universiti Brunei Darussalam. She has published several articles in international peer-reviewed journals and academic book chapters on contemporary Southeast Asian literature. Her current research topics include Chinese language education in Brunei Darussalam and Chinese Bruneian literatures in English. She co-edited Engaging Modern Brunei: Research on Language, Literature and Culture (Springer 2021). Her forthcoming academic book is entitled Transnational Southeast Asia: Challenges, Cultures and Identities.

Ann Ang is Assistant Professor of English Literature at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her research has been published in Journal of Postcolonial Writing, Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry and ELH. Ann’s current research interests are transnational and postcolonial writing from Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and India. Ann is also a writer of poetry and fiction, and has edited several anthologies, including Food Republic (2020). She is also one of the founding editors of PR&TA, a journal of creative praxis in Southeast Asia.

REGISTRATION

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