Journals

In February 2018, a group of scholars, educators, librarians, heritage practitioners, and graduate students gathered for a one-and-a-half-day workshop to discuss the history and historiography of Singapore. Jointly sponsored by the Department of History (National University of Singapore) and the Journal of Southeast Asian Studies (JSEAS), the participants were asked to think about the epistemological construction of Singapore’s history, its modes and forms of expression, and the way other fields/disciplines contributed to the fashioning of Singapore as a subject
of study.

Led by Dr Ho Chi Tim, then a Lecturer in the Department of History (NUS), the group was encouraged to think about the range of contexts, perspectives, and experiences that could extend the study of Singapore history beyond the epistemological binaries that continue to structure contemporary discussions and analyses of Singapore’s past. Mindful of the forthcoming Singapore Bicentennial in 2019 and fully cognizant of current debates within Singapore historiography, the group was asked to not only define what we mean by “Singapore History” but to situate that past within the context of Southeast Asian history, with the hope that case studies from Singapore might contribute to how we think about the region’s history
as well.

The NLB-NUS Histories lecture series was organized by the National Library Board Singapore, in collaboration with the Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Department of History and Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore, from August 2018 – March 2019.