Zhang Yimou is one of the most famous filmmakers of China, as well as one of the most controversial. Long the object of intense discussion and critique in China, Zhang’s approach can express a highly stylized and crafted aesthetics, a documentary, daily-life feel, or a historically rich sense of tragedy and sometimes comedy. The director …
Zhang Yimou: Globalization and the Subject of Culture Read More »
This book employs a broad analysis of Chinese patriliny to propose a distinctive theoretical conceptualization of the role of desire in culture. It utilizes a unique synthesis of Marxian and psychoanalytic insights in arguing that Chinese patriliny is best understood as, simultaneously, “a mode of production of desire” and as “instituted fantasy.” The argument advances …
Filial Obsessions: Chinese Patriliny and Its Discontents Read More »
What is the impact of a constant flow of people and capital in one of the most globalised cities in the world? In this collection of essays, the authors pursue an ethnographic approach to globalization, and while they were informed by official statistics and social theory, they relied mostly on first-hand observations of life and …
Local Encounters in a Global City: Singapore Stories Read More »
Singapore is a mythic nation, where our ‘reality’ and ‘common sense’ are conditioned by a group of influential myths. Our main myths are examined in this collection of essays and thoughts on the social ramifications of myth-making: The Singapore Story (that our nation has a singular story), From Third World to First (our story of …
This paper aims to tease out the numerous connections between urban planning, landscape preservation and civil society governance in Penang Island, Malaysia, through the lens of multi-species flourishing. In doing so, the paper offers an empirical examination of increasing development pressures on the forested hillsides of Penang, and the significant environmental and socio-cultural implications associated …
In the 1680s, King Narai, ruler of the cosmopolitan kingdom of Ayutthaya, was the subject of competing Christian and Muslim attempts to convert him to monotheism. Formal embassies from Louis XIV of France and the Safavid court were received with this purpose in mind – but they were embarrassing failures, and helped precipitate a coup …
Marriage is central to Indonesia’s social fabric and critical in defining socially legitimate relationships. This book offers a rich anthropological account of Muslim Indonesian women’s experiences of courtship, love, marital discord and separation, polygamy, divorce and remarriage. By applying a new approach to theorising marital experiences as playing out across a dynamic marital continuum, it …
Ever since Singapore became an independent nation in 1965, its government has been intent on transforming the island’s environment. This has led to a nearly constant overhaul of the landscape, whether still natural or already manmade. Not only are the shape and dimensions of the main island and its subsidiary ones constantly modified so are …
Singapore’s Permanent Territorial Revolution: Fifty Years in Fifty Maps Read More »
In this study Arun Bala examines the implications that Niels Bohr’s principle of complementarity holds for fields beyond physics. Bohr, one of the founding figures of modern quantum physics, argued that the principle of complementarity he proposed for understanding atomic processes has parallels in psychology, biology, and social science, as well as in Buddhist and …
Complementarity beyond Physics: Niels Bohr’s Parallels Read More »
The aim of this study is to examine the linkages between ownership of households’ agricultural landholding and child nutritional status in rural India. Agricultural landholding is a critical indicator of socioeconomic wellbeing in rural areas. More than 72 per cent of the working population in rural India is involved in agriculture as its main or …
