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Please read the following texts:
COURSE PACK
With Kuo, we move to drama, a genre that we have not considered in the course until now, and we also return to Singapore. Wee and Lee's introduction to the volume gives a good overview of Kuo's career as a playwright, dramatist, and active participant in Singapore's arts community. We will spend a little time in class reprising this introductory material, focusing on statements that Kuo has made about the importance of his plays as representative of a certain kind of social space which is necessary in modernity, and how this might resonate with Chua Beng Huat's brief article on Sinbgapore's experience with modernity.
Ko has been particularly concerned with the issue of rootedness within modernity, and the manner in which artists--and indeed people in general-- might draw on one or many dynamic, living cultural heritages which are not "museumized." The plays collected here, which were both written and performed towards the end of his career, both revisit important historical events--the Chinese Ming dynasty admiral Zheng He's voyages to Southeast Asia, and the Pacific War of the twentieth century--in order to comment on contemporary questions regarding living in a modern world.
I have also included an essay written by Kuo corncerning the notion of "civil society" which was a hot topic of discussion the 1990s and early 2000s as being a key feature of modern society. Civil society is generally seen as describing modes of association which occupy a space that is neither purely commercial (the market) or governmental (the state). Kuo's essay may give you some idea of his thoughts about what role drama and the arts might play in a highly technologized society.
Last updated: 26 September, 2007