| Office: | AS5 05-26 |
| Telephone: | 6516-4950 |
| Email: | ellhpj@nus.edu.sg |
I returned to the Department of English Language and Literature in 2002 after two years in the University Scholars Programme. My current research interests are in Southeast Asian Literatures in English, and in thinking through global modernity and its effects on literature and literary studies. My previous work has been on colonial modernity, autobiography and transnational literatures, and I've published a number of articles on Singapore Literature and Culture. I have recently been teaching introductory modules and modules in Singapore Literature and Culture, although my primary interest hasn't so much been in establishing a Singaporean literary canon as in thinking about how such texts might make us engage more deeply with the society in which we live: my own thought is that questions raised by Singapre writing are best informed by regional and comparative perspectivers, rather than simply national ones. In the current academic year, I've thus moved to two courses that place Singapore Literature in regional and postcolonial frameworks.
My published books are Orienting Masculinity, Orienting Nation: W. Somerset Maugham's Exotic Fiction (Greenwood 1996), Modern Subjects / Colonial Texts: Hugh Clifford and the Discipline of Literature in the Straits Settlements, 1895-1907 (ELT 2000), Imperial Desire: Dissident Sexualities and Colonial Literature (co-edited with Richard Ruppel, U of Minnesota P, 2003), Questioning Chinese Transnationalisms: Society, Literature Film (co-edited with Maria Ng, U of Hong Kong P, 2006). and Autobiography and Decolonization: Modernity, Masculinity and the Nation-State (University of Wisconsin Press, 2008). A co-authored volume with my colleague Rajeev Patke The Routledge Concise History of Southeast Asian Writing in English (Routledge 2009) is forthcoming.
I'm also the author of several articles on colonial and postcolonial literature and culture in various journals. Two of these are available online via open access databases:
Follow the link to a .pdf version of my full curriculum vitae
A major research project I have finished working on recently is National Autobiography in the Postcolonial World: the book is now published by the University of Wisconsin Press. I'm currently working on a project with Rajeev Patke on devising a literary history of Southeast Asian writing in English, as well as continuing to publish on Singapore literature, Southeast Asian literature, and postcolonial writing.
These are a brief selection of the web-based resources I have developed, either by myself or in collaboration with others. Links to other resources can be found on the resources page.
[Note that I no longer maintain the Scholars Programme web sites]
University Scholars Programme
General Education and Singapore Studies Modules
Department of English Language and Literature
Last updated: June 29, 2008