Dr Andrew Ng Hock Soon
Email:
ng.hock.soon@sass.monash.edu.my
Phone No.: +603 5514 6127 (Direct Line)
Room No.: 2-6-14
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B.Ed (Hons) (TESL, University Malaya)
M.A (Literature, University of Malaya)
Ph.D. (Literature, Western Australia)
- Lecturer in Literature |
 My
primary research in the area of Gothic studies has
encouraged a lateral approach in reading and theorizing
literature. Increasingly, I am interested in rethinking the
notion of space in narratives – especially uncanny spaces –
deploying both architectural theories and environmental
criticism to inform my work. Currently, my two concurrent
projects are related to the interfacing of bodies, sexuality
and space, especially in Gothic narratives and the “weird
tale”. The first involves a series of essay on contemporary
women writers, such as Angela Carter and Janice Galloway, and
their deployment of spatial metaphors to represent
subjectivity and repression. My second project is a book
manuscript, still in its infancy, which looks at “nature” in
the narratives of late Victorian writers of the macabre such
as M.R. James, Arthur Machen, and Algernon Blackwood.
This
year, I am consolidating my research project on examining the
way in which religion features in Anglophone Malaysian
literature. Analyzing the writings of Lee Kok Liang, Lloyd
Fernando, Shirley Lim, K.S. Maniam and some emerging Malay
writers, I discuss the way these writers negotiate religion and
subjectivity (race, sex, nationalism and gender) in their works,
often relying heavily on irony to contest homogenizing agendas.
Also,
related to my interest in religion in literature, I am currently
editing a book on the representation of the Christ figure in
contemporary literature. The essays broadly reflect
Christological perspectives in various genres including
postcolonial narratives, children’s fiction, science fiction,
American literature and postmodern writings, insinuating an
enduring fascination with the Christ metaphor.
I am also involved in various projects including
essays on theologizing horror and another for a collection on
skin and psychoanalysis.
Academic Publications
Books
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Interrogating Interstices: Gothic
Aesthetics in Postcolonial Asian and Asian American
Literature.
New York: Peter Lang, 2007.
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Dimensions of
Monstrosity
in
Contemporary
Narratives:
Theory, Psychoanalysis,
Postmodernism.
Basingstoke/New
York: Palgrave, 2004. |
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Edited Books
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The Poetics of Shadow: The Double in
Literature and Philosophy. Stuttgart: Ibidem-Verlag
(2008).
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Asian Gothic: Essays in Literature,
Film and Anime. NJ.:
McFarland Pub., 2008.
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Book Chapters
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“Nation and
Religion in the Fiction of Lloyd Fernando”, in
Sharing Borders: Studies in Contemporary Singaporean and
Malaysian Literature in English, Vol. 1. Eds.
Mohammad A. Quayum and Wong Phui
Nam..
Singapore:
National Library Board, 2009. 114-27.
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“Death and the Double: Gothic Aesthetics in Genesis 4. 1–16”, in
Sacred Tropes: The Tanakh, The New Testament and the
Quran as Literature, ed. Roberta Sabbath.
London: Brill, 2009. 107-13.
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“‘Death and the
Maiden’: The Pontianak as Excess in Malay Popular Culture”,
in
Draculas, Vampires, and Other Undead Forms: Trans/Cultural Studies in
Gender, Race, and Genre, eds. Joan Picart and John E. Browning. Lanham:
Scarecrow Press, 2009. 167-86.
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“Destruction and the Discourse of Deformity:
Invisible Monsters and the Ethics of Monstrosity”,
in Reading Chuck Palahniuk: American Monsters and
Literary Mayhem, eds. Cynthia Kuhn and Lance Rubin.
London/New York: Routledge,
2009. 24-35.
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“Dangerous
Charisma and the Devaluation of Religion in Lloyd
Fernando’s Scorpion Orchid”, in
Writing a Nation:
Essays on Malaysian Literature. Ed. Mohammad A.
Quayum and Nor Faridah Abdul Manaf.
Kuala Lumpur: IIUM Press, 2009.
279-304.
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“Haunting
Concubines: Reading Su Tong’s ‘Raise the Red Lantern’ as
a Story about Ghosts Seeking Substitutes”.
Ghost, Gender and
History. Ed. Sladja Blazan.
Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007. 41–59.
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“Gothic
Illuminations of the Postmodern and Postcolonial
Conditions in Salman Rushdie’s
Fury”. British Asian Fictions. Eds. Neil Murphy and
Sim Wai Chew. Lampeter: Edwin Mellen Press, 2007
(forthcoming)
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“At the
Threshold of Eternity’: Religious Inversion in
Peter Ackroyd’s
Hawksmoor”. Race and Religion in the
Postcolonial Detective Fiction. Ed.
Julie Kim.
Jefferson: McFarland Pub. 2005. 138–64.
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Articles in Journals (refereed)
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“Islam and
Modernity in the Works of Two Contemporary Malay
Anglophone Writers”.
Journal of
Commonwealth Literature, 44.3 (2009): 127-41.
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“Confronting the
Modern: Kobo Abe’s The Box Man and Yumiko
Kurahashi’s “The Witch Mask”.
Criticism: A
Journal of Literature and the Arts, 51.2 (2009):
311-331.
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“Subjecting
Spaces: Angela Carter’s
Love”.
Contemporary Literature 49.3 (2008): 412-37. .
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“The Vision of
Hospitality in Lloyd Fernando’s
Scorpion Orchid”.
The Journal of
Postcolonial Writing, 44. 2 (2008): 171–81.
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“Revisiting
Judges 19: A Gothic Perspective”,
The Journal for
the Studies of the Old Testament. 32.3 (2007).
199–215
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“Tarrying with
the Numinous: Postmodern Japanese Gothic Stories”,
New Zealand
Journal of Asian Studies, 9. 2 (2007): 65–86.
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“The Wider
Shores of Gothic”,
Meanjin, 66.2 (2007): 149–56.
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“The Maternal
Imagination in the Poetry of Shirley Lim”,
Women: A Cultural
Review, 18. 2 (2007): 162-81.
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“Adorno,
Foucault, and Said: Toward a Multicultural Gothic
Aesthetics”,
Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies, 33.1
(forthcoming, May 2007).
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“Malaysian
Gothic: The Motif of Haunting in K.S. Maniam’s “Haunting
the Tiger” and Shirley
Lim’s “Haunting”.
Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of
Literature, 39. 2 (2006): 75 – 88.
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“Muscular
Existentialism in Chuck Palahniuk’s
Fight Club”.
Stirrings Still: An International Journal of Existential Literature,
2.2 (Winter/Fall 2005). 116 – 38.
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“A Tale from the
Crypt: Arundathi Roy’s
The God of Small
Things”.
Commonwealth Essays and Studies, 27. 2 (2005): 45 –
58.
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“Nationalism,
Feminism and the Rupturing of the Binary: Reading Salman
Rushdie’s Shame
as Gothic”. Exit
9: Rutgers
Journal of Comparative Literature,
7 (2005): 55 – 68.
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“Reading Asian
American Literature as Gothic: Two Women’s Texts and the
Resignification of an American Literary Heritage”.
South East Asian
Review of English, 46 (2005): 42 – 69.
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“Clearly
Breathing Once Again: The State of Malaysian Literature in
English”. South
East Asian Review of English 45 (2003/4): 80 – 90.
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“Footbinding and
Masochism: A Psychoanalytical Exploration”.
Women Studies: An
Interdisciplinary Journal, 33.5 (June 2004): 651 –
76.
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“Politics
of
Deformed
Bodies/Space
in Adib
Khan’s The
Storyteller”.
South East Asian Review of English 44
(Sept. 2001): 30 – 50.
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| “The
Paradox
of
Keda: A
Postcolonial
(Gothic)
Reading
of
Mervyn
Peake’s
Gormenghast
Trilogy”. Peake
Studies 6:4 (2000). |
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Other Publications
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“A Cultural
History of the Pontianak Films”, in
New Malaysian Essays 2. Ed. Amir Muhammad. Kuala Lumpur: Matahari, 2009. 213-43.
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“K.S Maniam” and
“Southeast Asian Fiction”, in The Encyclopedia of
Twentieth-Century World Fiction. London: Blackwell.
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“Shirley Lim’s
Monsoon History”. The Literary Encyclopedia.
www. litencyc.com
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“Can
Xue” and “Su Tong”, two entries in
The Compendium of
Twentieth Century World Novelists and Novels. Ed.
Michael Sollars, New York: Facts on File
Inc., 2007.
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