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Dr Yeoh Seng Guan

 

Email: yeoh.seng.guan@sass.monash.edu.my
Phone No.: +603 5514 6131 (Direct Line)
Room No.: 2-6-11

 

 

B.Div. (SEAGST, Singapore)
Ph.D. ( University of Edinburgh)
- Senior Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies

  

My research areas have basically revolved around examining the production, appropriation and deployment of space – material, symbolic and technological - by a range of social actors and institutions across time and cultures. In pursuit of these themes, I have conducted fieldwork in various “sites” in Kuala Lumpur and in Penang (both in Malaysia), and more recently in Baguio City (Philippines) and Yogyakarta (Indonesia).

To promote regional literacy and networking possibilities for my students, I also organize annual study trips to neighbouring Southeast Asian countries. These trips result in collective blogs and video documentaries produced by student travelers.

I facilitate regular video-making workshops and other related activities to inculcate the use of new media in visually documenting and disseminating critically informed commentaries about the world we live in.

Together with my colleague, Benjamin McKay, we curate the Nasi Bungkus Cinema that showcases experimental and short films made by students and accomplished film-makers in the region.

I am involved in a number of local and regionally-based civil society groups under different capacities. My research expertise has been sought and reported in a few local dailies and broadcasting media. I am currently an Associate of the UNESCO Chair in Inter-religious and Intercultural Relations, Asia-Pacific Region held by Prof. Emeritus Gary Bouma.

Among others, I have been a recipient of the Evans Postdoctoral Fellowship (University of Cambridge), Kaneka Southeast Asian Fellowship (IKMAS, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia), and the Asian Public Intellectuals Fellowships (Nippon Foundation).

 

Academic Publications

Books and Journals

2010 forthcoming With Julian Lee, Melissa Wong & Wong Chin Huat. “Elections, repertoires of contention and habitus in four civil society engagements in Malaysia’s 2008 General Elections”, Social Movement Studies, Vol 9, No. 2.
2010 Guest editor. Special issue on "Malaysia: Post 8 March 2008", The Round Table: Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs, Vol.99, No.407.
2010 Editor. Media, culture & society in Malaysia, London & New York: Routledge.
2010 "Representation, cultural mediation and power in Malaysia". In Yeoh Seng Guan ed. Media, culture & society in Malaysia, London & New York: Routledge, pp. 1-20.
2010 “$#@% mak!: The oil in the multicultural machine”. In Julian Lee ed. The Malaysian way of life, Singapore: Marshall Cavendish, pp. 32-36.
2010 “Quotidian peace (and violence) in a squatter colony”. In Francis Loh Kok Wah ed. Building bridges, crossing boundaries: Everyday forms of inter-ethnic peace-building in Malaysia, Jakarta & Kajang:  Ford Foundation & Malaysian Social Science Association, pp. 117-146.
2009 Yeoh Seng Guan, Loh Wei Leng, Khoo Salma Nasution & Neil Khor  eds. Penang and its region:  The story of an Asian entrepot, Singapore: National University of Singapore Press.
2009 “The Streets of Kuala Lumpur: Cityscape, ‘race’ and civil disobedience”. In Melissa Butcher and Selvaraj Velayutham eds. Dissent and cultural resistance in Asia’s cities, London & New York: Routledge, pp. 128-147.
2009 “Limiting cosmopolitanism: Streetlife Little India, Kuala Lumpur”. In Shail Mayaram ed. The other global city, London & New York: Routledge, pp. 131-160.
2009 “For/against hybridity: Religious entrepreneurships in a Roman Catholic pilgrimage shrine in Malaysia”, Asian Journal of Social Science, Vol. 37, No. 1: 7-28.
2009 “Hungry ghost festival”. In Berkshire Encyclopedia of Modern China, Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire.
2008 “Sidewalk Capitalism: Notes on a critical visual ethnography of street vending in Baguio City, Philippines”. In Are we up to the Challenge? Current crises and the Asian intellectual community. The work of the 2005-2006 Fellows, Tokyo: The Nippon Foundation.
2008 7 entries in Jan Rogozinski ed. The city and urban life: Africa, Asia, Europe, the Americas and the Pacific Islands, New York: M. E. Sharpe. 
2006 “Religious pluralism, gender and kinship in a pilgrimage shrine” The Feast of St. Anne in Bukit Mertajam”, Material religion: The journal of objects, art and belief, Vol. 3, No. 1: 4-37.
2006 “Writing, business and politics in the academe: A view from afar”, International Sociological E-Bulletin, No. 4, July, 32-35.
2005 “Managing sensitivities: Religious pluralism, civil society and inter-faith relations in Malaysia”, The Roundtable: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 94, Issue 382: 629-640.
2005 “House, kampung and taman: Spatial hegemony and the politics (and poetics) of space”, Crossroads: Interdisciplinary Journal for Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 17, No. 2: 71-103.
2004 "The unbearable likeness of democratic multiculturalism in Malaysia". In M. Nadarajah, Another Malaysia is possible, Kuala Lumpur: National Office for Human Development, pp. 273-278.
2004 With Gayathry V. “Media values, media ownership and democratic governance in Malaysia”. In Communicating the future: Proceedings on the National Conference on the future of the media in a knowledge society: Rights, responsibilities and risks, Kuala Lumpur: United Nations Development Programme & Kinibooks, pp. 76-98.
2002 10 entries. In D. Levinson and K. Christensen eds., Encyclopedia of Modern Asia, New York: Charles Scribner’s Son.
2001  “Poverty”. In S. Sunquist ed. A Dictionary of Asian Christianity, Grand Rapids & Cambridge: Eerdmans, pp.667-669.
2001 “Creolised utopias: Squatter colonies and the postcolonial city in Malaysia”, Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia, Vol. 16, No. 1: 102-124
2001 “Producing locality: Space, houses, and public culture in a Hindu festival in Malaysia”, Contributions to Indian Sociology (n.s.), Vol. 35, No. 1: 33-64.
   

Book and Film Reviews

2011 forthcoming "Christianity and the state in Asia". Edited by Julius Bautista and Francis Khek Gee Lim (2009). Sojourn
2010 forthcoming "Malaysian maverick. Mahathir Mohamad in turbulent times". By Barry Wain (2009). The Round Table.
2010 forthcoming

"Things fall away: Philippine historical experience and the makings of globalization". By Neferti Tadiar (2009), Sojourn
2010 “Houses in motion: The experience of place and the problem of belief in urban Malaysia”. By Richard Baxstrom (2008), Pacific Affairs, Vol. 82, No. 4
2009 ‘Unsettling Absences: Urbanism in Rural Malaysia by Eric C Thompson (2007), in Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography, Vol. 30, No. 2: 294-295.

2009

“The headman was a woman: The gender egalitarian Batek of Malaysia”. By Kirk M Endicott and Karen L Endicott (2008), Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (n.s.), Vol. 15: 672-673.

2009

 “Preaching from pictures: A Japanese Mandala”. Produced and directed by David W Plath (2006), Visual Anthropology Review, Vol. 25, Issue 1: 92-93.
2009 “Visualising anthropology”. By Anna Grimshaw and Amanda Ravetz eds., Visual Anthropology Review, Vol. 25, Issue 1: 77-79.
2008 “A new god in the diaspora? Muneeswaran worship in contemporary Singapore”. By Vineeta Sinha (2006), Material religion: The journal of objects, art and belief, Vol. 4, No. 1: 104-105.
2005 “Rites of belonging: Memory, modernity and identity in a Chinese community”. By Jean DeBernardi (2004), Journal of Chinese Political Science, Vol. 10, No. 2: 110-111.
2002 “The meaning and power of social space”. By Hans Dieter Evers and Rudiger Korff (2000), Sojourn, Vol. 17, No. 2: 306-310
   

Videography

2010 God, balut and ice cream (30 mins).
2010 Soto ayam (29 mins). With Nurina Malinda.

2009

Manong Diokno (31mins) (DVD Image 1) (DVD Image 2)

2009

The kue seller couple (30 mins). With Nurina Malinda (DVD Image 1) (DVD Image 2)

2009

The gendhong women of Beringharjo market (14 mins). With Nurina Malinda (DVD Image)

2008

Manang Nora (36 mins).(DVD Image)

2006

The gladiator cock (11 mins) (DVD Image)
2006 

Sidewalk capitalism: Being a street vendor in Baguio City, Philippines (70 mins).
   

Non-academic publications (selected)
2010 “The 'saint' of Sentul: A tribute to James Arunasalam", Aliran, Vol. 29, No. 11/12.
2009 “Like a star”. In Kua Kia Soong ed. Many shades of good. A tribute to Toni Kassim, Petaling Jaya: Suaram Kommunikasi.
2008 “The oil in the multicultural machine”, Off The Edge (October)
2008 “Like a star”, Aliran, Vol. 28, No. 5
2006 “Sounding the gong of resistance”, Aliran, Vol. 26, No. 5
2001 “That we may not separate them in our hearts”, Aliran, Vol. 21, No. 9