s/pores: New Directions in Singapore Studies

This e-journal aims to provide a much-needed multi-disciplinary platform for the dissemination of works investigating different aspects of historical and contemporary Singapore society. Moving beyond statist perspectives, the journal encourages research that opens up space for recalibrating the status quo in Singapore. Possible fields of endeavour include:

1. Re-evaluation and critiques of official historiography and discourses

2. Research on marginalized actors and social classes

3. Engagement with issues of concern, examined through a historical frame

s/pores came about from the discussions among recently recently-returned Singaporean academics, none of whom were trained as specialists of Singapore as such. They were keen to be ‘home scholars’, defined by Thai historian Thongchai Winichakul as those whose works are read, debated, and become, in a sustained manner, part of the scholarly discourse and cultural politics of their home country.

Conversations with like-minded friends, including those already pushing in new directions, consolidated into an electronic journal for the relative freedom from financial outlay and from distribution challenges that the medium provides.

s/pores is an interplay of the short form, the lower case, the plural, the backslash-the informal, the non-elite, the multiple, the oblique. Pronounced ‘spores’, our title also denotes the dispersal of seeds of ideas, some of which should fall on fertile ground. s/pores is therefore simultaneously a declaration of authorial positioning as it is a statement of our hopes for a more variegated Singapore.

The initial issues will be managed by a collective. To get the journal off the ground, their responsibilities at this stage include writing for s/pores and soliciting for contributions. We hope to be inundated with submissions eventually.

We aim to publish once every four months, but expect that s/pores will initially be a semi-annual affair. However, we hope that it will become a regular forum for thoughtful, constructive commentary which will appear bi-monthly or even monthly.

Contributions should be the result of scholarly research, but need not be presented with the full formal conventions of an academic product. In fact, the injunction is that intimidating academic-speak is out. We want to provide room as well for reflective essays, proposals and tentative findings for new areas of research.

Contributors have copyright on their materials, and have the right to use them in other forms or publication. Each author is solely responsible for the views expressed in their contribution, which do not reflect the position of either of s/pores, nor the institution to which she or he is affiliated.

The inaugural s/poreans:

Daniel Goh, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore
Hong Lysa, independent scholar since 2000. Currently a visiting fellow at the History Department, National University of Singapore
Kwee Hwee Kian, Post-doctoral Fellow, Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore (until June 2007)
Lim Cheng Tju, history teacher
Francis Lim Khek Gee, Assistant Professor, Division of Sociology, Nanyang Technological University, and member of the civil society group Tangent
Sai Siew Min, Assistant Professor, History Department, National University of Singapore
Teng Siao See, Assistant Professor, Sociology Department, Fu Jen Catholic University, Taiwan


Editorial

“A Subaltern Perspective on History” (人下人的历史观): reading Fang Zhuang Bi’s （方壮壁 ）Memoir , Sai Siew Min

A PERSONAL JOURNEY IN SEARCH OF FAJAR, Lim Cheng Tju

Huang Kaide’s ‘Our memories’, Kwee Hwee Kian

Interpreting National Language Class, Daniel Goh

The continuing saga of Singapore’s Story, Hong Lysa

In Memory of Linda Chen (1928-2002), Tan Jin Quee

Ho Piao: A personal recollection and appreciation, Tan Jin Quee

Event Announcement: Education at Large: An Exhibition on Student Activities and Activism In Singapore, 1945-1965