Raffles Renounced: Towards a Merdeka History

Paperback; 280 pages
9789811420382
2021
English
1 copy available at C42

Preview of Raffles Renounced: Towards a Merdeka History. Pages have been omitted in this book preview.

Synopsis

Why did independent Singapore celebrate two hundred years of its founding as a British colony in 2019? What does Merdeka mean for Singaporeans? And what are the possibilities of doing decolonial history in Singapore? Raffles Renounced: Towards a Merdeka Historypresents essays by historians, literary scholars and artists which grapple with these questions.

The volume also reproduces some of the source material used in the play Merdeka / 獨立 / சுதந்திரம் (Wild Rice, 2019). Taken together, the book shows how the contradictions of independent nationhood haunt Singaporeans' collective and personal stories about Merdeka. It points to the need for a Merdeka history: an open and fearless culture of historical reckoning that not only untangles us from colonial narratives, but proposes emancipatory possibilities.

(Source: Raffles Renounced: Towards a Merdeka History blurb)

Donated by Ethos Books


contents

"We refuse to recognise the trauma": A Conversation between Alfian Sa'at and Neo Hai Bin
"Merdeka!": From cacophony to the sound of silence
Stamford Raffles and the Founding of Singapore: The Politics of Commemoration and Dilemmas of History
The Bicentennial: Of Precedents, Prequels and the Discipline of History in Singapore
Why Raffles is Still Standing: Colonialism, Migration and Singapore's Scripting of the Present
Finding Merdeka in a World of Statues: Singapore's Colonial Pageant Remade and Unmade
Malay Literary Intelligentsia and Colonialism: A Stunted Discourse
Opening the Bicentennial: Historical Plurality in Sean Cham's Art
"Giving up an attachment to power": An interview with Jimmy Ong
"Theatre doesn't change anything": Merdeka / 獨立 / சுதந்திரம் and the Performance of the Singapore Bicentennial
by
Joanne Leow
Merdeka Texts

productions & stagings