Category: essays
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How I’ve managed to stay an academic (thus far)
TEO YOU YENN She found her voice as a public sociologist when writing one of Singapore’s most influential books, but the years that followed its publication tested her resolve. Every few years, I get the feeling that I ought to quit. Not just my job at the university, but the whole business of being a…
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From scandal to business as usual: normalising controls over academia
CHERIAN GEORGE Political agendas have been internalised in Singapore’s universities. Academics who directly experience censorship and retaliation are not the only ones paying the price. Singapore’s politically compromised university system has done less harm to me than to several academics I know, and probably many others I don’t. When my career in Singapore was blocked…
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‘Troubling’ knowledge production in Singapore’s education system
MARK BAILDON An education scholar recounts his struggles with the double binds and conflicting goals of knowledge production in Singapore. I arrived in Singapore in 2006, a new Assistant Professor at the National Institute of Education (NIE). This was an exciting time in my field of humanities and social science education. The Ministry of Education (MOE)…
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Ruminations on scholarship, civic engagement and advocacy beyond the ivory tower
Kevin Y.L. Tan Kevin Tan reflects on his career as a legal academic and his deep involvement in civil society and rights and heritage advocacy. I stopped counting how often well-meaning friends and colleagues have told me that life would be much better and easier if I minded my own business and kept my mouth…
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A scholar’s journey, in and out of Singapore
LINDA LIM Linda Lim reflects on decades of living abroad while pursuing an intellectual passion for — and personal commitment to — the development and well-being of Singapore. Singapore academics often ask me: Why did you work overseas, and how did you manage to study Singapore from there? How did you survive as a critic…