Can Mak Yong survive another decade? April 14, 2021 – Posted in: In The News

A. Kathirasen “But we Malaysians are different. We want the name and the prestige, but when it comes to action we turn into stone. The only thing left for Mak Yong, it appears, is to die out.” Mak Yong was declared a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) in 2005. The recognition followed the submission of a paper on the traditional Malay…

Magic in the Malay World January 4, 2018 – Posted in: In The News

The difference between divination and the divine is a fine one. South-East Asia is a region with strong beliefs in the spirit world, blending modern rationality and traditional knowledge. There is great reciprocity between the seen and the unseen – from spells to win back an errant lover to communing with the spirits, raising crops, curing illnesses and cursing enemies, magic is everyday practice for some of its polyglot inhabitants. In Myanmar, during British colonial…

8 Dec 2017: Penang and Its Networks of Knowledge December 14, 2017 – Posted in: Newsletters

The essays testify to the rich cultural life of Penang’s cosmopolitan populace, who were engaging simultaneously with tradition and modernity, with indigeneity and foreignness, and producing new types of hybridities in thought, expression, the printed word and the urban cultural landscape. — Khoo Salma Nasution It would have been just another rainy Thursday evening (and a significant holiday in the US) but for many book and history lovers, it was the day a long awaited…