Farish to kick off lecture series

Here’s an interesting series of seminar lectures on Culture, Media and Identity brought to you by the Centre for the Study of Communications and Culture, University of Nottingham Malaysia campus.

Farish Noor is first in line to speak at these Saturday talks beginning at 10.00am tomorrow at the University of Nottingham KL Teaching Centre,
Level 2, Chulan Tower, 3 Jalan Conlay, 50450 Kuala Lumpur. If you are interested, the Centre requests you to email [email protected] to confirm attendance, mainly for catering purposes.

Here’s how the Centre describes these series:

The series will be in three parts, each comprising six lectures or multimedia presentations by renowned scholars and cultural activists. The main aim of the series is to examine and evaluate the importance of culture and the media in the construction of identities in an increasingly globalised world. This is important in a region comprising multiple cultures and at a time when greater cultural awareness, understanding and respect is needed but, unfortunately, has not been forthcoming.

The first series of presentations, titled Voices: Public Intellectuals and Public Discourse in South and South-East Asia, will provide critical engagements with contemporary issues related to the role(s) of public
intellectuals and public discourses in often-authoritarian settings.

Saturday 10am – 1pm
Programme

26 February 2011
Public Intellectuals and Public Discourse – Examining the Parameters
Farish A. Noor (Nanyang Technological University, Singapore)

19 March 2011
Engaging With the Public
Amir Muhammad (Matahari Books, Malaysia)

9 April 2011
Writhing in the Margins: Art, Protest and the Public Sphere
Sharaad Kuttan (IACT, Malaysia)

30 April 2011
Democracy Denied? Communication Rights in Thailand Post – Thaksin
Ubonrat Siriyuvasak (Chulalongkorn University, Thailand)

21 May 2011
Decolonising the Mind – The Problem with Nationalism
Francis Loh (Universiti Sains Malaysia)

28 May 2011 Public Intellectuals and the Marginalised
Anjali Monteiro and K.P Jayasankar (Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India)

The second series, scheduled after summer 2011, titled Transformations: Media and Identity in Contemporary South-East Asia will showcase and critically evaluate the works of young, independent cultural producers, mainly working in the medium of film. Often eschewing purely commercial considerations, these Indies have been at the forefront of redefining ‘national’ cinema and problematising the often taken-for-granted definitions of ‘national culture’ and ‘national identity’.

Language and literature continue to play complex roles in societies, not least in post colonial societies where language and (local) literature – after their initial roles as weapons of resistance – have contributed to a sense of belonging, a sense of identity in these societies. The third series of presentations, titled Language, Literature and Identity, will examine these roles.