International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2021
This paper engages with the aspects of discursive hegemony in terms of both Metropolitan and disc... more This paper engages with the aspects of discursive hegemony in terms of both Metropolitan and disciplinary position and privilege, using the sociology of the language that has been produced on Malaysian Indian identity as my point of reference. It contends that these observations and articulations are able to rise to the surface more easily when they are securely located within disciplinary domains often related to determinacy. I argue that viewed as a whole, it becomes apparent that these discourses are coloured by the subjective desire of the accumulation of knowledge on the subject matters of their writings. As such, they are as much stories that are told of the Malaysian Indian community as those found in literary narratives and can ultimately lead to unequal discursivities.
An International Journal of Asian Literatures, Cultures and Englishes, 2010
The task of teaching literature (in English) to Malaysian tertiary students is often fraught with... more The task of teaching literature (in English) to Malaysian tertiary students is often fraught with difficulties. Challenges range from dealing with a majority of learners with little competence in the English language, much less analytical reading and writing skills. However, literature taught and learnt effectively can pave the way towards the development of multiple literacy skills especially as it is known to be an effective tool in generating multicultural awareness and communication skills in learners. This article will demonstrate the ways in which the latter can be achieved through the incorporation of popular television series and music in literature courses. It will show how popular television series as well as popular songs can be used as captivating tools to channel an understanding of key issues and terms crucial to literary studies that can prove to be far more successful than when teaching and learning is based merely on literary texts alone. The article concludes that ...
In this paper, I focus on the influence of the Société des Missions étrangères de Paris (MEP) on ... more In this paper, I focus on the influence of the Société des Missions étrangères de Paris (MEP) on the performative poetics of Christian faith and citizenship among Malaysian Catholics. Using the central trope of the house, both in its general context of home and dwelling, and its Christian context of the church as a house of worship, I specifically show how cross-border movements, through intersections of individual, material, and cultural mobility stretching across centuries have led to synekistic practices of subject formation in the religious sphere. In this way the paper interjects into discourses on conflict between Christianity and the state and highlights alternative notes of interdependencies and creative synergies.
While there in an exhaustive list of literature produced by diasporic South Asian writers that vo... more While there in an exhaustive list of literature produced by diasporic South Asian writers that voices a multitude of concerns for both men and women of this descent, the voice that speaks to the South Asian young adult needs to be highlighted and explored in detail. This is especially crucial as the majority of metropolitan young adult texts are largely Eurocentric in nature. Novels with themes that appeal to a young reader with subject matter consistent with the age, experiences and challenges of the young adult and with a young non-white protagonist are rare. This paper introduces a South Asian Diasporic Metropolitan Young Adult text to investigate how it can interpolate into the consciousness of the Metropolitan diasporic South Asian young reader as well as into the western narrative space. This is done by focusing on the ways in which South Asian elements of place, history, and allegory interpolate into the narrative space of Tanuja Desai Hidier’s young adult novel, Born Confu...
This article examines the emergence of the Catholic Church in Malaysia and Singapore in the moder... more This article examines the emergence of the Catholic Church in Malaysia and Singapore in the modern period through an exploration of the Apostolic Vicariate of Western Siam (1841–1888). The establishment of this Catholic institution—a temporary territorial jurisdiction in missionary regions that precedes the creation of new dioceses—was key to advancing the transition of the Church from its older colonial model towards a modern national Church. Focusing on the work conducted by French missionaries of the Missions Étrangères de Paris (mep) over these five decades, we analyze the process of developing a local clergy and setting up the socio-cultural scaffolding of the contemporary Catholic Church in the Malay Peninsula. We pay special attention to how mep missionaries skilfully navigated their missionary activities through encounters with Malay rulers and British colonial officers to secure the creation of a Catholic elite independent of the Portuguese Padroado. Our argument suggests t...
Abstract:This article presents a glimpse into the literary writings emanating from a community th... more Abstract:This article presents a glimpse into the literary writings emanating from a community that has, at best, remained at the margins of global South Asian diasporic literary scholarship: that of the Indian diaspora in Malaysia. It begins with a brief historical overview of the Malaysian Indian community together with an overview and cartography of Malaysian Indian writings. It then develops a comparative analysis of the representation of an issue quite central to Malaysian Indian identity politics, that of caste and class, in two novels: The Return by K.S. Maniam, an established Malaysian writer, and Evening Is the Whole Day by Preeta Samarasan, the newest writer to emerge from this community. The ultimate aim of this article is to show that if one steps closer to the canvas and look deeper at the representations of the community in literary texts that contextualize and individualize the Malaysian Indian experience, then intra-ethnic heterogeneity and conflicts within the diasporic community, as well as the forms of subaltern positioning, become visible, and they insistently reveal that such a community is as heterogeneous as its global counterparts.
The dynamics of globalization and digitization are not only shaping a new media order but also ma... more The dynamics of globalization and digitization are not only shaping a new media order but also making significant impacts on the cultural dimensions of an older societal order in the case of the Tamil Diaspora. The emerging transnational phenomenon of Tamil television challenges constructed boundaries, contests traditionally homogenized spaces such as those of nation and homeland, questions the principle of territoriality and opens up the sphere both from without and within the national space. New media practices and flows are shaping media spaces with a built-in transnational connectivity, creating contemporary cultures pregnant with new meanings and experiences. This article aims to map the developments around transnational Tamil television. It scrutinizes the nature and impact of Tamil media emerging from Singapore and Malaysia on other parts of the diasporic Tamil world, and also alternatively, the nature and effect of Tamil media from India and elsewhere in Singapore and Malays...
International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 2021
This paper engages with the aspects of discursive hegemony in terms of both Metropolitan and disc... more This paper engages with the aspects of discursive hegemony in terms of both Metropolitan and disciplinary position and privilege, using the sociology of the language that has been produced on Malaysian Indian identity as my point of reference. It contends that these observations and articulations are able to rise to the surface more easily when they are securely located within disciplinary domains often related to determinacy. I argue that viewed as a whole, it becomes apparent that these discourses are coloured by the subjective desire of the accumulation of knowledge on the subject matters of their writings. As such, they are as much stories that are told of the Malaysian Indian community as those found in literary narratives and can ultimately lead to unequal discursivities.
An International Journal of Asian Literatures, Cultures and Englishes, 2010
The task of teaching literature (in English) to Malaysian tertiary students is often fraught with... more The task of teaching literature (in English) to Malaysian tertiary students is often fraught with difficulties. Challenges range from dealing with a majority of learners with little competence in the English language, much less analytical reading and writing skills. However, literature taught and learnt effectively can pave the way towards the development of multiple literacy skills especially as it is known to be an effective tool in generating multicultural awareness and communication skills in learners. This article will demonstrate the ways in which the latter can be achieved through the incorporation of popular television series and music in literature courses. It will show how popular television series as well as popular songs can be used as captivating tools to channel an understanding of key issues and terms crucial to literary studies that can prove to be far more successful than when teaching and learning is based merely on literary texts alone. The article concludes that ...
In this paper, I focus on the influence of the Société des Missions étrangères de Paris (MEP) on ... more In this paper, I focus on the influence of the Société des Missions étrangères de Paris (MEP) on the performative poetics of Christian faith and citizenship among Malaysian Catholics. Using the central trope of the house, both in its general context of home and dwelling, and its Christian context of the church as a house of worship, I specifically show how cross-border movements, through intersections of individual, material, and cultural mobility stretching across centuries have led to synekistic practices of subject formation in the religious sphere. In this way the paper interjects into discourses on conflict between Christianity and the state and highlights alternative notes of interdependencies and creative synergies.
While there in an exhaustive list of literature produced by diasporic South Asian writers that vo... more While there in an exhaustive list of literature produced by diasporic South Asian writers that voices a multitude of concerns for both men and women of this descent, the voice that speaks to the South Asian young adult needs to be highlighted and explored in detail. This is especially crucial as the majority of metropolitan young adult texts are largely Eurocentric in nature. Novels with themes that appeal to a young reader with subject matter consistent with the age, experiences and challenges of the young adult and with a young non-white protagonist are rare. This paper introduces a South Asian Diasporic Metropolitan Young Adult text to investigate how it can interpolate into the consciousness of the Metropolitan diasporic South Asian young reader as well as into the western narrative space. This is done by focusing on the ways in which South Asian elements of place, history, and allegory interpolate into the narrative space of Tanuja Desai Hidier’s young adult novel, Born Confu...
This article examines the emergence of the Catholic Church in Malaysia and Singapore in the moder... more This article examines the emergence of the Catholic Church in Malaysia and Singapore in the modern period through an exploration of the Apostolic Vicariate of Western Siam (1841–1888). The establishment of this Catholic institution—a temporary territorial jurisdiction in missionary regions that precedes the creation of new dioceses—was key to advancing the transition of the Church from its older colonial model towards a modern national Church. Focusing on the work conducted by French missionaries of the Missions Étrangères de Paris (mep) over these five decades, we analyze the process of developing a local clergy and setting up the socio-cultural scaffolding of the contemporary Catholic Church in the Malay Peninsula. We pay special attention to how mep missionaries skilfully navigated their missionary activities through encounters with Malay rulers and British colonial officers to secure the creation of a Catholic elite independent of the Portuguese Padroado. Our argument suggests t...
Abstract:This article presents a glimpse into the literary writings emanating from a community th... more Abstract:This article presents a glimpse into the literary writings emanating from a community that has, at best, remained at the margins of global South Asian diasporic literary scholarship: that of the Indian diaspora in Malaysia. It begins with a brief historical overview of the Malaysian Indian community together with an overview and cartography of Malaysian Indian writings. It then develops a comparative analysis of the representation of an issue quite central to Malaysian Indian identity politics, that of caste and class, in two novels: The Return by K.S. Maniam, an established Malaysian writer, and Evening Is the Whole Day by Preeta Samarasan, the newest writer to emerge from this community. The ultimate aim of this article is to show that if one steps closer to the canvas and look deeper at the representations of the community in literary texts that contextualize and individualize the Malaysian Indian experience, then intra-ethnic heterogeneity and conflicts within the diasporic community, as well as the forms of subaltern positioning, become visible, and they insistently reveal that such a community is as heterogeneous as its global counterparts.
The dynamics of globalization and digitization are not only shaping a new media order but also ma... more The dynamics of globalization and digitization are not only shaping a new media order but also making significant impacts on the cultural dimensions of an older societal order in the case of the Tamil Diaspora. The emerging transnational phenomenon of Tamil television challenges constructed boundaries, contests traditionally homogenized spaces such as those of nation and homeland, questions the principle of territoriality and opens up the sphere both from without and within the national space. New media practices and flows are shaping media spaces with a built-in transnational connectivity, creating contemporary cultures pregnant with new meanings and experiences. This article aims to map the developments around transnational Tamil television. It scrutinizes the nature and impact of Tamil media emerging from Singapore and Malaysia on other parts of the diasporic Tamil world, and also alternatively, the nature and effect of Tamil media from India and elsewhere in Singapore and Malays...
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