Soft Launch of Southeast of Now at the National Museum of Singapore January 26, 2017 09:00

In conjunction with the Singapore Biennale 2016 Symposium, NUS Press’s newest journal dedicated to art history in the region—Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art in Asia—was launched at the National Museum of Singapore’s Gallery Theatre last Sunday (22 January).

(Image credit: Pallavi Narayan)

A panel that included renowned art historians John Clark, Patrick D. Flores and T.K. Sabapathy, NUS Press Director Peter Schoppert, as well as two members of the Southeast of Now editorial collective Simon Soon and Yvonne Low, discussed the significance of producing an academic journal dedicated to contemporary art in the region. 

Left to right: Yvonne Low, Simon Soon, T.K. Sabapathy, John Clark, Patrick D. Flores
and Peter Schoppert
(Image credit: Sebastian Song) 

John Clark, Emeritus Professor in the Department of Art History at the University of Sydney, opened the session with remarks about the role of journals in forming and sustaining epistemic communities. He spoke on Southeast of Now’s potential to engage “laterally” with other clusters of research within the general field of art history and contemporary arts scholarship, and praised the “chutzpah of young art historians in the field,” citing this as evidence of a thriving community of researchers. 

(Image credit: Sebastian Song)

Thereafter, T.K. Sabapathy, a leading authority on art history in Singapore and Malaysia, considered the role of publishers and university presses in fostering an environment conducive to research: “NUS Press,” he rejoined half-jokingly, “has woken up.”

Patrick D. Flores, Curator of the Vargas Museum, Manila, and a professor with the Department of Art Studies at the University of the Philippines, suggested that the journal represents a new development in the professionalization of arts research. He added that the journal also provides young arts researchers invaluable opportunities for acknowledging the “different system of knowledge-making in the region.”

(Image credit: Sebastian Song)

Peter Schoppert elaborated on the series of decisions that led to NUS Press’s acquisition of the journal. According to him, the editorial collective’s energy levels, commitment and openness were “impressive,” and, interestingly, their proposals were also accompanied by “rumours” of their ambition and ability spread by their teachers, supervisors and mentors. To end the panel, he quoted extensively from an interview—included in the first issue of the journal—with Stanley J. O’Connor, on the idea that in the face of global upheaval and changes in the production and practice of art, “nothing can be more important than the decentering of the art world,” a process which is “by no means automatic.”

(Image credit: Sebastian Song) 

Southeast of Now will be published twice a year (March and October). Register with Project MUSE to enjoy free previews of Vol. 1, No. 1 (March 2017) and Vol. 2, No. 2 (October 2017). For editorial enquiries, contact the editors at southeastofnow@gmail.com. Click here to find out more subscription rates and to subscribe to the journal. 

Sayonara, 2016 Singapore Writers Festival November 18, 2016 17:00

With Japan as its country focus, the 19th Singapore Writers Festival came to an end last weekend after ten action-packed days of literary talks, discussions, music, and performances. 

NUS Press was proud to have been one of five publishers featured in The Paper Trail, a backroom tour of Singapore publishers led by poet Yong Shu Hoong on November 5. Our director Peter Schoppert addressed a group of about 30 people and gave a quick overview of the history of the university press, and how it came to establish a foothold in the academic publishing scene in Asia.

(Image credit: Caroline Wan, National Arts Council)

(Image credit: Yong Shu Hoong)

Author Yap’s poems and short stories, and Goh Poh Seng’s memoir and novel, If We Dream Too Long, were naturally snapped up by some tour participants.  

(Image credit: Caroline Wan, National Arts Council)

On November 6, two of our authors, Lim Cheng Tju, co-author of The University Socialist Club and the Contest for Malaya: Tangled Strands of Modernity, and Mrs Ann Wee, author of A Tiger Remembers: The Way We Were in Singapore, appeared on a panel alongside Nilanjana Sengupta at the Asian Civilisations Museum to share how everyday experiences, lesser-known stories, and oral histories are crucial for a better understanding of Singapore's past.

           
(From left to right) Nilanjana Sengupta, Lim Cheng Tju and Ann Wee
(Image credit: Chye Shu Wen).

Last but not least, we caught the matinee performance of The Finger Players’ love-letter to Singapore’s literary history, Between the Lines: Rant and Rave II. It was a delight to watch Serene Chen and Jean Ng act out key literary milestones in the development of Singapore’s cultural landscape. We were thrilled to have had some of our publications and authors (Edwin Thumboo, Arthur Yap and Goh Poh Seng to name just a few) featured in this play.

(Image credit: Chye Shu Wen)

At the end of the play, the stage became a pop-up shop for 30 minutes and it was heartening to see audience members stream down to the stage to browse through and purchase the books that were featured in the play.

(Image credit: Chye Shu Wen)

We look forward to the 20^th edition of the Singapore Writers Festival, which is set to take place from 2–13 November 2017.

NUS Press at the 2016 Singapore Writers Festival November 4, 2016 11:00

NUS Press is pleased to be participating in this year's Singapore Writers Festival (SWF)! Themed "Sayang," the festival will feature close to 320 writers, speakers and performers between November 4–13.

To celebrate, we are offering special prices for this selection of titles! 

We will also be featured in these main events:

Singapore Untold | 6 Nov, 1–2pm | 
Asian Civilisations Museum (Ngee Ann Auditorium)

Our authors, Ann Wee, a pioneer of social work education in  Singapore and author of A Tiger Remembers: The Way We Were in Singapore, and Lim Cheng Tju, co-author of The University Socialist Club and the Contest for Malaya: Tangled Strands of Modernity, will be appear in this panel alongside Nilanjana Sengupta to discuss why they have written stories that are often not found in Singapore history textbooks. They will also talk about their experience of uncovering and writing these stories.

You can attend this event with a SWF Festival Pass (S$20), which is available via SISTIC.

Ann Wee (left) and Lim Cheng Tju (right) (Image sources: Singapore Writers Festival).

Between the Lines: Rant & Rave II | 4–6 Nov, various times | 
School of the Arts (SOTA) Studio Theatre 

Simultaneously a crash course in, and a love letter to SingLit, Between The Lines: Rant & Rave II will take you on an odyssey of the evolution of the English-language literature scene in Singapore through the decades. Actors Serene Chen and Jean Ng as they take on the roles of real-life poets, novelists, publishers and many more in this loving tribute to the written word.

NUS Press is pleased that a number of books and authors we have published (from Edwin Thumboo's 1973 book, Seven Poets: Singapore and Malaysia, to Arthur Yap's Collected Poems) will be featured in this performance!

Between the Lines was commissioned by SWF and is presented by The Finger Players. Tickets (S$35) are available via SISTIC.

Serene Chen and Jean Ng rehearsing for "Between the Lines" (Image courtesy of The National Arts Council).

The Paper Trail: A Backroom Tour of Singapore Publishers (SOLD OUT) |
5 Nov, 9am–1pm | Various locations

NUS Press Book Launches in October 2016 October 7, 2016 15:00

October is looking up to be a very busy but exciting month for us with three book launches taking place in Singapore!

NUS Press at the 2016 ASEASUK Conference September 16, 2016 12:30

NUS Press is pleased to be part of the 2016 edition of the Association for Southeast Asian Studies in the United Kingdom (ASEASUK) Conference at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). Held over three days this weekend (16-18 September), it is set to be the largest ASEASUK conference, with over 40 panels discussing a wide variety of topics.

NIAS Press is representing NUS Press at the event and will be displaying our books. Here’s a highlight of some titles:

• Catastrophe and Regeneration in Indonesia's Peatlands: Ecology, Economy and Society 
• The Oil Palm Complex: Smallholders, Agribusiness and the State in Indonesia and Malaysia
• Marriage Migration in Asia: Emerging Minorities at the Frontiers of Nation-States
• Central Banking as State Building: Policymakers and their Nationalism in the Philippines, 1933-1964
• Electoral Dynamics in Indonesia: Money Politics, Patronage and Clientelism at the Grassroots 
• Tall Tree, Nest of the Wind: The Javanese Shadow-play Dewa Ruci Performed by Ki Anom Soeroto - A Study in Performance Philology 
• Pan-Asian Games and the Emergence of Modern Asia, 1913-1974
• Racial Science and Diversity in Colonial Indonesia

Dr Paul Kratoska, Publishing Director of NUS Press, will be also attending the Conference.

Do drop by to find out more about NUS Press and to browse our selection!

Book Launch of Clinical Psychology in Singapore September 22, 2015 13:41

Dr Gregor Lange and Dr John Davison’s book, Clinical Psychology in Singapore: An Asian Casebook, was launched at the Brahm Centre in Ren Ci Hospital, on 17 September 2015. 

As an unprecedented look into clinical psychology and its practices in Singapore, the book offers case studies based on Singaporean clients, and sheds light on how psychologists deal with the different cultural and ethical issues encountered in their work here. These case studies encompass a range of mental health problems ranging from pyromania to depression, and span across age groups as well. Notably, the casebook came together with contributions from numerous members of Singapore's psychology community, many of them being present among that evening's audience of academics, practitioners, and members of the general public.

The launch was an occasion packed with as many laughs as there were moments of more sombre reflection – this perhaps being not unlike the ups and downs faced in engaging with clinical psychology in Singapore so far.

Q: What is the state of mental health in Singapore? A: Stateless

Dr Ong Lue Ping, IMH's Principal Clinical Psychologist, kicked off the event with his talk on the state of mental health in Singapore.

His pronouncement was – in Dr Ong’s own words – most “provocative”, for he went on to declare Singapore’s state of mental health as being, in fact, “stateless”. Though this was met with some amusement from the audience, Dr Ong lamented the real dilemma encountered in this. On one hand, psychologists in Singapore hospitals are still expected to “defer” to doctors and psychiatrists. Yet, on the other hand, independent psychologists working outside of this system are often simultaneously seen by the public as being “atas”. Undeterred by this, Dr Ong rounded things up by proposing three factors that had to be attended to equally in clinical psychology – namely accessibility, quality, and affordability – in order to rectify existing flaws in practice.

Merlion on the couch

A streak of joviality was picked up again in Dr Lange’s address. Regaling the audience with how he and Dr Davison had edited Clinical Psychology in Singapore together, Dr Lange sent people up in laughs by joking that one of the more exciting titles actually considered for the casebook was none other than Merlion on the Couch. 

Such irreverent humour aside, Dr Lange also spoke about why he and Dr Davison decided to embark on such a book. While teaching psychology at NUS, it was a revelation for the both of them that case studies to be used always took place in the US or other parts of the West. This difference in setting – which could range from the usual Hollywood celebrity gone mad profile to the scenario of a cocaine-taking young adult in downtown LA, Dr Lange explained animatedly – was something that students here frequently could not relate to. Yet, there was a dearth of resources in the local context that could be utilized in class. The need for a casebook designed for Singapore thus arose.

Of paradoxes and paychecks

Next was an expert panel on the future of clinical psychology in Singapore, including Ms Jennifer Teoh, Director and Senior Principal Forensic Psychologist at MSF’s Clinical and Forensic Psychology branch, Dr Simon Collinson from NUS, and Mr Timothy Leo, Director of the Psychological & Correctional Rehabilitation division at Singapore Prison Service. 

Intriguingly, Dr Davison asked the panel about a paradox that seems to play out in Singapore - that is, the fact that it is often difficult to involve the client’s family in therapy, despite how Singapore is ‘supposed’ to be a country rooted in collectivism. To this, Ms Teoh shared that the MSF started a functional family therapy scheme a year ago that would enable the whole family to be seen together outside of working hours, thus perhaps resolving the practical complications that contribute to this situation. Dr Collinson further suggested that there has to be an improvement in the training offered in family therapy, so as to better ease families into being engaged throughout the process.

Besides this, Mr Leo also remarked that the biggest challenge for psychologists in the next five years should concern the respect for psychology as a science. Making the timely observation that psychologists like Dr Daniel Chan were involved in the media as commentators on the recent elections here, Mr Leo commented that such screen time should be seen as good opportunities for the discipline, and more psychologists could follow suit to step up to the plate in terms of advocacy.

Finally, closing the discussion on a lighter note, Dr Davison fired a series of quick questions at the panelists, one of these being on whether psychologists in Singapore should be paid more. To which all three panelists chorused in unison: “Yes.”

Clinical Psychology in Singapore: An Asian Casebook is available at NUS Press and Kinokuniya Singapore Main Store. Clinical Psychology in Singapore is a unique resource on the practices and principles of clinical psychologists in Singapore. An ideal complement to abnormal, counselling or clinical psychology courses, it is the textbook for PL3236 Abnormal Psychology at the National University  of Singapore and will be a supplementary text for Temasek Polytechnic’s Abnormal Psychology module by April 2016. Please email sebastian_song@nus.edu.sg for all enquiries on textbook adoption and review copies. 

Blue Skies and Busy at the BIBF... September 3, 2015 23:47

Skies were blue the last week of August in Beijing, bluer than in Singapore which suffered some Sumatran smoke-haze. Beijingers call these skies "parade ground blue"...

We modest book publishers celebrated the fine weather by spending our time indoors at the Beijing International Book Fair. NUS Press was happy to attend as part of the Singapore national delegation, organized by the Singapore Book Publishers Association. The Singapore stand received lots of attention, both from parents looking for bilingual books for their children, and from Chinese publishers keen to reach out along the new Maritime Silk Road...

NUS Press was very happy to meet Colleagues from many Chinese and other Asian publishers.

from left: NUS Press Consulting Editor Lin Shaoyu (林少予) with Mr 文輝 湯 of Guangxi Normal University Press; Shaoyu, NUS Press Director Peter Schoppert and Ms 沂紋 郭 of China Social Sciences Press;

from left: Peter  with Mr Zhou Yongkun of Yunnan University University Press; Shaoyu, Peter and  Ms 宋文艳 of Xiamen University Press.

In addition to the publishers pictured above, we met representatives from : University of Tokyo Press, University of Hawaii Press, University of Hong Kong Press, Peking University Press, Foreign Language Teaching & Research Press, China National Publications Import & Export Corporation, Amazon China, China Educational Publishers Import & Export Corporation, People's Fine Arts Publishing House, among others.

There was great interest from the Chinese publishers in forging closer links with Southeast Asia, and in subjects related to China's maritime links with the region. Chinese publishers were also wishing to sell more copyrights overseas, and see if Chinese viewpoints can get more airtime in the English discourse. So with this context, you can imagine that we had plenty to discuss. Look for more news on our first translations from Chinese (forthcoming) and some Chinese editions for our books on the region.

NUS Press attends 22nd Beijing International Book Fair August 25, 2015 15:12

NUS Press will be attending the upcoming Beijing International Book Fair from 26 to 30 August 2015. The Fair will be held at the China International Exhibition Center (Shunyi), featuring five exhibition halls with 66,000 square meters of exhibition space. 

NUS Press will be part of the Singapore contingent, displaying our books at East Hall 2 (E2) Booth J20. Director of NUS Press, Peter Schoppert, will be attending the fair so do drop by our booth to find out more about NUS Press and to browse our selection. 

Here’s a highlight of some titles:

• Changing Chinese Cities: The Potentials of Field Urbanism
• Brunei: From the Age of Commerce to the 21st Century
• Remembering the Samsui Women: Migration and Social Memory in Singapore and China
• The Annotated Malay Archipelago by Alfred Russel Wallace
  
• Community, Commons and Natural Resource Management in Asia
• State and Finance in the Philippines, 1898-1941: The Mismanagement of an American Colony
• Vietnamese Traditional Medicine: A Social History

We look forward to seeing you. 

Conjuring Dublin and Singapore in Goh Poh Seng's work August 24, 2015 14:03

The Irish Ambassador Geoffrey Keating and his wife generously hosted a reception on 14 August 2015 to celebrate the publication of Singapore literary pioneer Goh Poh Seng’s Tall Tales and Misadventures of a Young Westernized Oriental Gentleman, a vivid and evocative memoir of the author’s time in Dublin as a student in the 1950s. The evening was convivial, and a testament to the power of words to make one hear, feel and see cities and persons anew. 

Joined by guests from academia, the embassy, and government agencies, as well as publishers, writers and personal friends of Goh Poh Seng, a few words about his memoir were said by Ambassador Keating, NUS Press Director Peter Schoppert, NTU Professor Koh Tai Ann, and Northern Irish-Canadian writer George McWhirter through Irish editor and writer Rosemary Lim.

Worlds Within World

“I loved the book”, his Excellency stated plainly. “To me, as a Dubliner, it is extremely and deeply evocative. And even though the city Dublin has changed so much over the past 60 years, the city he describes is almost instantly familiar and recognizable.”

Goh, he mused, was lucky to have made his way into the artistic and literary circles of 1950s Dublin. Indeed, one of the central stories in Tall Tales is an intense discussion with Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh over what it means to be a poet. His Excellency suggested a literary pilgrimage to the UNESCO City of Literature, enticing us to see the traces of Wilde, Beckett, and Shaw, as well as walk the paths of Joyce’s Stephan Dedalus and Leopold Bloom. In fact, Dublin prides itself on having produced the most Nobel Prizes for Literature than other city in the world.

The Reinvented Man 

Next was Professor Koh Tai Ann, who was also a personal friend of Goh’s and was one of the persons responsible for the republication of Goh’s first novel with NUS Press. She regaled the audience with the insider information about its publication – and its rejection by Paul Theroux’s publisher for being “too local” – and other aspects of his life, such as the poetry slams and supper club at his establishment Rainbow Lounge, and his foresight with building conservation and tourism. But Prof Koh also pointed out that his idealism and pluck was accompanied by an overreaching and a lack of business sense.

Highlighting that the memoir was titled “Tall Tales”, she wondered about which parts were fact and which fiction. Nonetheless, Goh’s first poem was written in Ireland and the form of Goh’s first novel If We Dream Too Long had parallels to Joyce’s The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: as Joyce’s characters trek through Dublin, Goh’s tracks 1960s Singapore from Changi to Chinatown, to Esplanade and Tanglin Club, capturing in print both the physical landscape of the time and, through the stream of consciousness, its zeitgeist.

A Star-Lovely Art 

Northern Irish-Canadian writer, and Vancouver’s first Poet Laureate, George McWhirter’s reflections on the publication were read out by Rosemary Lim, an Irish writer and editor who also also conducts literary tours of Singapore.

Like his Excellency, McWhirter enjoyed the way Goh brought Dublin to life, “Like Heinrich Böll’s Irish Journal, Goh Poh Seng’s book lets me see Ireland with other eyes and feelings for my native land that are intimate and ironical, loving and leery, spliced from something very Celtic and Chinese in the braided history that brings Poh Seng and binds him to the island. The book also has his very own way of looking, his young bucko’s oriental, will o’ the wisp in the eye. Full of cheeky curiosity, he loves theatre and goings-on, and is blessed to find himself in a city where every room and street is a stage, and there’s always something going-on. ”

Drawing the event to a close, his Excellency thanked all present and announced that dinner was served, along with free-flow Guinness, and – to hearty cheers – whisky from both parts of Ireland! Certainly an apt way to affirm that home can come to us in more ways than one.

Thanks

NUS Press would like to thank Ambassador Geoffrey Keating, his wife and the Embassy of Ireland,  for their hospitality; Neil Murphy for making the connection; and Koh Tai Ann, George McWhirter and Rosemary Lim. 

Notes 

Goh intended to write a three-volume memoir, but unfortunately passed away before he could complete it. Margaret Goh, the wife and literary executor of Goh's estate – and once director of Singapore University Press, the former NUS Press – passed away in 2014. Their children now manage the estate. 

Tall Tales and Misadventures of a Westernized Oriental Gentlemen and If We Dream Too Long are available at NUS Press.

NUS Press attends ICAS Adelaide 2015 July 3, 2015 12:07

NUS Press is attending the International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS) in Adelaide, Australia from 5 to 9 July 2015. This biennial convention is the largest international gathering of scholars in the field of Asian Studies.

We are pleased to announce that two of our books – The Khmer Lands of Vietnam and Singapore and the Silk Road of the Sea – have been shortlisted for ICAS Book Prize 2015.

NUS Press is also exhibiting our books at Booth 23. If you are in Adelaide, drop by Booth 23, browse our Southeast Asian books and learn more about NUS Press. We hope to see you.

NUS Press attends AAS-in-Asia Taipei 2015 June 17, 2015 14:52

NUS Press is pleased to be a part of the upcoming AAS-in-Asia conference at Academia Sinica in Taipei from 22 to 24 June 2015. The AAS-in-Asia conference brings together scholars and specialists on Asia to stimulate discussions on visions and trends in Asian studies. 

Our distributor B.K. Norton is representing NUS Press at Booth 24. NUS Press will be displaying our books on Southeast Asia at AAS-in-Asia Taipei. Here’s a highlight of some titles:

• Brunei: From the Age of Commerce to the 21st Century
• Changing Chinese Cities: The Potentials of Field Urbanism
• Promises and Predicaments: Trade and Entrepreneurship in Colonial and Independent Indonesia in the 19th and 20th Centuries
• Remembering the Samsui Women: Migration and Social Memory in Singapore and China
• State and Finance in the Philippines, 1898-1941: The Mismanagement of an American Colony
• Taming the Wild: Aborigines and Racial Knowledge in Colonial Malaya

Dr Paul Kratoska, Publishing Director of NUS Press, is also acting as the chairperson of an AAS-in-Asia workshop on publishing. The workshop titled "Writing for Publication: What Editors Look for, and Common Mistakes by Authors" will be held on 24 June. 

Do drop by Booth 24 to find out more about NUS Press and to browse our books. We look forward to seeing you. 

Of Whales and Dinosaurs book talk with author Kevin Tan June 3, 2015 16:00

NUS Press held a book talk at the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum on 29 May 2015. Dr Kevin Tan, author of Of Whales and Dinosaurs: Singapore’s Natural History Museum, was present to give a talk about the museum's natural history collection. 

Full house at NUS Press book event with Dr Kevin Tan 

In his talk titled “Singapore’s Natural History Collection: A Perilous Prologue”, Dr Tan took the audience through the long and perilous 127-year history of the Raffles Zoological Reference Collection. He shared anecdotes of the brave individuals and past curators who managed to keep the collection mostly intact through two world wars, numerous financial and leadership crises, and the damning hand of modernisation and progress after Singapore’s independence.

Notably in 1942 when Singapore was occupied by Japan during World War II, the fate of its cultural heritage and natural history collections was uncertain. After Singapore’s surrender, E. J. H. Corner, the assistant director of the Botanic Gardens, had a “crazy idea” to “approach the Japanese to preserve the [collections]”. Dr Tan recounted how Corner approached the Japanese authorities with a note signed by the Governor to request them to protect the cultural properties.

Corner was joined by Hidezo Tanakadate, a professor from the University of Japan, who proclaimed that he had come to “conserve the cultural heritage”. Many years later it was discovered by Corner that Tanakadate had no real military authority to take over Singapore’s cultural heritage; he only had the rank of a sublieutenant. Dr Tan emphasised that it took the courage of such individuals who recognised the importance of the natural history collection and endeavoured to preserve it. The dedication and efforts of these stalwarts are duly recorded in Of Whales and Dinosaurs.

Mrs Yang Chang Man, former curator of the natural history collection, was also present at the book event to show her support. Mrs Yang and her team kept the collection from disintegration in the early 1970s when the government’s nation-building focus marginalised natural history and placed priorities elsewhere.

Dr Tan and Mrs Yang (both in pink) with the NUS Press team 

During the Q&A session, Dr Tan took a question from an audience who asked about the legal protection for cultural heritage.

"I’m afraid there’s no real legal protection [in Singapore] but the [natural history] collection does belong to [National University of Singapore] now. I’m quite sure the university has insured the collection and I think it’s probably in the safest hand possible.”

Another audience posed the question on the possibility of retrieving the whale skeleton which was given to the National Museum in Kuala Lumpur in 1974. Dr Tan shared the possible legal and diplomatic complications in recovering the mounted whale skeleton:

“It’s not a problem of money if the [skeleton] is for sale because it is a matter of national pride. But it’s not so direct [to retrieve it back]…since the skeleton was given to the federal government, not to the state government.”

Dr Tan addressed the last question on the damage incurred by the collection before Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum was established and the possibility of expansion for the new museum.

“Very little [of the collection] was actually lost, thanks to Mrs Yang [Chang Man] and her team. Specimens do deteriorate over time so you have to throw [them] away. That’s [inevitable] given our weather and the [poor storage conditions]...The museum did lose two of the biggest things: the whale skeleton (given to Malaysia) and the skeleton of the elephant which was shot by the Sultan of Johore in 1909.

...I’m sure there’s room for expansion. In fact the museum never ceases to grow. Many of the specimens here are post-1970s. The museum scientists continue to go on expeditions. In terms of biodiversity the sea life is richer and much more unexplored [in Singapore]...For instance the fish collection has grown a lot. Peter Ng, director of the museum, is also one of the leading experts in crabs so the crab collection is amazing.”

Thank you for your support for Of Whales and Dinosaurs. Do visit the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum to learn more about Singapore’s rich biodiversity and natural history.

Two NUS Press titles make the shortlist for ICAS Book Prize 2015 May 29, 2015 12:00

We are pleased to announce that two of our books – The Khmer Lands of Vietnam and Singapore and the Silk Road of the Sea – have been shortlisted for the International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS) Book Prize 2015. The ICAS Book Prize is awarded biennially to outstanding English-language works in the field of Asian Studies. NUS Press will also be attending the convention held in Adelaide, Australia from 5 to 9 July 2015. Details of our booth will be announced closer to the date.

The Khmer Lands of Vietnam is shortlisted for the Best Study in the Social Sciences. This groundbreaking work by Philip Taylor uncovers the intricate lifestyle of the Khmer Krom who have to deal with their ambiguous political identities and adapt to living at the Mekong river delta. 

Singapore and the Silk Road of the Sea has made the shortlist for the Best Study in the Humanities. In this book John N. Miksic synthesises 25 years of archaeological research to reconstruct the 14th-century port of Singapore in greater detail than is possible for any other early Southeast Asian city.

And please show your support by voting for your favourite title in the ICAS Colleagues' Choice Award. The poll will be open until 16 June 2015. We thank you for your enthusiasm and support for our books.

NUS Press at the 4th Southeast Asian Studies Symposium April 17, 2015 09:00

NUS Press participated in the 4th Southeast Asian Studies Symposium held in Kuala Lumpur back in 20 to 24 March 2015.

Organised by Project Southeast Asia, the symposium is the world’s largest annual Southeast Asian Studies conference focusing on critical issues such as sustainable development, environmental change and infectious diseases.

We were pleased to display our Southeast Asian titles at the symposium. Here's a highlight of the books:

• Brunei: From the Age of Commerce to the 21st Century 
• Champions of Buddhism: Weikza Cults in Contemporary Burma 
• Fields of Desire: Poverty and Policy in Laos 
• Identity and Pleasure: The Politics of Indonesian Screen Culture
• Indonesian Women and Local Politics: Islam, Gender and Networks in Post-Suharto Indonesia
• Islamisation and Its Opponents in Java: A Political, Social, Cultural and Religious History, c. 1930 to Present
• Migration Revolution: Philippine Nationhood and Class Relations in a Globalized Age 
• Mobilizing Gay Singapore: Rights and Resistance in an Authoritarian State 
• Temiar Religion, 1964-2012: Enchantment, Disenchantment and Re-enchantment in Malaysia's Uplands

• The Chinese Question: Ethnicity, Nation, and Region in and Beyond the Philippines