Book Launch at National Library

Join us at The Pod (Level 16, National Library, Singapore) on 14 March (Thursday) as three of our faculty members — Dr. Lee Kah Wee, Dr. Imran bin Tajudeen and Assoc. Prof. Chang Jiat Hwee — launch two new books published by NUS Press:

Southeast Asia’s Modern Architecture: Questions of Translation, Epistemology and Power 
https://nuspress.nus.edu.sg/products/southeast-asias-modern-architecture-questions-of-translation-epistemology-and-power

This edited volume on Southeast Asia’s Modern Architecture casts the notion of the “modern” broadly. Co-edited by Jiat-Hwee Chang and Imran bin Tajudeen, it transforms our understandings of the region’s modern architecture by moving beyond a consideration of architecture as an aesthetic artifact and instead examining its entanglement with different dynamics and processes. It asks: What is the modern in Southeast Asia’s architecture and how do we approach its study critically? With its pathbreaking multidisciplinary approach, it is the first critical survey of Southeast Asia’s modern architecture. It looks at the challenges of studying this complex history through the conceptual frameworks of translation, epistemology, and power. Challenging Eurocentric ideas and architectural nomenclature, the authors examine the development of modern architecture in Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, with a focus on selective translation and strategic appropriation of imported ideas and practices by local architects and builders. 

Las Vegas in Singapore: Violence, Progress and the Crisis of Nationalist Modernity

https://nuspress.nus.edu.sg/products/las-vegas-in-singapore-violence-progress-and-the-crisis-of-nationalist-modernity

This book looks at the collision of the histories of Singapore and Las Vegas in the form of Marina Bay Sands, one of Singapore’s two Integrated Resorts. The author Lee Kah-Wee argues that the historical project of the control of vice is also about the control of space and capital. The result is an uneven landscape where the legal and moral status of gambling is contingent on where it is located. As the current wave of casino expansion spreads across Asia, he warns that these developments should not be seen as liberalization but instead as a continuation of the project of concentrating power by modern states and corporations.

Kwok Kian Woon, Professor of Sociology, School of Social Sciences, College of Humanities, Arts, & Social Sciences, NTU will be the Respondent for the program.

The two books will be available for purchase at the event at 25% discount. Nets or Cash Payment only.