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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

Contemporary Daoist Tangki Practice, Margaret Chan Nov 2015

Contemporary Daoist Tangki Practice, Margaret Chan

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Since 1979, China has seen a renaissance of indigenous belief systems, including Daoist tangki spirit-medium practice. Tangki traditions have Neolithic roots. The founding myth is of a man who magically battled flood demons to save China. In imperial times, ordinary people, disenfranchised by the state religion and pawns of dynastic wars, created a soteriology of self-empowerment. Ordinary people would transform through spirit pos-session into warrior gods who would save the community. Millennia-old tangki traditions have diffused into the modern Chinese quotidian. With a remote Central Committee of the Communist Party recalling distant emperors, village temples, many led by tangkis, have …


Weathering The Empire: Meteorological Research In The Early Nineteenth-Century Straits Settlements, Fiona Williamson Sep 2015

Weathering The Empire: Meteorological Research In The Early Nineteenth-Century Straits Settlements, Fiona Williamson

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article explores meteorological interest and experimentation in the early history of the Straits Settlements. It centres on the establishment of an observatory in 1840s Singapore and examines the channels that linked the observatory to a global community of scientists, colonial officers and a reading public. It will argue that, although the value of overseas meteorological investigation was recognized by the British government, investment was piecemeal and progress in the field often relied on the commitment and enthusiasm of individuals. In the Straits Settlements, as elsewhere, these individuals were drawn from military or medical backgrounds, rather than trained as dedicated …


Conclusion, Seshan Ramaswami Jul 2015

Conclusion, Seshan Ramaswami

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This book has taken us through the fascinating history of the Indian performing arts in Singapore. The development and spectacular growth of the Indian arts in Singapore have mirrored the economic developments in Singapore. From very slow beginnings of the hardworking pioneering artistes, some institutions have grown dramatically and have become landmark cultural institutions, well known to Singaporeans and arts connoisseurs in India, especially the cognoscenti in the cultural capital of Chennai in the South. In the early days prior to independence, both local and new Indian immigrants were starved for opportunities to learn Indian classical music and dance, and …


Outside The 'Big 4': Inception And Growth Of Independent Artistes And Institutions, Seshan Ramaswami Jul 2015

Outside The 'Big 4': Inception And Growth Of Independent Artistes And Institutions, Seshan Ramaswami

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

No abstract provided.


The Enablers Of The Indian Performing Arts: Government, Media, The Indian High Commission, Donors And Event Managers, Chitra Varaprasad, Uma Rajan, Shankar Rajan, Seshan Ramaswami Jul 2015

The Enablers Of The Indian Performing Arts: Government, Media, The Indian High Commission, Donors And Event Managers, Chitra Varaprasad, Uma Rajan, Shankar Rajan, Seshan Ramaswami

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Arts institutions and artistes thrive in an ecological system of supporters and facilitators. They enable artistes to focus their attention and energy on practice and teaching of the art forms and on creating new productions. They enable institutions to slowly grow and attain self-sustainability in the long run by subsidising expenses on housing, productions, and fees of visiting artistes. They also provide a platform for students to perform and to improve through competition. Students also benefit from scholarships for advanced study. In this chapter, we describe briefly the roles played by various enablers of Indian performing art forms over the …


The Thailand Report: National Landscape, Current Challenges And Opportunities For Growth, Institute For Societal Leadership, John W. Ellington, Serene Chen Jun 2015

The Thailand Report: National Landscape, Current Challenges And Opportunities For Growth, Institute For Societal Leadership, John W. Ellington, Serene Chen

Institute of Societal Leadership Research Collection

Thai migrants first began trickling into the Chao Phraya river valley from Southern China in the eleventh century. Thai chieftains established petty kingdoms in modern-day Myanmar, Thailand and Laos, initially as tributaries to more established Burmese and Khmer rulers. However, both the diminishing influence of the Khmer Empire and the Mongols’ sacking of the Burmese capital Bagan in 1287 left a political vacuum in mainland Southeast Asia, which was soon filled by Thai kingdoms such as Sukhothai (1238–1463), Chiang Mai (1296–1775), Ayutthaya (1351–1767) and eventually Bangkok (f. 1 782). In the process, the up-and-coming Thai polities supplanted the Khmer Empire …


The Indonesia Report: National Landscape, Current Challenges And Opportunities For Growth, Institute For Societal Leadership, John W. Ellington Jun 2015

The Indonesia Report: National Landscape, Current Challenges And Opportunities For Growth, Institute For Societal Leadership, John W. Ellington

Institute of Societal Leadership Research Collection

A maritime analogue to the silk road running through Central Asia, the Indonesian archipelago was a key ancient trade route linking Chinese goods to markets in India and farther west into the Mediterranean. Its cosmopolitan ports attracted significant numbers of Arab, Indian and Chinese merchants and holy men and fostered the exchange of goods as well as cultural and religious ideas. Cultural appropriation had a clear Indian bias. Starting in the early eighth century, the various islands saw the rise and fall of several Indianised Buddhist and Hindu kingdoms, including Mataram, Singhasari and Majapahit in east Java and Srivijaya in …


The Metro Manila Report: National Landscape, Current Challenges And Opportunities For Growth, Institute For Societal Leadership, John W. Ellington May 2015

The Metro Manila Report: National Landscape, Current Challenges And Opportunities For Growth, Institute For Societal Leadership, John W. Ellington

Institute of Societal Leadership Research Collection

Although Western colonisers have, to varying degrees, shaped the political structures and economies of nearly all modern Southeast Asian nations, they achieved an unmatched level of cultural and institutional penetration in the Philippines. Far from the Indic influences that inspired Angkor Wat, Borobudur and Bagan, the island group was only marginally sanskritised during the pre-colonial period. With some notable exceptions in the south, Muslim communities were also never able to establish firm roots. Mindanao, Sulu and even southern Luzon were home to maritime sultanates beginning in the late 14th century, but a Spanish victory over the Muslim Rajah of Maynila …


Freddie Aguilar [Philippines, Musician, Political Leader], Freddie Aguilar Apr 2015

Freddie Aguilar [Philippines, Musician, Political Leader], Freddie Aguilar

Digital Narratives of Asia

Freddie Aguilar is not just a Filipino musical icon but a political icon. Influencing people through his music, Freddie shares his frank take on political leadership in the Philippines and what he thinks leaders should do to move the country forward.


The Singapore Report: National Landscape, Current Challenges And Opportunities For Growth, Institute For Societal Leadership, Aji Paramartha, Shihui Khee, Regina Unson, Sai Hein Apr 2015

The Singapore Report: National Landscape, Current Challenges And Opportunities For Growth, Institute For Societal Leadership, Aji Paramartha, Shihui Khee, Regina Unson, Sai Hein

Institute of Societal Leadership Research Collection

Singapore has come a long way, since her beginnings as a sleepy fishing village and a tiny Malay settlement ruled by the Sultan of Johor. Sir Stamford Raffles first arrived in Singapore in 1819 and immediately recognised that its strategic location along the Straits of Malacca would be useful to the British in developing an alternative to challenge Dutch influence and monopoly in the region. During British colonial rule, Singapore developed into an important free port and trade city, an essential trait that continues to feature heavily in Singapore’s economic development to this day.


The Vietnam Report: National Landscape, Current Challenges And Opportunities For Growth, Institute For Societal Leadership, John W. Ellington Mar 2015

The Vietnam Report: National Landscape, Current Challenges And Opportunities For Growth, Institute For Societal Leadership, John W. Ellington

Institute of Societal Leadership Research Collection

Although most of Southeast Asia is home to religions and cultures carrying significant Indic influence, Vietnam alone is the mainland’s only Sinicised culture. Chinese emperors directly ruled northern Vietnam for most of the period spanning 111 BCE to 938 CE. The next eight hundred years saw a series of independent Vietnamese kingdoms administered by Chinese-style mandarins gradually extend control over and supplant the Indic Champa civilisation to the south—even as French incursions began chipping away at Vietnamese territory as early as 1858.


Disrupting "Asian Religious Studies": Knowledge (Re)Production And The Co-Construction Of Religion In Singapore, Lily Kong Jan 2015

Disrupting "Asian Religious Studies": Knowledge (Re)Production And The Co-Construction Of Religion In Singapore, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this article, I begin with the position that knowledge production and reproduction is partial and situated. Through an examination of academic research on and teaching of religion in Singapore, I demonstrate how scholarly interventions at once re-present and conceal religion as experienced and lived. I posit that the partiality of such interventions is due to the influential official narrative about religion in Singapore, so that what is studied and taught reflects certain dimensions of religious life and religious-secular relations that dominate official discourse. In particular, through academic writing (and to a lesser extent, teaching), religion in Singapore is constructed …