The work that’s in progress is a book manuscript on aspects of contemporary patriarchy in Singapore, including its authoritarian ‘strong state’ model of development, feminist and gay activism within a very limited civil society, race and gender stereotypes in popular media, and the shifting conditions of political possibility due to the challenges of neoliberal globalization and the state’s realization of the significance of ‘creativity’ for continued economic success. The seminar will outline the main arguments of the book in the first part. And in the second, it will focus on one of the book’s chapters, which explores the cultural significance of feminine monstrosity in Singapore films. These monstrous images seem to represent the irrepressible return of desires and anxieties that confront a thoroughly modern and economically successful global city located within Southeast Asia, its “multiracial” society characterized by an ethnic Chinese majority.
 
Kenneth Paul TAN, Ph.D (Cambridge), is a political scientist by training. He is an Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. He has written widely about Singapore, mainly on governance, the creative economy, multiculturalism, and gender/sexuality. He publishes in journals like Asian Studies Review, Critical Asian Studies, and International Political Science Review, and has authored two books: Renaissance Singapore? Economy, Culture, and Politics (edited volume, NUS Press, 2007) and Cinema and Television in Singapore: Resistance in One Dimension (Brill, 2008).