Entries for 1st Awards for the Best Undergrad Critical Essays

 

 

Singapore Unbound received a total of 9 entries for our 1st Awards for the Best Undergrad Critical Essays on Singapore and Other Literatures. All 9 essays focused on Singaporean texts; none took a comparative lit perspective. The Singaporean texts are diverse in periods, genres, and author backgrounds. The essays will now be read by Professor Koh Tai Ann, who will decide on three awards, each worth USD250. The awards will be announced in September 2021.

The essay titles, listed below in no particular order, are so exciting in themselves:

-Stateless Citizens: Apathy as Defence Mechanism in Amanda Lee Koe's MINISTRY OF MORAL PANIC

-The Modern Malay Woman’s Reclaimed (Home)land: Syncretisation as a Strategy of Resistance in Singapore Theatre (Zizi Azah, Alfian Sa'at, Nabilah Said, Haresh Sharma)

-Readerly Desire in PONTI: Beyond Eros, Eurocentrism, and Closure (Sharlene Teo)

-“This is Home, Truly?”: A Cross-Generational Comparative Study of the Changing Attitudes to National Identity and Belonging in Contemporary Singapore Poetry (Lee Tzu Pheng, Aaron Lee, Theophilus Kwek)

-“[O]bservations from my reality” – What is lost in translation in STRANGER TO MYSELF? (Muhammad bin Sharif)

-In Pursuit of Queer Singapore: Tracing Queer Time and Space in Singaporean Speculative Fiction (Neon Yang and Ng Yi-Sheng)

-Prejudice, Love and Sight Intertwine in Two Singaporean Texts Spanning Four Decades (Gregory Nalpone and Muhammad bin Sharif)

-Feminist Documentaries in Singapore (Sandi Tan, Eva Tang, Tan Pin Pin)

-Freedom is a Personal Choice: An Analysis of Amrit’s and Narain’s Discrimination and Identity (Balli Kaur Jaswal)

The Awards will return next year, so sharpen those pens (or open those laptops).

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