News

Looking to 2020: Tackling poverty and inequality in Singapore

February 5, 2020

Associate Professor Tan Ern Ser (NUS Department of Sociology) comments in NUS News on poverty and inequality in Singapore, offering his take on what a good welfare model would look like. A/P Tan first questions the idea that some are more deserving of help than others by reframing the issue; the poor and disadvantaged should […]

Japanese Multinational Companies and the Control of Overseas Investments – The Role of Expatriates, Young Foreign Employees and Japan’s Soft Power

February 3, 2020

While Singapore sees several career events each year, the sixth iteration of the ‘ASEAN Career Fair with Japan’ particularly stood out. Held on 3 February 2018, nearly all participating companies were Japanese, with most companies looking to hire employees for their home operations in Japan. What explains this drive by Japanese companies to hire foreign […]

Not Singaporean Enough? Migration, History and National Identity in Singapore

February 1, 2020

Dr John Solomon (NUS Department of History), in ‘Not Singaporean Enough? Migration, History and National Identity in Singapore’, a chapter in History, Historians and the Immigration Debate: Going Back to Where We Came From (2019), examines the uneven scholarship and public perception that surrounds migration and migrants to the city-state. Migration into Singapore from 1965 […]

Linguistic markers of dementia

January 29, 2020

Professor Bao Zhiming (NUS Department of English Language and Literature (ELL)) writes in NUS News about his collaboration with fellow ELL linguists and neuropsychologists at the Mind-Science Centre, which aims to discover linguistic markers of dementia.  Dementia affects 5 to 8 percent of people aged 60 and over. Building on previous research, Prof Bao believes […]

Regionalization in Search of Regionalism: Production Networks and Deep Integration Commitments in Asia’s FTAs

January 27, 2020

The ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) was successfully established on 28 January 1992 to much fanfare and celebration in the region. But compared to its international counterparts, ASEAN is very much a latecomer to the scene. In fact, up until the establishment of AFTA, Asian governments have mostly relied heavily on the private sector to […]

Is Singapore ready for malign foreign influence?

January 22, 2020

Associate Professor Ja Ian Chong (NUS Department of Political Science) addresses the issue of malign foreign influence in the East Asia Forum. These concerns arrive against the backdrop of a leadership transition in Singapore, and are exacerbated by a tumultuous and uncertain international climate with the economic decoupling of the United States and the PRC, […]

Human and Non-Human Alike

January 21, 2020

A review of Associate Professor Timothy P. Barnard’s (NUS Department of History) Imperial Creatures: Human and Other Animals in Colonial Singapore 1819 – 1942 (NUS Press, 2019) by Mr Johannes Riutta from The Well-Read Naturalist describes the book as “deeply researched, well annotated, and surprisingly…readable”. Mr Riutta also details some examples from the book that […]

‘The Protocol Wars of Laundry and Coexistence’

January 20, 2020

On 20th January 1996, the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) officially opened its doors to the public, standing proudly as one of the first art museums during its time to be equipped with state-of-the-art facilities such as 24-hour climate control. It was dedicated to housing a growing collection of international contemporary art, with a focus on […]

How the British Empire Changed Our Natural Landscape

January 17, 2020

Before British imperialism, Singapore had a fascinating relationship with wildlife. This Rice Media article by Pan Jie, ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen: How the British Empire Changed Our Natural Landscape’, describes the close relationship between human and animals that existed in imperial Singapore as examined by A/P Timothy P. Barnard’s (NUS Department of History) latest book, […]

Why there is still a gender pay gap in Singapore

January 14, 2020

Associate Professor Jessica Pan (NUS Department of Economics), in an editorial in The Straits Times, explains some of the reasons behind the gender pay gap in Singapore. This editorial follows a recent study conducted by A/P Pan and the Ministry of Manpower, which found that the median pay of women was 16.3% lower than that […]