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The Past in the Present: Histories in the Making

This forum brings together museum professionals, historians, and novelists to talk about the issues of researching and presenting the past in the contemporary context where history is poised to capture the popular imagination. The first panel will discuss the issues and challenges of presenting history in the museum. Historians in the second panel will present and interrogate methods of historical inquiry and understanding. The third panel will comprise novelists who will talk about their works of historical fiction.

Programme:

9:00am – 9:30am Registration and Morning Tea
9:30am – 9:45am Welcome Remarks
9:45am – 10:55am Keynote Address
James Warren
"Singapore History through the Looking Glass: Some Reflections on Museums, Memory, History and the Arts"
11.00am – 12:40pm Panel 1
History in the Museum
Moderator: Patrick Greene
11am – 11:20am Wong Hong Suen and Jason Toh Curators “Imagining Singapore: Musings of a 120 year-old dame”
11:20am – 11:40am Iskander Mydin Deputy Director (Curation and Collections) “Challenges of Display and Representation. Forgotten history and the challenges of display in a museum setting”
11:40 – 12noon Mark Frost Contents Director, “Where’s the Conflict: Writing the Singapore History Gallery”
12noon- 12:20pm Laura Miotto Exhibition Designer “Collection, Imagination and Senses: exhibition design as a tool of interpretation of History”
12:20pm – 12:40pm Discussion
12:40pm – 2pm Lunch
2pm – 3:40pm Panel 2 Writing of History: Inventing, Problematicising, Contesting the Past Moderator: James Warren
2pm – 2:20pm Hong Lysa " Popularised history: centering and decentering the national narrative in Thailand and Singapore”
2:20pm – 2:40pm Sai Siew Min “What’s in a name? Rethinking Chinese Indonesian Identity in History”
2:40pm – 3pm Budiawan Purwadi “The Past On The Body: Remembering the 1965-66 Massacre through the Body of a Generation Growing up in Late 1960s in Villages Near a River in Central Java, Indonesia”
3pm – 3:20pm Timothy Barnard “Malay Films as Texts for the Study of 1950s Singapore”
3:20pm – 3:40pm Discussion
3:40pm – 4:00pm Tea Break
4:00pm – 5:30pm Panel 3
History and the Novel
Moderator: Lee Chor Lin
4pm – 4:20pm Chong Yen Chung
4:20pm – 4:40pm Meira Chand
4:40pm – 5pm Kunal Basu
5pm – 5:30pm Closing Reflections
Anthony Reid
5.30pm End



Panelists and moderators include James Warren, Patrick Greene, Iskander Mydin, Mark Frost, Wong Hong Suen, Jason Toh, Laura Miotto, Hong Lysa, Timothy Barnard, Sai Siew Min, Kunal Basu, Meira Chand, Chong Yen Chung.

For more information, please call (65) 63323659 or e-mail jason_toh@nhb.gov.sg.

WHEN

17 November '07, 9am - 5.30pm

WHERE

Gallery Theatre

ADMISSION FEE

$20 (20% discount for students and groups of 5 or more)
*Admission is inclusive of lunch and two tea-breaks

SUPPORTERS

 

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