Friday, April 12, 2019
12:30 PM – 1:45 PM
Elliott School of International Affairs
Chung-wen Shih Conference Room, Suite 503
1957 E Street, NW, Washington, District Of Columbia 20052

The Sigur Center cordially invites you to a lecture on how Singaporeans study and perceive the acts of World War II.

About the Event:

This lecture will feature updates by Professor Lau on contemporary WWII commemorative ceremonies and practices in Singapore, taking observations from her recent visit home and attendance at three commemorative events in mid-February 2019, which marked the 77th anniversary of the Japanese imperial army’s invasion (February 15, 1942) and the subsequent Occupation of the island state until the war’s end in August 1945. One of the events was an official ceremony at Fort Canning, while the other two were a heritage walk following the route where Singapore’s Malay Regiment and others fought the Battle of Pasir Panjang along Kent Ridge, and a talk by some Aboriginal Australian descendants of Australian POWs whom the Japanese had captured and imprisoned in Singapore during the Occupation.

From the diverse and at times conflicting or dissonant messages conveyed (when taken altogether) to the audience or consumers of these different events, one initial question that begs urgent answers is, How do today’s Singaporeans and others affected by these momentous historical events make sense of this patchwork of different memories? Another fruitful question is whether and how reconciliation or healing can finally take place, for those with direct or received war memory and experience, even two generations or more after war’s end.

As part of her engagement with and long held interest in teaching and learning pedagogy for political science students, Professor Lau will also introduce at her talk a former student of hers, graduating senior Mr. Jacob V. Schofell, to present his research on the Cambodian genocide, and to discuss how war memory has become one of his research interests during his undergraduate career.

Julia M. Lau – Non-Resident Scholar, Sigur Center for Asian Studies

A native of Singapore, Julia has taught international relations and law, comparative politics and research methods courses as a lecturer at Georgetown University and The Catholic University of America in Washington D.C., and at McDaniel College in Westminster, MD. Her current research interests include war memory in Southeast Asia and China. She is also a member of the American Political Science Association’s status committee on Contingent Faculty, advocating for better working conditions and understanding of contingent and adjunct faculty in the profession.

Jacob V. Schofell

Jake is an undergraduate graduating in Political Science and Arabic at McDaniel College in May 2019. He plans to pursue a graduate degree in Global Policy studies. His research interests include the current conflict in Yemen, genocide memory, and Gulf relations. For this event, he will discuss his research on a paper entitled “A Generation Removed: Differences in Survivors’ and their Children’s Remembrance of the Cambodian Genocide”.