Ernest Koh - School of Philosophical, Historical and International Studies
Position
Lecture in History and International Studies
Phone
+61 3 9905 5258
Address
School of Philosophical, Historical and International Studies
Building 11
Monash University
Victoria, 3800
Australia
Location
W620, Menzies Building
Personal History
I graduated from The University of Western Australia with a BA (Hons) in History and a PhD in Asian Studies, and joined the History Department at Monash in January 2008. My areas of expertise are in Overseas Chinese history (especially migration and economic histories), oral history and memory in Asia, and nationalism and the end of empire in Southeast Asia.
Current Research
I am currently working on two projects: Diaspora at War is a monograph that investigates the nature of wartime identity among the Chinese of Malaya during the Second World War. It tracks the stories of a constituency of Overseas Chinese who volunteered to serve in the Chinese and British military services during the conflict in both Europe and Asia, and investigates their absence in national narratives that commemorate the Second World War in postcolonial Malaya.
I am also collaborating with three other colleagues, from both within the department at Monash and internationally, in putting together an edited volume on oral history and memory in Southeast Asia, based on a conference that was organised in Singapore in June 2010.
Major Publications
Monographs
Diaspora at War: The Overseas Chinese of Malaya and their Exceptional Second World Wars. Boston, MA: Brill Academic Publishers [Forthcoming]
Singapore Stories: Language, Class, and the Chinese of Singapore 1945 – 2010. New York and London: Cambria Press, 2010.
Select journal articles and book chapters
“Singapore Memories: Remembering, and the Makers and Keepers of Singapore’s Stories”, in K.S. Loh and K.K. Liew (eds), The Makers and Keepers of Singapore’s History. Ethos Books and the Singapore Heritage Society: Singapore, 2010, pp.195 – 204.
“A Diaspora at War: National and Trans-national narratives of Singapore’s Second World War”, in K.S. Loh and K.K. Liew (eds), The Makers and Keepers of Singapore’s History. Ethos Books and the Singapore Heritage Society: Singapore, 2010, pp.242 – 254.
“Gender and Discipline in ‘The Singapore Story’: The Chinese female factory workers in perspective 1980 – 1990”, in D. Heng & S.A. Khairudin (ed.), Reframing Singapore: Memory, Identity and Trans-regionalism. Amsterdam and Chicago: Amsterdam University Press, 2009, pp.109 – 130.
“Ignoring ‘History from Below’: People’s History in the Historiography of Singapore”. History Compass, Vol. 5 (1), 2007, pp.11 – 25.
“On the Margins of the “Economic Miracle”: Non English-literate Chinese Factory Workers in Singapore, 1980 – 1990”. Tonan Ajia Kenkyu (Southeast Asian Studies), Vol. 44 (4), March 2007, pp.466 – 493
Areas of Research & Supervision
Modern (late 19th and 20th century) Southeast and East Asian history, histories of the Pacific War, nationalism and the end of empire in Asia, and Overseas Chinese history.
Teaching
ATS1325 - Contemporary Worlds 1
ATS1326 - Contemporary Worlds 2
ATS2990/3990 - Gangsters
ATS4810 - Global justice