CMS Seminars
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Malaysian Film Screenings 2008
Centre for Malaysian Studies, Monash Asia Institute
Friday 31 October 2008, 6.30pm
Link Theatre, S Building, Monash University Caulfield Campus
The Centre for Malaysian Studies, Monash Asia Institute, invites all Malaysians and friends of Malaysian film to the free screening of ‘Perempuan Melayu Terakhir’ (The last Malay woman).
Erma Fatimah’s 1999 film takes us to beautiful Terengganu on the east coast of Peninsula Malaysia. It tells the story of rootlessness and the quest for identity and belonging. The urbane and cosmopolitan theatre director Heikal comes to rural Terengganu to discover in Mustika the loyalty and innocence he sees as the essence of being-Malay which he had thought lost in the modern world.
FREE ADMISSION
For RSVP and further information, please contact the Centre for Malaysian Studies:
sasch4@student.monash.edu.au 9905 8582
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Seminar
Jointly presented by Centre for Malaysian Studies and Centre of Southeast Asian Studies
Thursday 9 October 2008, 11.00 am - 12.30pm
Manton Room SG02, Ground Floor, Menzies Building (11) South, Monash University Clayton campus
Human rights protection at the crossroad? International law, religious laws and national laws: Jurisdictional division and freedom of religion in Malaysia
Kerstin Steiner, Lecturer in the Faculty of Business and Economics, Department of Business Law and Taxation (BLT), Monash University
Malaysia has been trying to absorb Islam within a framework of a modern ‘secular’ state forging an uneasy compromise between secular laws and religious laws. One area where the tensions between the different legal systems become apparent are cases regarding freedom of religion. In this area expectations arising out of the international human rights framework, national/ constitutional protection of rights and religious laws have the potential to collide. Particular attention will be given to the legal context in which freedom of religion is framed focusing in particular on the relationship between the two different legal court systems, state and religious, that are dealing with cases of freedom of religion. There appears to be a strong tendency of the secular courts to confer cases of Muslim apostasy to the religious courts. However, if a Muslim files such a case at a Syariah high court it appears unclear as to whether the court will accept jurisdiction on this matter and whether such a conversion will be granted with or without sanctions. The presentation will discuss three recent cases of the secular courts and compare these cases to decisions by religious courts, which have adjudicated quite differently in matters of apostasy in Malaysia.
Kerstin Steiner recently commenced her new position as Lecturer in the Faculty of Business and Economics, Department of Business Law and Taxation (BLT), at Monash University. Prior to joining BLT, Kerstin was a staff member of the Asian Law Centre from 2001 to 2008 working on a variety of projects with different members of the Centre. She worked with Professor Tim Lindsey on his ARC-funded Discovery Project ‘Islamic Law in Contemporary Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei’. She is currently completing a two volume book series as a result of this research that is co-authored with Professor Tim Lindsey. Kerstin's research interests include the study of Southeast Asian legal systems, Islamic law in Southeast Asia, comparative law and international law.
Enquiries
Dr Wendy Smith, Director, Centre for Malaysian Studies
Email: Wendy.Smith@buseco.monash.edu.au
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Malaysian Film Screenings 2008
Friday 26 September 2008
"Pimping out the washing machine" Contemporary Chinese-language art house cinema from Malaysia
"The beautiful washing machine" (2004, dir. James Lee)(Mandarin & Cantonese with English subtitles)
From the back cover:
"Teoh's second hand washing machine has a life of her own: she washes when she wants to and stops when she feels like it. When Teoh discovers the secret soul iof his temperamental slave, he exploits her for all his other household chores. And then he pimps her out to strangers. When middle-aged widower Mr Wong takes her in, his prodigal son immediately tries to seduce her while his petulant daughter becomes more and more suspicious. In this off-kilter dark comedy, the effects of alienation and and desperation in the increasingly commodified city of Kuala Lumpur will spiral before you like a dry spin in slow motion"
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Malaysian Film Screenings 2008
Friday 29 August 2008
‘Bukit Kepong’ (1981, Jin Shamsuddin)
As Malaysia celebrates the 51st anniversary of independence, the Centre for Malaysian Studies, Monash Asia Institute invites you to a special free screening of Tan Sri Jin Shamsuddin’s 1981 classic film ‘Bukit Kepong’ on Friday, 29 August. Set in Malaya’s “Emergency” of the 1950s, ‘Bukit Kepong’ chronicles a particularly bloody incident at a rural police station in Johor and the great loss of life resulting from heavy fighting between communist insurgents, security forces and the villagers in the crossfire. Although Malaya’s/Malaysia’s one-dimensional narrative of its anti-communist struggle has become questioned in recent times, ‘Bukit Kepong’ remains one of the best-known cinematographic renditions of the country’s founding myth.
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Seminar
Jointly presented by Centre for Malaysian Studies and Centre of Southeast Asian Studies
17 July 2008 Professor Lenore Manderson, Faculty of Medicine and Faculty of Arts, Monash University
'Karr’s curse: Panic, disease and strategies of control in Colonial Malaya'
In recent years there have been increasing reports of re-emergent infectious disease and new viral infections, precipitating considerable global nervousness. Although the political response to these infections has been complicated by fears of bioterrorism and associated racist rhetoric, the practical action has been familiar. Various personal behavioural and public health measures of surveillance and containment have been (re)introduced, sometimes with savage consequence on local populations and economies.
In this presentation, I contrast these trends with those of the 19th and 20th century, when moral panic informed state responses to epidemics of disease. Focusing on colonial Malaya, I illustrate how tactics of control and containment were implemented to sustain colonialism, commerce and industrialization. Although I use as my examples primarily on malaria and tuberculosis, I reflect also on other epidemics and endemic infections, and so highlight the consistencies over time of local and inter-government approaches to infectious disease, and the economic footings of these responses.
Lenore Manderson is Professor at Monash University, Australia in the School of Psychology, Psychiatry and Psychological Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences, and the School of Political and Social Inquiry, Faculty of Arts. Previously, she was Professor of Women’s Health, the University of Melbourne (1999-2005), and from 1988-1998, Professor of Tropical Health, The University of Queensland.
She held an inaugural Australia Research Council Federation Fellowship to conduct research on chronic illness, disability, social relationships and well-being in Australia and Southeast Asia. She has published extensively: her books include Sickness and the State: Health and Illness in Colonial Malaya (1996), Global Health Policy, Local Realities (2000), Rethinking Wellbeing (2005) and Chronic Conditions, Fluid States (2009). She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and the World Academy of Art and Science, and in 2008, is Hillel Friedland Fellow and Visiting Professor at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.
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Malaysian Film Screenings 2008
Special screening of 'Cinta '
Friday 30 May 2008 6.30pm
Link Theatre, S Building, Caulfield Campus, Monash University
The Centre for Malaysian Studies, Monash Asia Institute, invites all Malaysians and friends of Malaysia to the second Malaysian Film Screening 2008 on Friday 30 May 2008.
Bound together by the common theme of love, Kabir Bhatia's mainstream film-making debut 'Cinta' (2006) takes us through the relationship of five couples in metropolitan Kuala Lumpur as they seek to find and understand friendship in the name of love. Is love harder to find or is it harder to keep? A sacred and fragile monument to human lives and emotions, Cinta restores our faith in love and goes a long way in explaining why everyone needs it.
Getting to Monash University, Caulfield campus:
By car
The Caulfield campus is conveniently located close to the Monash Freeway and Dandenong Road/Princes Highway. Parking is available in the user-pay, multi-level car park, entrance via Princes Highway.
By public transport
Cranbourne, Dandenong, Frankston and Pakenham train services call at Caulfield station, located adjacent to the Monash University Caulfield Campus. Tram (route 3 to Melbourne University) and bus (624 to Kew and 900 to Stud Park) stops are also located in the immediate vicinity. Please see http://www.metlinkmelbourne.com.au/ for details.
For RSVP and further information, please contact the Centre for Malaysian Studies:
sasch4@student.monash.edu.au 9905 8582
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Launch of Malaysian Film Screenings with Yasmin Ahmad
The Centre for Malaysian Studies, Monash Asia Institute, invites all friends of Malaysia to join the opening reception and special launch of the Malaysian Film Screenings 2008. Yasmin Ahmad, Malaysia’s award-winning film director, will introduce her work before the screening of her critically acclaimed 2006 film ‘Mukhsin.’
Friday, 28 March 2008 at 6.30pm
Link Theatre, S Building
Caulfield Campus, Monash University
DOWNLOAD Flyer for Malaysian Film Screenings