Cheryl Narumi Naruse: Discomforting Malaya: From Postcolonial Capitalism to Annoyance

PAAS Colloquium Spring 2025
Theorizing (from) Asia

Discomforting Malaya: From Postcolonial Capitalism to Annoyance
Cheryl Narumi Naruse, Tulane University

Date: Tuesday March 25
Time: 2:30pm – 4:00pm
Location: Clearihue Building B017 and Zoom. Please register to receive a Zoom link.
Register here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/discomforting-malaya-from-postcolonial-capitalism-to-annoyance-tickets-1268281176139?aff=oddtdtcreator

In this talk, Cheryl Narumi Naruse offers methodological reflections on studying contemporary Asia from the context of Malaya (present day Singapore and Malaysia). Outside of area studies, Singapore and Malaysia have never quite suited the “aboutness” (Chuh 2014) of humanist fields associated with theoretical knowledge production, whether because of their exceptionality, their perceived minor influence, or their illiberal political formations. Drawing on readings of Jeremy Tiang’s short story collection It Never Rains on National Day (2015), Lee Kuan Yew’s political memoir, The Singapore Story (1998), and 1960s field reports about Malaya from the United States Information Services, the Cold War foreign intelligence agency charged with promoting American interests abroad, Naruse argues that the Malayan context provides an opportunity to rethink Euro-American habits of interpretation derived from ideas of “relevance,” or models of power that underscore dominance or abjection. While from her first monograph, Becoming Global Asia (UC Press, 2023), she offers the concept of “postcolonial capitalism,” her new work in progress, Cold Southeast Asia, considers the possibilities of annoyance, nuisance, and irritation as anti-imperial tactics. Together, these projects demonstrate Naruse’s ambition towards a global Asia/s method that provoke disciplinary discomfort.

Cheryl Narumi Naruse is Associate Professor of English at Tulane University in New Orleans and the 2024-25 Jack and Nancy Farley Distinguished Visiting Scholar in History, Simon Fraser University. She is the author of Becoming Global Asia: Contemporary Genres of Postcolonial Capitalism in Singapore (UC Press, 2023) and co-editor of Detours: A Decolonial Guide to Singapore with Joanne Leow and Faris Joraimi (Duke UP, under contract). This event is brought to you by Pacific and Asian Studies, University of Victoria (Canada).