Events
Check out some of my public events, past and future. Some of these are based on my research, others are related to my ongoing collaborations and broader interests.
My C.V. has a full list of events I’ve been part of. You can find it on my About page.
Post-panel Q&A at the Asia as Action: Scaling Ethnography of the Everyday conference, 21–22 June 2019 in Beijing, China. Photo by Li Yuxuan.
Upcoming Events
9–11 July 2024
The City As Classroom: Teaching, Engaging, and Learning through Urban Asia
Roundtable presentation • AAS-in-Asia 2024—Global Asias: Latent Histories, Manifest Impacts • Yogyakarta, Indonesia
29 February–1 March 2024
What is the “Multi” of Multilingualism? What is the “Lingualism”?
Conference paper presentation • Translation Across Disciplines • Brown University Center for Language Studies Annual Conference
8 February 2024
Semiotic Indeterminacy, the State Ignoring Subject, and U.S. School Boards
Invited workshop and presentation • Coauthor and co-presenter with Ilana Gershon • The University of Chicago Semiotics: Culture in Context workshop
Screenshot from my invited lecture at Nanyang Technological University Sociology Webinar Series, 15 October 2020. Image by Yvonne Tse Crepaldi.
Past Events
1 December 2023
Beyond Babel: Insurgent Multilingualism and Decolonizing Public Space
Exhibition activation, language showcase, and screening • The Inaugural Brown Arts Institute IGNITE Series • Co-organized with Joseph Dupris, Foroogh Farhang, Meg Harvey, and Jordi Rivera Prince • Brown University
8–11 November 2023
“Discuss Race Issues in the Right Way”: Totalizing Images and Partial Semiotic Facts in Singapore
Conference paper presentation • 122nd Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association • Toronto, Canada
8–11 November 2023
Theory in the Field
Conference paper presentation and panel organizer • Society for Social Studies of Science (4S) 2023 Annual Conference • Co-convened with Yukun Zeng • Honolulu, Hawai’i
19 May 2023
How Does the State Ignore? The Contested Case of U.S. School Boards, from the Screen to the Meeting Hall
Webinar keynote • Co-presented with Ilana Gershon • Talking Politics 2023: Silences + Voices in Global Media • Virtual series • Sponsored by the Society for Linguistic Anthropology, University of Chicago Center for the Study of Communication and Society and Linguistic Anthropology Lab, and University of Colorado Boulder Program in Culture, Language, and Social Practice (CLASP)
24–28 April 2023
Doing Being Other in Global Singapore: A Scholar-Activist Showcase
Hybrid event series • Featuring Tinesh Indrarajah, Jane Zhang, Kevin Martens Wong, Nurul H. Rashid, and the creative team from Ayer Hitam: A Black History of Singapore • Singapore + The University of Chicago • Supported by the Committee on Southern Asian Studies, Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity, and the Anthropology Department’s Ethnographic Film Studio, The University of Chicago
25 March 2023
Singapore’s Multi-Scalar Fictions
Ethnographic fiction salon • American Ethnological Society, Association for Political and Legal Anthropology, and Council on Anthropology and Education 2023 Spring Conference • Princeton University
25 March 2023
The State Ignoring Subject: Ideologies of Substantive and Procedural Listening in U.S. School Board Meetings
Conference paper presentation • Co-authored with Ilana Gershon • American Ethnological Society, Association for Political and Legal Anthropology, and Council on Anthropology and Education 2023 Spring Conference • Princeton University
1 March 2023
Urgent Ethnography in Professional Fields
Participatory research methods workshop • Featuring Harry Backlund and Frank Najarro-Izquierdo • Co-organized with Yukun Zeng • University of Chicago
18 January 2023
Peer-to-Peer Skill-Sharing: Urgent Ethnography in Action
Participatory research methods workshop • Featuring Arnaaz Khwaja, Alex Shams, and Yang Zhao • Co-organized with Yukun Zeng • University of Chicago
10 November 2022
“More Singaporean Than You”: Ideologies of Interactivity and Raciolinguistic (Non)belonging across Transmedial Publics
Conference paper presentation • 121st Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association • Seattle, Washington
13 November 2022
Urgent Ethnography: An Invitation and Provocation
Participatory research methods workshop • Co-organized with Yukun Zeng • University of Chicago
23 November 2022
The Polyglot: Exceptional Figures of Linguistic Desire and “Mother Tongue” Hegemonies in Singapore
Conference paper presentation and panel organizer • 2022 Australian Anthropological Association Conference • Co-convened with Jessica Chandras • Victoria, Australia
9 April 2022
Local Bodies, Foreign Language: Singaporean Colloquial English, “Good English,” and Aspirational Investments in Malleable Whiteness
Conference paper presentation • 2022 Society for Linguistic Anthropology Conference • Denver, Colorado
11 March 2022
Authoritative Images: Technologies of Language, Race, and State in Singapore
Invited lecture • Stanford Center for Global Ethnography
13 Jan 2022
Seeing (or Perceiving) Difference in Multiracial Singapore: Toward a Semiotics of the Look
Invited lecture • Theory and Practice of Southern Asia Workshop • University of Chicago • Read more
October–November 2021
Collaborative Public Pedagogies
Skills-based workshop series • Co-convened with Anuli Akanegbu, Nurul H. Rashid, Vithya Subramaniam, and Yi Hui Ho
17 November 2021
Postracial Policing, “Mother Tongue” Sourcing, and Images of Singlish Standard
Conference paper presentation • 120th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association • Baltimore, Maryland
4 June 2021
Anthropology at a Distance: Beyond "Being There"
Graduate student panel discussion + undergraduate research symposium • Co-organized with Rebecca Journey • Supported by the Lichtstern Fund of the Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago
9 March 2021
Foreign Bodies, Local Language
Public lecture • Inaugural AcademiaSG Singapore Studies Junior Scholar Seminar Series • Read more and watch the lecture
21 November 2020
City Sounds Part 2: A Machine to Live In
Film screening + filmmaker Q&A • Organizer, co-host with Shawn Chua Ming Ren and Shayus Sharif • Bras Basah Open: School of Theory and Philosophy, Singapore • Read more
30 October 2020
Talking Politics with Jonathan Rosa
Host and moderator • Talking Politics: Anthropologists and Linguists Analyze the 2020 Election webinar series • Watch here
16 October 2020
City Sounds Part 1: An Experiment in Multimodality
Listening party + film screening + reading group • Co-organized and co-hosted with Pranathi Diwakar • Listen to the playlist • Read the pairing notes • Check out the Instagram post
15 October 2020
Local Bodies, Foreign Language
Invited public lecture • Nanyang Technological University Sociology Webinar Series • Read more
3 September 2019
Singapore, City of the Future: Chronotopes of a Non-place
Public lecture • soft/WALL/studs Singapore • Read more
21–22 June 2019
“English As It Is Broken”: Voicing the Singaporean as Failed (Linguistic) Subject
Conference paper presentation • Asia as Action: Scaling Ethnography of the Everyday conference • University of Chicago Center in Beijing • Read more
23–25 January 2019
“This Image of Themselves”: Unity from Plurality in the ‘Merlion Poem’ as Singapore National Literature
Conference paper presentation • Conference on Asian Linguistic Anthropology, Paññasastra University of Cambodia, Siem Reap, Cambodia