volume 6, 2007
folio is an annual collection of student essays written for modules offered in the University Scholars Programme's Writing and Critical Thinking Programme.
In this volume:
- The Gifted Education Programme: Intellectual Meritocracy and Elitism in Singapore
"[The] over-reliance on academic performance as a quantifier of 'virtue' appears to have led to the formation of a smug intellectual aristocracy convinced of their social and moral superiority." Xu Weizhen on the GEP, intellectual arrogance, and social divisions in Singapore.
- Sexual Signals and Ritual Adjuncts: Moving Between Culture and Consumption
"The social designation of meanings to objects, regardless of their physical costs, has to occur before individuals ... willingly accept them as signals of sexual fitness." Kia Jie Hui on diamonds, wastefulness, and sexual superiority.
- Life in Structure: Singapore's Public Spaces
"In Singapore, spontaneous activities are rampant in the relatively empty public spaces around the city, even though they may be against the law." Lee Min Xuan on flash mobs, break-dancers, and the transformation of city spaces.
- Illusions of Freedom: Factory Life and Female Emancipation
"While national defense was hitherto a masculine vocation, the poster tantalizingly portrays women as being part of this once exclusive sphere." Tai Jing Yi Jeanne on patriarchy, domesticity, and the war effort.
- The Best Way to Disarm Competition Is with a Smile
"[The] tension between the two models in RAOUL's advertisement is hardly sexual, and they appear to be embroiled in some sort of hostile face off beneath their glamorous smiles." Edwin Lim Seng Wai on exclusive country clubs, good taste, and using sex to sell clothes.
- Singapore's Merlion: An Identity behind the Icon?
"While most monuments are first etched in the history and culture of the locals and thereafter gain iconic status, the Merlion approaches achieving iconic status from the opposite end: it is a structure created as an icon that will attract tourists, which aims to become etched in Singapore's history and culture." Elizabeth Anne Devan on 'Chinese-ness,' nationalism, and commercial origins.
- Homophobia and the Singapore Government
"[Although] pro-gay sentiments are permitted 'in theory' by the Singapore government, the government itself continues to suppress actual outreach activities by gay rights activists, and in some instances, has even supported causes that promote homosexuality as unnatural and wrong." Tan Meishi on golf, inappropriate analogies, and dubious grants.
- Contributors/Process Notes
"I am now intentionally applying the skills I have learnt to create a proper structure in all my academic essays. Taking the effort to identify complications and craft an explicit motive is now a constant part of all my writing." Writers and instructors reflect on the demands--and benefits--of writing carefully structured essays.
Editor: Johan Geertsema
Editorial board (2008): Don Favareau, Johan Geertsema, Andrew Leng, Michael Maiwald, Paul Nerney
Last updated: 2 November 2009