FOM - Monday Morning Lectures

Monday Morning Lectures

FOM's very popular Monday Morning public lecture series focuses on the history, art, religion, philosophy and culture of the region. Weekly lectures are held at the Asian Civilisations Museum Empress Place.

Coffee and tea are served from 10:30 on to allow you time to greet old friends and make new ones, but please remember that our lectures begin promptly at 11:00. Speakers are drawn from both FOM and the community and many are recognised local experts on their subject material.

For safety and fire hazard reasons, there may be times when we may not be able to admit all those who wish to attend our lectures. This has been happening more and more often as word of our MMLs spreads. Please take your seat early if you do not want to be disappointed (our maximum official seating capacity is 182).

2011-2012 Speaker Handouts: Will be posted here for downloading upon receipt from speakers:
Patricia Bjaaland Welch, January 24, 2011 MML - Recommended reading and resources on The Silk Road
Mary Northmore, April 11, 2011 MML - Chinese Textiles of Indonesia
Maura Rinaldi, October 24, 2011 MML - Bibliography and Recommended reading

Please note that road access to ACM is restricted until 2013. Map here.

NOTE NEW TIME: Coffee/tea will be served from 10:30; Lectures will begin at 11:00.

Lucknow silver teapot, ca. 1860


Date & Time:	6 February 2012, 11:00 AM
Title:	A COLONIAL HERITAGE: INDIAN SILVER FROM 1858-1900
Speaker:	Esme Parish
Venue:	Asian Civilisations Museum Empress Place / Ngee Ann Auditorium
Description:	Handmade for a voracious Victorian Britain, the quality and workmanship of silver from the Indian subcontinent needs to be explored and recognised. Pieces from Lucknow, Cutch and Kashmir will be on display to be handled and enjoyed.

Toraja houses, tongkonan


Date & Time:	13 February 2012, 11:00 AM
Title:	MYTH, MEMORY AND RITUAL IN THE TORAJA HOUSE
Speaker:	Roxana Helen Waterson
Venue:	Asian Civilisations Museum Empress Place / Ngee Ann Auditorium
Description:	The Sa'dan Toraja people of highland South Sulawesi, Indonesia are famous for their rich ceremonial life and the architecture of their extraordinary houses, the tongkonan. These pile-built houses with their impressively extended and curved roof ridges and elaborate carvings are a striking feature in the mountainous Toraja landscape, and have helped to make this area a popular tourist destination. This lecture offers a window into this uniquely interesting Indonesian culture, rapidly changing yet still vibrant in the twenty-first century.

Muneeswaran


Date & Time:	20 February 2012, 11:00 AM
Title:	CREATIVE IMPULSE IN SINGAPOREAN HINDU DOMAINS: VISUALISING MUNEESWARAN
Speaker:	Vineeta Sinha
Venue:	Asian Civilisations Museum Empress Place / Ngee Ann Auditorium
Description:	The deity Muneeswaran has a complex identity in Singaporean Hindu domains. He is approached primarily as a guardian deity from Tamilnadu but also increasingly defined as a form of the Sanskritic deity, Siva, the destructive dimension of the Hindu trinity. Theistic Hinduism is grounded in concrete manifestations of divinity, such that both the visualisation and symbolisation of deities are essential for individual worship and devotion. Muneeswaran, being a folk, non-Sanskritic deity, lacks scriptural, textual grounding and hence no grammar or formulaic specification exist for representing him visually. The very absence of standardised, codified formulae for the deity's representation facilitates tremendous innovation and creativity on the part of his Singaporean devotees, who have conjured up his images through their personal encounters with him in dreams, visions, sightings, meditative reflections and artistic endeavours. This talk is grounded in the artistic and spiritual creations, i.e., original visual representations of the deity, of three devotees as 'artists.' An analysis of their 'work' allows the speaker to demonstrate the presence of creative, imaginative energies amongst forms of Hindu consciousness in the Diaspora.

Saint Francis Xavier


Date & Time:	27 February 2012, 11:00 AM
Title:	ST. FRANCIS XAVIER - MISSION ASIA
Speaker:	Helene Gueron and Amparo Darocas
Venue:	Asian Civilisations Museum Empress Place / Ngee Ann Auditorium
Description:	Saint Francis Xavier was a cosmopolitan figure and the patron saint of missionaries. He travelled more than 100,000 km in less than twelve years discovering parts of Africa, Goa, Malacca, Indonesia, Japan and died on his way to China. He founded many Catholic communities in Asia during the 16th century. This talk will explore his personality as we'understand it through his letters.

Baba House, Singapore


Date & Time:	5 March 2012, 11:00 AM
Title:	FROM SANSOVINO TO STREAMLINE MODERNE: Reading the Singapore Shophouse
Speaker:	Julian Davison
Venue:	Asian Civilisations Museum Empress Place / Ngee Ann Auditorium
Description:	This talk is essentially the architectural equivalent of a trainspotter's guide to shophouse architecture. The idea is to help those who are interested to learning more about this singular form of urban building not only be able to identify the different architectural styles and the historical periods they represent, but also understand the influences that went into shaping them. These range from traditional Chinese architectural principles and sensibilities to 16th-century Italian models, and from the Baroque to Bauhaus. Hopefully by the end of the talk, members of the audience will be able to walk down any street in old Singapore and instantly be able identify the period and provenance of its shophouse legacy.

patola detail


Date & Time:	12 March 2012, 11:00 AM
Title:	THE VOYAGE OF THE FLOWERING BASKET: Textile Traditions, Patterns and Techniques from India in Southeast Asia
Speaker:	Kim Jane Saunders
Venue:	Asian Civilisations Museum Empress Place / Ngee Ann Auditorium
Description:	Indian patola are without doubt some of the most exquisite textiles to come out of the Indian subcontinent. One of only three examples of double ikat produced worldwide, patola and patola patterns have greatly influenced textiles throughout Southeast Asia. Please join Kim Jane Saunders, author of Contemporary Tie and Dye Textiles of Indonesia, as she traces one of her favourite patola patterns, the flowering basket, on a voyage from India to Southeast Asia and beyond.

An astrolabe


Date & Time:	19 March 2012, 11:00 AM
Title:	FROM ALGEBRA TO ZENITH: THE GOLDEN AGE OF ISLAMIC SCIENTIFIC ENTERPRISE
Speaker:	Shaha Parpia
Venue:	Asian Civilisations Museum Empress Place / Ngee Ann Auditorium
Description:	During the Golden Age of Islam, from the 9th to the 16th centuries, Muslim scholars and scientists made staggering advances in a wide range of sciences including mathematics, astronomy, optics, medicine, natural sciences and technology. They enriched the scientific thought they had inherited from the Greeks, Indians and Persians with inventions and innovations, and transformed it into a new body of knowledge. This talk outlines these scientific achievements and how the Renaissance brought them to the western world.

The Arts Festival 2012


Date & Time:	26 March 2012, 11:00 AM
Title:	THE MAKING OF A TRILOGY FESTIVAL: Curating the Singapore Arts Festival 2010 to 2012
Speaker:	Low Kee Hong
Venue:	Asian Civilisations Museum Empress Place / Ngee Ann Auditorium
Description:	Low Kee Hong, General Manager of the Singapore Arts Festival, will give an intimate insight into curating the 2010 to 2012 editions of the festival. Imagined as a larger arc of looking at our culture, heritage, history and memory, the 3-edition festivals excavate stories that need to be told. Come listen to personal anecdotes, encounters and the inspiration behind taking the Singapore Arts Festival on a new journey.

A variety of spices


Date & Time:	2 April 2012, 11:00 AM
Title:	SPICES: THE TASTE OF ADVENTURE
Speakers:	Lynn Biondi, Rosanne Woodmansee and Radhika Seshasayee
Venue:	Asian Civilisations Museum Empress Place / Ngee Ann Auditorium
Description:	Spices--the erotic associations of the word hint at the exotic, warn of the forbidden. Spices bring to mind camel caravans snaking through deserts, shadowy bazaars teeming with aromatics and aphrodisiacs, dangerous journeys to far-flung corners of the earth. How did this frenzy for spices emerge, evolve and then abate?ÝVoyage with three intrepid travelers to discover the hypnotic allure and universal appeal of spices.