Singapore brandishes an unusual post-colonial identity. As several of its eminent voices have suggested, the country remembers its colonial past with “no hangups.” Meanwhile the visibility of Singapore’s cinema has surged at festivals and in film criticism. Prof. Sim will argue that the films reflect the city-state’s distinctive location between post-colonialism and globalization. He will show how the films evince a local preoccupation with space, which is desperately scarce on the island nation and thus intensely politicized. He will explore how the films map, organize, and understand Singapore as a place, and Singapore’s place in the world, while retaining the ideological inflections of its post-colonial status.

Existing scholarship on cinema in Singapore dwells on how the films, as texts, respond to social realities, political power, and state ideology. These readings are legitimate and illustrative. But they do not adequately account for Singapore’s postcolonial identity and how that identity is expressed in a mapping impulse. Prof. Sim will go beyond this literature to analyze key films, art and museum exhibits, and other cultural artifacts as symptoms of Singapore’s intriguing but understudied fixation on space and place.

Gerald Sim is associate professor of film and media studies at Florida Atlantic University, and the author of The Subject of Film and Race: Retheorizing Politics, Ideology, and Cinema (2014). His current book-in-progress, tentatively entitled Besides Hybridity: Postcolonial Poetics of Southeast Asian Cinema, is contracted with Indiana University Press. In 2016 and 2013 he was a visiting senior research fellow in the National University of Singapore’s Asia Research Institute.

Wei Huang uses the experience of China's One Child Policy to examine how fertility restrictions affect economic and social outcomes over the lifetime. The One Child Policy imposed a birth quota and heavy penalties for “out-of-plan” births. Using variation in the fertility penalties across provinces over time, He examines how fertility restrictions imposed early in the lives of individuals affected their educational attainment, marriage and fertility decisions, and later life economic outcomes. Exposure to stricter fertility restrictions when young leads to higher education, more white-collar jobs, delayed marriage, and lower fertility. Further consequences include higher household income, consumption, and saving. Finally, exposure to stricter fertility restrictions in early life increases female empowerment as measured by an increase in the fraction of households headed by women, female-oriented consumption and gender-equal opinions. Overall, fertility restrictions imposed when agents are young have powerful effects throughout the life cycle.

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Do startups learn from their own past experiences? What about observing other entrepreneurs' experiences? Using the results of her recent study on tech ventures on Kickstarter, Jaclyn Selby will share the circumstances under which startups do - and do NOT - learn from previous success and failure. She will also explore whether startups learn best from prior experience in related or in unrelated industries.

Speaker Bio

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Prior to PhD life, Jaclyn was a Senior Researcher heading federally-funded tech strategy projects at Project Argus, a leader in disease and disaster intelligence. Her group worked with partners at the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the Open Source Center, the University of Iowa Avian Flu prediction market, and the Al Fornace molecular biology lab. Prior to Argus, she was Research & Marketing Director of the Style and Image Network, a boutique consultancy, and a geopolitical analyst (Intellibridge, Castle Asia, Courage Services). A U.S. citizen, Jaclyn was raised overseas in Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore.

Agenda

4:15pm: Doors open
4:30pm-5:30pm: Talk and Discussion
5:30pm-6:00pm: Networking

RSVP Required

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Leading the world's only global Navy, Secretary Mabus has traveled over 1.3 million miles, visited over 150 countries and territories to maintain and develop international relationships. He has focused efforts to rebalancing the U.S. Fleet to have 60% of all Navy and Marine Corps assets based in the Indo-Asia-Pacific by the end of the decade as a reflection of our commitment to this critical region. Additionally, he has established a Marine Rotational Force in Darwin on a rotational basis to conduct exercises and train with the Australian Defense Force and maintain a stronger presence in the Pacific region.

Secretary Mabus is also leading efforts to use alternative energy sources to improve our warfighting capabilities and reduce our reliance on foreign sources of fossil fuels, denying potential adversaries the opportunity to use energy as a weapon against us, and our partners. During the 2016 Rim of the Pacific Exercise, the largest naval exercise in the world, completed in August, the ships of nine partner nations took delivery of, and operated on, biofuel blends delivered from U.S. ships.

Ray Mabus is the 75th United States Secretary of the Navy, the longest to serve as leader of the Navy and Marine Corps since World War I. Responsible for an annual budget in excess of $170 billion and leadership of almost 900,000 people, Secretary Mabus has worked to improve the quality of life of Sailors, Marines and their families; decrease the Department's dependence on fossil fuels; strengthen partnerships with industry and internationally; and increase the size of the Navy fleet.