Site of Nanyang University : memories against the Singapore story

• Main Author: Cheng, Xin Ze
• Other Authors: Els van Dongen
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2021
• Subjects: Humanities::History
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/147288
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This study examines the memory of Nanyang University alumni about their alma mater and how their memory reconstructs Nanyang University to resist Singapore’s national history. Nanyang University faced many adversities after it first opened in 1956. Between its opening and closing, the Singapore government enacted many changes upon the university in an attempt to fix it. Today, many remember the university one-dimensionally, as a communist stronghold. After graduation, Nanyang University alumni of different batches migrate worldwide in search for opportunities. Once abroad, the alumni organize themselves into Nanyang University Alumni Associations. Eventually, the convergence of Nanyang University Alumni Association in the 1990s, provided the alumni with a platform to share their memories of Nanyang University. By analysing these pools of memories this article reveals the differences between the collective memories of Nanyang University alumni and Singapore’s national history on Nanyang University. These collective memories in tension with Singapore’s national history creates Nanyang University as a lieu de mémoire, also known as site of memory, as a bulwark against Singapore’s national history.