Ministry of moral panic : Singapore's independent literary scene and its leanings towards a libertarian Singapore narrative.

Despite National Art Council’s new initiative to support unconventional and unfamiliar artworks in 2012, the independent art scene of Singapore is ambivalent towards receiving the support. This study of the independent literary scene in Singapore investigates how state appropriation is perceived and...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Wong, Pei Ting.
Other Authors: School of Humanities and Social Sciences
Format: Final Year Project
Language:English
Published: 2013
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10356/51706
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
Description
Summary:Despite National Art Council’s new initiative to support unconventional and unfamiliar artworks in 2012, the independent art scene of Singapore is ambivalent towards receiving the support. This study of the independent literary scene in Singapore investigates how state appropriation is perceived and responded to. An inversion of Cohen’s theory of moral panic, this study uncovers how the independent literary scene perceived a condition of cultural decadence caused by the single-stranded statist developmental metanarrative as a threat, escalating it into a moral panic by erecting moral barricades: a move towards institutionalising the independent scene, as accredited members of the scene pronounce diagnoses that can resolve the condition. The institutionalisation process had works from the scene converge towards protracting a libertarian narrative, rather than its intention to encourage more resonating stores of everyday life in Singapore.