University of Nottingham Ningbo China
Events
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10th Anniversary Public Lecture: Professor Lily Kong, Vice-Provost of National University of Singapore

Date(s)
06 October 2014 (19:00-20:00)
Contact

Rebecca Jin
Provost Office
rebecca.jin@nottingham.edu.cn
+86 (0)574 8818 0389

Description

As part of the University's 10th anniversary public lecture series, Professor Lily Kong, Vice-Provost (Academic Personnel) of National University of Singapore, will give a public talk on the campus in October.

About the talk

Universities around the world are internationalising rapidly. Such internationalisation takes many forms, from running international programmes that provide students with overseas opportunities, to “internationalising” the curriculum, to the much more ambitious act of establishing branch campuses overseas.  Such internationalisation has come with challenges while bringing many opportunities. This talk will focus on one of the significant opportunities of the moment: to develop a “new” Asian Studies that is neither dominated by the “West’s” interest in the “oriental other”, nor seized by defensive “insider” approaches. In considering major changes in higher education in Asia, it highlights the opportunities that such changes present for an Asian studies that draws on the strength of scholars who have dual positionalities, or an “in-between” positionality, while recognising the simultaneous challenges presented by greater marketisation, privatisation and neo-liberalisation of higher education in Asia.

About the speaker

A graduate of the National University of Singapore and University College London, Professor Lily Kong has been a faculty member in the NUS Department of Geography since 1991. She currently holds a Provost’s Chair Professorship.  She has held various university appointments including Dean, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences; Dean, University Scholars Programme; Director, Asia Research Institute; Vice-Provost (Education); and Vice-President (University and Global Relations). She was also the inaugural Executive Vice-President (Academic Affairs) of Yale-NUS College. She is currently Vice-Provost (Academic Personnel) and chairs the University Promotion and Tenure Committee.

Professor Kong is a social-cultural geographer whose main research foci are religion, cultural policy and creative economy, and national identity. She has more than 15 books and monographs to her name, as well as over 140 papers in international refereed journals and chapters in books. Her recent books include Religion and Place: Landscape, Politics and Piety (2013, co-ed), and Conserving the Past, Creating the Future: Urban Heritage in Singapore (2011). Her latest book entitled Arts, Culture and the Making of Global Cities: Creating New Urban Landscapes in Asia will be published in early 2015.

Internationally, she has served in various external examiner roles, external review committees, international advisory panels, and University Councils in Australia, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Lithuania, New Zealand, Taiwan, and the U.K.

Professor Kong has received various awards including the Commonwealth Fellowship Award, the Fulbright Fellowship Award, an Honorary DSc from Loughborough University, UK, and the Robert Stoddard Award for Distinguished Service to the Geography of Religion and Belief Systems Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers. She was conferred the National Day Award - Public Administration Medal (Silver), two Book Awards by the National Book Development Council of Singapore, NUS Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Teaching Excellence Award (twice) and NUS Outstanding University Researcher Award.