asian – Ingatan

How do beauty ideals spread transnationally? This talk addresses the phenomenon of cultural globalization using the case of beauty ideals for cosmetic surgery in Malaysia. In it, I argue that Malaysian cosmetic surgeons balance and mediate between transnational beauty ideals and national tastes, producing embodied cosmetic surgery looks for individual patients. Malaysian cosmetic surgeons facilitate the spread of regional cultural forms from around Asia in selectively drawing on circulating beauty ideals in constructing different “looks” for their patients. This intermediary role has broader implications for how to think about the flow of ideas and concepts across national borders.

Why Memory Studies

As an all-encompassing sociocultural phenomenon, memory plays an important role in various areas of social practice. The calendar of commemorations –national, religious, ethnic– seems to be ever-increasing. Remembering and forgetting are major themes in contemporary literature and art. Memory enjoys practically top billing in daily and weekly newspapers. It has become a controversial topic in politics and the public sphere (in the context of phrases such as ‘national tradition’, ‘Holocaust memory’, or ‘truth and reconciliation’). And memory even occupies us in our free time, in the form of thriving heritage industry. [Astrid Erll, Memory in Culture]

Tag: asian

Alka Menon – Constructing an Asian Look