Cheow Thia Chan

Brief Introduction

Born and raised in Singapore, Chan Cheow Thia specializes in modern Chinese literature, with a focus on literary production related to Singapore and Malaysia from the nineteenth century to the present. Prior to doctoral studies, he was a Public Service Commission (PSC) Overseas Specialist Award recipient and taught at a secondary school. He was also engaged in developing Chinese language programmes as a curriculum planner with the Ministry of Education. In 2009, he left the shores of home to pursue his interest in modern Chinese literature. His intellectual sojourn took him to both sides of the Atlantic, where he explored the critical notion of “place” in diasporic Chinese literature, and later, in Singapore and Malaysian Chinese literature. From July 2016 to July 2018, he was a visiting postdoctoral fellow at the East Asia Program at Cornell University.

His doctoral dissertation won the Marston Anderson Prize for Distinguished Dissertation at the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale. His research received support from the NUS-Overseas Postdoctoral Fellowship, the NUS-Overseas Graduate Scholarship, the A. Bartlett. Giamatti Fellowship, and the Tan Kah Kee Postgraduate Scholarship. At NUS, besides offering regular courses on Singapore and Malaysian Chinese literature at various levels, he looks forward to teaching a newly developed module on "Strangers in Chinese literature" in Semester 2 (AY 2018/2019), which looks into literary depictions of people and groups living in the social margins.

Education

• BA Fudan University (Chinese Language and Literature)
• MPhil University of Cambridge (Asian and Middle Eastern Studies)
• PhD Yale University (East Asian Languages and Literatures)

Courses Taught 开设课程

• GEH1005 Crime Fiction in English and Chinese (in English) 中英文世界里的犯罪小说
• CH2391 Strangers in Chinese Literature (in English) 华文文学里的他者和弱者
• CH3225 Keywords in S’pore and M’sian Chinese Literary Studies 关键词：新马文学研究入门
• CH4262 Transregional Chinese Literary Connections 新马文学与跨域连结
• CH5225R Topics in SE Asian Chinese Literature 东南亚华文文学专题

Research Interests 研究兴趣

• Modern Chinese Literature 中国现当代文学
• Singapore and Malaysian Chinese Literature 新马华文文学
• Southeast Asian Chinese Studies 东南亚华人研究
• Diaspora Studies 离散研究