Personal Narratives of Illness
Redressing Madness in the Singaporean Fiction of Amanda Lee Koe
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20249266 |
|---|---|
| Authors | H M Y Ho (0000-0003-3008-5028, Universiti Brunei Darussalam, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 8 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 70 |
| Publication date | 2019-04-06 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Humanities (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2076-0787 • E-ISSN: 2076-0787 |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/h8020070 |
| OpenAlex | W2929589932 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 20 |
Amanda Lee Koe’s short stories (2013) redress the limited tolerance for the mad citizen-subject, whose subjectivity is obscured, if not erased, by medical prescriptions. Official and often state-sanctioned conceptualizations of the peculiar mind are grievously justified in behavioral manifestations deemed socially unacceptable. Koe’s stories about idiosyncratic Singaporeans illustrate the way personal experiences—of memory loss, homosexual tendencies, and emotional self-expressions—are informed by, and in turn inform, the biopolitical regulation of Singaporean citizens rendered objects of biopower. In this way, her stories invite a meditation on the state, people and power. Foregrounding fractured and unorthodox characters, these stories serve to intensify individual voices articulated in personal narratives addressing affective experiences, including sadness culminating in loneliness. Furthermore, the stories attest to socially constructed norms instigating the repudiation and criminalization of sexual deviants. Significantly, they add to the “cultural apparatus”—which C.W. Mills defines as “the source of Human Variety—of styles of living and of ways to die”—by questioning the nation’s ideological imperatives, including heterosexual norms, social insistence on mono-cultural marriages and state/family-endorsed medical intervention. Offering a critique of ideological state apparatus embedded within the power structures inherent to psychopathology, Koe’s Ministry of Moral Panic challenges the established ways of viewing “Others” who are ostensibly “mad”. Consequently, her stories mediate a broadening human experience, by calling for inclusivity amid the social rejection and insular treatment of afflicted subjects with alleged disorders
Aesthetics · Biopower · Foregrounding · Ideology · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Redress · Sociology · Subjectivity · Asian Studies and History · Gender Studies · Law · Psychology · Socioeconomic Development in Asia
Queer Singapore
Social Cultural Engineering and the Singaporean State
The myth of mental illness.
Bewitching Women, Pious Men
Is Schizophrenia a Disease
Singapore and the Intersections of Neoliberal Globalization and Postcoloniality
Queer time in global city Singapore
Sexing Up Singapore
Oscar Wilde in Singapore
Where Love Dares (Not) Speak Its Name
Terror as White Female in Mudrooroo’s Vampire Trilogy
Writing Singapore Gay Identities
Gay Sexuality in Singaporean Chinese Popular Culture
Rights Versus Morality
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,05 |
| Citation span | 2004 - 2004 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |