New Book on Yunnan Garden and Nantah by Hee Wai Siam

We are happy to share the launch of the book 云南园的前世今生：重述南大故事 (Yunnan Garden then and now: revisiting the story of Nantah) by Associate Professor Hee Wai Siam. 

作为时间的南洋大学已一去不复返，然而作为空间的南洋理工大学还在。每天人们都在使用这个被简称为“南大”或“云南园”的空间，然而很多人很可能都对这个空间的故事和历史一知半解。本书主题从文学的角度追溯和勾勒这个云南园空间在上个世纪是如何被使用的？直到如今这个空间又经历了怎样的断裂和变迁？作为空间的南大记忆是断裂，抑或传承？每一代的南大人都有无数的故事。本书以现今南大地景彩色照片与往昔南大地景黑白照片相互对照，图文并茂收录超过30篇来自南大老师、研究生、本科生和校友们的非虚构作品，体裁包括论文、学术随笔、演讲稿和散文。本书主题围绕着南大周边的人、事、物展开，试图在过去与现在之间展开对话，追忆并重构云南园的地景风华与文化记忆，并申述这些南大故事对我们这个时代的意义。

As an institution in time, Nanyang University has long since receded into history. Yet as a living space, Nanyang Technological University—known in Chinese as Yunnan Garden or Nantah—continues to shape daily life. Many walk its grounds, but fewer know the layered stories embedded within its landscape.

Approaching the subject from a literary perspective, this volume traces and reconstructs how the space of Yunnan Garden was inhabited and experienced in the last century, and examines the ruptures and transformations it has undergone up to the present day. Are the memories associated with Nantah as a space marked by discontinuity, or do they embody forms of inheritance and continuity? Each generation of the Nantah community carries its own constellation of stories.

Richly illustrated with both colour and black-and-white photographs, and comprising more than thirty non-fiction contributions in Chinese by Nantah faculty members, graduate students, undergraduates, and alumni, this volume includes scholarly articles, academic reflections, speeches, and personal essays.

Centred on the people, events, and material culture surrounding Nantah, the book seeks to open a dialogue between past and present—revisiting and reimagining the landscape and cultural memory of Yunnan Garden, while further exploring the contemporary relevance and broader meanings of these Nantah stories in our time.

About the Author:

Hee Wai Siam is Associate Professor at the School of Humanities in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His areas of expertise include Cultural studies and Chinese literature. His research also covers Cold War studies and Sinophone studies. His research has a highly interdisciplinary orientation, spanning the fields of gender studies, film studies, history, mass media and sociology.

For more information about the book, visit:

https://trendlitpublishing.com/products/yunnan-garden-then-and-now-revisiting-the-story-of-nantah