A Building with One Side Missing: Liberal Arts and Illiberal Modernities in Singapore

Raffles College, Singapore’s first comprehensive institution of higher education, brought a particular pedagogical community into being from its opening in 1928 to its temporary closure during the Pacific War in December 1941. Two areas of tension at the college were the incorporation of Asia and Asians as subjects and objects of study into the humanities curriculum, and forms of subjectification incited by residentially based pedagogy. The experience of the college, viewed through the lens of the present, asks us to revisit issues that remain pertinent in contemporary Singapore and in questions relating more broadly to the development of higher education in Asia.