This e-journal aims to provide a much-needed multi-disciplinary platform for the dissemination of works investigating different aspects of historical and contemporary Singapore society. Moving beyond statist perspectives, the journal encourages research that opens up space for recalibrating the status quo in Singapore. Possible fields of endeavour include:
1. Re-evaluation and critiques of official historiography and discourses
2. Research on marginalized actors and social classes
3. Engagement with issues of concern, examined through a historical frame
s/pores came about from the discussions among recently-returned Singaporean academics in 2007, none of whom were trained as specialists of Singapore as such. They were keen to be ‘home scholars’, defined by Thai historian Thongchai Winichakul as those whose works are read, debated, and become, in a sustained manner, part of the scholarly discourse and cultural politics of their home country.
Conversations with like-minded friends, including those already pushing in new directions, consolidated into an electronic journal for the relative freedom from financial outlay and from distribution challenges that the medium provides.
s/pores is an interplay of the short form, the lower case, the plural, the backslash, the informal, the non-elite, the multiple, the oblique. Pronounced ‘spores’, our title also denotes the dispersal of seeds of ideas, some of which should fall on fertile ground. s/pores is therefore simultaneously a declaration of authorial positioning as it is a statement of our hopes for a more variegated Singapore.
The initial issues will be managed by a collective. To get the journal off the ground, their responsibilities at this stage include writing for s/pores and soliciting for contributions. We hope to be inundated with submissions eventually.
We aim to publish once every four months, but expect that s/pores will initially be a semi-annual affair. We hope that it will become a regular forum for thoughtful, constructive commentary which will appear bi-monthly or even monthly.
Please send comments and queries to editors@s-pores.com.
s/pores emblem picture: First Generation by Chong Fah Cheong. Sculpture, Singapore River.
Submissions
We welcome submission of articles.
Contributions should be the result of scholarly research, but need not be presented with the full formal conventions of an academic product. In fact, the injunction is that intimidating academic-speak is out. We want to provide room as well for reflective essays, proposals and tentative findings for new areas of research.
Proper referencing of facts and quotes is necessary but should be limited to the necessary. We accept either Harvard-style referencing (author-year-page bracketed in text, with list of references at the end of the article) or end-note citations, but we prefer minimal notes.
We do not publish articles by anonymous and pseudonymous authors. Please include a short biographical statement of yourself of about 1-4 sentences. We also prefer short titles.
Contributors have copyright on their materials, and have the right to use them in other forms or publication. However, we appreciate that authors keep us informed of other publication sites, as we would like to cross-reference them. Each author is solely responsible for the views expressed in their contribution, which do not reflect the position of either of s/pores, nor the institution to which she or he is affiliated.
Please send queries and submissions to editors@s-pores.com.
s/pores 