About the Speakers:
Nilanjana Sengupta, author and community historian, is based in Singapore and a recent participant in an advanced writing programme with Oxford.
Her book, The Votive Pen: Writings on Edwin Thumboo, was shortlisted for both the Singapore Literature Prize and Singapore Book Award. Her latest book, Chickpeas to Cook & Other Stories, dwells on the lives of women from some of the micro-communities of Singapore. Her other books include A Gentleman’s Word, The Female Voice of Myanmar, and Singapore, My Country.
Sengupta’s books have been critically acclaimed, adopted for university courses, and translated into multiple languages. She has been associated with the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute as well as NUS in various research capacities, and her overarching research interest is the feminist awakening in Southeast Asia, cultural exchanges between Asian nations, and questions of integration, identity, and hybridity of borrowed cultures.
Born and bred in Singapore, Theresa W. Devasahayam is a family and gender anthropologist. As an undergraduate, she enjoyed sociology and anthropology and furthered her interest in gender studies at the graduate level when she completed her PhD at Syracuse University in the USA.
During her career, Theresa has edited seven books and co-authored one book—all having one connecting thread in that they ask fundamental questions around inequality, oppression, and exploitation between the sexes. She has also been cited for her views on women, the family, and aging by Bloomberg and CNN. Little Drops: Cherished Children of Singapore’s Past is her first book written for a non-academic audience.
With the same passion she puts into her writing, Theresa enjoys engaging in various charity efforts aimed at raising funds for girls’ and women’s empowerment projects in developing countries. Her aspirations are simple: give back to society whatever gifts one may have recognising that one has been empowered to empower others.
