Professor Khoo Gaik Cheng

Professor Khoo Gaik Cheng

  • Professor
Department of Film and Performing Arts
Google Scholar ORCID Scopus
SDGs Focus
Good Health and Well Being
Decent Work and Economic Growth
Sustainable Cities and Communities
Life On Land

Biography

Prof. Khoo has helped build Malaysian cinema studies and widen the scope of Malaysian cultural studies through her eclectic interests and publications on independent filmmaking in Southeast Asia, food, race and multicultural politics, popular democracy and civil society (Bersih), Korean migrants in Malaysia and currently, the durian. Previously, she was Associate Professor at the University of Nottingham Malaysia, and Director of the University of Nottingham Asia Research Institute, Malaysia (UoNARI-M). From 2006-2012, she taught at the Australian National University. Being a postdoctoral fellow at the Asia Research Institute-National University of Singapore (2003-2005) sealed her fate as a cultural studies scholar.

Academic & Professional Qualifications

  • PhD in Individual Interdisciplinary Studies, University of British Columbia, Canada (2000)
  • Associate Fellow, The Higher Education Academy (2018)
  • MA (English) University of British Columbia, Canada (1995)
  • Bachelor of Art (English) University of Texas, Austin, USA (1993)

Research Interests

  • Southeast Asian Cinema
  • Food, identity and cultural heritage
  • Durian: Political economy, environmental humanities, posthumanism, sustainability
  • Migration studies

Teaching Areas

  • Film Theory
  • Southeast Asian Cinema
  • World Cinema
  • Media and Cultural Studies
  • Postcolonialism, Posthumanism, Gender, Sexuality and Race
  • Visual Communiction

Courses Taught

  • PAF 2074 Media and Cultural Studies
  • RSM 5054 Research Methods

Notable Publications

  1. Khoo, G. C. “Ch 33 ‘Still Doing It Themselves, with a Little Help from Friends: Independent Filmmaking in Malaysia Two Decades Hence.” pp. 382-391. In The Routledge Companion to Asian Cinemas, edited by Zhen Zhang, Debashree Mukherjee, Intan Paramaditha and Sangjoon Lee. (Routledge, June 2024). DOI: 10.4324/9781003266952-44 (SDG#8)  
     
  2. Khoo, G.C. and R. Idrus. “Countering Durian Plantationocene Visuals and the erasure of natureculture histories in Malaysia” Continuum, March 2024, 10.1080/10304312.2024.2321305 (SDG#15)
     
  3. Khoo, G.C. and J. Duruz. “A Whiff of Southeast Asia: Tasting Durian and Kopi.” In Aromas of Asia. Eds. Gwyn McClelland and Hannah Gould (Penn State UP, 2023).  
     
  4. “Adjusting to Slow Times and Happiness: South Koreans in Malaysia.” special issue on Koreans in the Global South, Korea Journal 62.4 (2022): 48-77. DOI: 10.25024/kj.2022.62.4.48 (SDG#3)
     
  5. Khoo, G. C. “Introduction” in Southeast Asia on Screen: From Independence to Financial Crisis (1945-1998). Eds. G.C. Khoo, Thomas Barker and Mary J. Ainslie (Amsterdam University Press, 2020).  
     
  6. “The Globalizing Hansik Campaign: A Malaysian Critique.” Gastronomica: The Journal of Critical Food Studies 19.1 (2019): 65-78. (SDG#8)
     
  7. “The Cheapskate Highbrow and the Dilemma of Sustaining Penang Hawker Food.” SOJOURN 31.1 (2017): 36-77. (SDG#8)
     
  8. Eating Together: Food, Space and Identity in Malaysia and Singapore (Co-authored with Jean Duruz, Rowman and Littlefield, 2014; SIRD, 2015 Asian edition).  
     
  9. Malaysia’s New Ethnoscapes and Ways of Belonging (eds. GC Khoo, Julian C.H. Lee, Routledge, 2015), republished from Citizenship Studies special issue 18.8 (2014).
     
  10. Reclaiming Adat: Contemporary Malaysian Film and Literature (University of British Columbia Press, 2006). 

Achievements & Accolades

Ongoing projects:

  • “Durian Matters” for Continuum Journal of Media and Cultural Studies (in progress)

 

Grants:

  • British Academy Fellowship at Cambridge University, “Durian Stories” (April – Aug 2023)
     
  • Malaysian Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS), Developing a sustainable and ecological model for durian as a commercial crop with a focus on producers (Nov 2020 – April 2024) 
     
  • Future Foods Beacon (University of Nottingham)
  • University of Sydney Southeast Asian Centre
  • East Asian Development Network
  • Wenner Gren Foundation
  • Leverhulme
  • UK Arts and Humanities Research Council grant for Southeast Asian Cinemas Research Network (SEACRN)
  • EUROSEAS
  • Internal grants from University of Nottingham Malaysia, and Australian National University.  
     

Speaking Engagements:

  • Cambridge University 
  • Lingnan University 
  • ISEAS-Singapore 
  • National Chiao Tung University, Taiwan 
  • University of Melbourne
  • U of Sydney
  • Walailak University
  • Mahidol University
  • Yonsei University
  • UCLA
  • UC-Santa Barbara
  • University College London
  • Yunnan University
  • NUS College
  • University of North Carolina
  • University of Lund (Sweden)
  • EICTV-Cuba 

    She has also been on various juries: the Singapore International Film Festival, Freedom Film Festival Malaysia, 21st Seoul International Women’s Film Festival. 

Professional Associations

Founder, Association of Southeast Asian Cinemas Conference (ASEACC) https://aseaccofficial.wordpress.com/ 

Member, Association of Cultural Studies

Member, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies

Member, Association of Southeast Asian Studies-UK

Lifetime member, Persatuan Sosial Sains Malaysia

ADVISORY BOARD MEMBER of the International Program Advisory Committee, Seoul International Women’s Film Festival, commencing June 22, 2019; of book series TransAsia: Screen Cultures (Hong Kong University Press); Situations journal (Yonsei University).

EDITORIAL BOARD member of book series, Asian Visual Cultures (Amsterdam UP); International Advisory Board of book series, TransAsia: Screen Cultures (Hong Kong University Press, co-editors, Chris Berry and Koichi Iwabuchi); University of Philippines – Diliman journal Plaridel; International Editorial Board member of SARE: Southeast Asian Review of English – University of Malaya; Southeast Asia regional coordinator for Asian Cinema.