6th S R Nathan Fellow – Tan Tai Yong
Professor TAN Tai Yong is President and Professor of Humanities (History) at Yale-NUS College.
Prior to becoming president in July 2017, he served as the College’s Executive Vice President (Academic Affairs) from 2014 to 2017, overseeing the academic and co-curricular aspects of the liberal arts experience at Yale-NUS College, including all faculty matters and academic affairs. Professor Tan has contributed to the academic programme of the College from the beginning, serving as Co-Chair of the joint Yale and NUS committee that hired inaugural faculty members in the humanities and shaped the common curriculum in 2011.
A graduate of NUS, Professor Tan completed his doctorate at Cambridge University. He has been a faculty member of the NUS Department of History since 1992 and served the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences as Sub-Dean (1994–1999), Head of the History Department (2000–2003), Vice-Dean (2001 2003), and Dean (2004–2009). Professor Tan was previously the Vice Provost (Student Life) (2010–2014) at NUS, overseeing student matters, University Town and the Residential Colleges, the Centre for English Language and Communication, as well as the Office of Student Affairs and the Halls of Residence. He was the Founding Director of the Institute of South Asian Studies, an autonomous university-level research institute in NUS, serving from 2004 to 2015. He received Teaching Excellence Awards in 1992 and 2000.
Professor Tan is valued beyond NUS for his expertise and serves as Honorary Chairman of the National Museum of Singapore. He serves on the National Heritage Board as Chairman of the National Collection Advisory Panel and Academic Research Panel, and member of the Indian Heritage Centre Advisory Board. Professor Tan was appointed to the Singapore Social Sciences Research Council in 2016. He is a member of the Singapore Bicentennial Advisory Panel.
Professor Tan served as a Nominated Member of Parliament from 2014 to 2015. He was awarded the Public Administration Medal (Silver) at the 2009 National Day Awards.
6th IPS-Nathan Lecture Series — The Idea of Singapore: Smallness Unconstrained
In 2019, Singapore will be marking the bicentennial of a significant turning point in its history – the arrival of the East India Company and the establishment of a British trading settlement on the island in 1819. Marking a bicentennial might suggest that 1819 was a point of origin, where it all began. But, did our history begin in 1819? What was Singapore before the Indiana landed on its shores, and how far back does our history go? The Bicentennial is perhaps an opportune occasion to think more deeply about our history and to reflect on whether that history has meaning for our present and future.
In this lecture series, Professor Tan seeks to explain how Singapore has evolved over a period of 700 years. Throughout its long history, Singapore has taken many forms – trading port, colony, port city and city-state – and its evolution was often influenced by external forces and factors. He will identify some of the underlying continuities to show that history is not merely a thing of the past; but by understanding how our island has been shaped by its history, we will have a better appreciation of our current and continued challenges as a city-state.
To find out more about the S R Nathan Fellowship for the Study of Singapore, please click here.