Master of Arts in History National University of Singapore (NUS), January 2003 - January 2005 This thesis looks at the constitution of ideas of "nation" and "Malayness" by British, Malay and later, American authors. Nation and Malayness have typically been studied as inclusive and static. Yet, the authors' use of the terms shows that changing exclusions were integral to the establishment of the terms' meanings. From 1809 to 1942, the terms were used strategically to further aims such as perpetuating colonialism, building a community and gaining independence. In the early twentieth century, ideas of nation and Malayness linked to the Malay Peninsula coincided in excluding particular groups of people from belonging to Malaya such as Chinese and Indians. When nation and Malayness were used in the 1930s and 40s to argue for independence, previous exclusions were incorporated into authors' visions of an independent state. Both concepts were tools to exclude those who were seen as threatening or not belonging to a Malay nation in Malaya. Keywords: nation, nationalism, Malaya, Malay, exclusion, colonialism Papers Published "Common Ground: Race and the colonial universe in British Malaya", Journal of Southeast Asian Studies (forthcoming). "Africans in Asia: The discourse of 'Negritos' in early nineteenth century Southeast Asia", Amsterdam University Press (forthcoming). "Textbooks and Nation Construction in Malaysia", Asia-Pacific Forum No. 28 June 2005, Center for Asia-Pacific Area Studies, Academia Sinica, Taiwan: 78-89. Papers Presented "Two colonisers and one colonised: Europeans, Malays and Orang Asli in nineteenth-century Malaya", Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania Annual Conference, ANU, February 2008 "A critical history of anthropology of 'Negritos' of Peninsula Malaya: the racialisation of indigenous groups through texts, illustrations and photography by travellers and anthropologists, 1820-1920", Division of Pacific and Asian History Seminar Series, Coombs building, ANU, October 2007 "Questioning Negritos", International Conference of Asian Studies, ICAS5, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, August 2007 "Textbooks and Nation Construction in Malaysia", International Association of Historians of Asia, 18th Conference, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, December 2004 "Ideas of Nation and Malayness in Malaya", International Conference on Malaysian History, University of Malaya, August 2004 Undergraduate Education Bachelor of Arts in History Bachelor of Arts in Economics University of Southern California (USC), August 1996 - May 2000 Other Education Creative Writing, UCLA Extension, 2000-2002 Basic Tamil, NUS Extension, 2005 Basic Photography, The Substation, 2006 Beginning Arabic 1, ANU Centre for Continuing Education, 2007 Other Research Research Assistant, Malay Film Documentation Project, NUS, February 2005- July 2005 Conducted research on Malay films from the 1940s – 1960s Analysed films and wrote summaries and relevant information