Zhou Hau Liew

Zhou Hau Liew received his PhD in comparative literature and literary theory from the University of Pennsylvania in 2017. His current project rethinks the archives of the Malayan Emergency (1948-60), focusing on British resettlement policies imposed as part of counter-insurgency and anti-communist operations in Malaya. Drawing from fiction, oral history, archival accounts, and recent historical writing, it excavates underrepresented perspectives to resituate this resettlement alongside race-based detention and deportation policies, which shaped the incipient Malayan nation-state during a burgeoning Cold War atmosphere. It develops a land-based understanding of this forced migration through the abiding memories and lived experiences of the rural Chinese who were uprooted from their homes. He is also working on a public documentary project supported by the British Council, which utilizes film and sound collaborations with artists and filmmakers to mediate the archives of the Malayan Emergency. His writing and research have appeared in Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Postcolonial Studies Journal, Full Stop Quarterly, and Naratif Kisah.