Historical Immersion: Singapore Under Japanese Occupation

Professor Clay Eaton

This course provides an in-depth study of war and Japanese occupation in Singapore between 1942 and 1945, as well as an introduction to the work of history and its place in society as a whole. The historical record of the occupation is incomplete, however, and to understand it historians must use all the methodological tools at their disposal. At the same time, historians of the war are embedded in their own social contexts and their work can have a complicated relationship with how the occupation is remembered by the broader public. In this context, students were requested to visit and write two brief reports about two separate sites related to the Battle of Singapore or the Japanese occupation. These sites included museums, monuments, historical walking trails, cemeteries, or ruins. Reports addressed the wartime history of this site as well as its connections to contemporary memories of the war in Singapore. The script of the assignment is here.