Busy time - two talks and a bunch of forthcoming publications, revision work and exciting new project in the works.

The new semester is already in full-swing since the last time I posted - over the long 'summer' days of eternal lockdowns (now that the summer has passed, the lockdown has also been lifted), I have been busily giddy with new discoveries that I forget my promise to post here more regularly - some of these 'discoveries' will make their appearances next year. Some have already been published as tasters. Not only that, I had also not been as active on social media. In fact, it is only since two days ago that I am taking the time, for the first time in months, to tidy up my Academia page (do have a look to see what new updates there are since your last visit) where I have decided to get rid of most of the uploaded talks from my graduate student days except the ones delivered thereafter. A talk (in bilingual texts) that marks my first participation in a theater-centric conference (I had never done this prior to my present job) that brings together past and present interest (digital media + theater) has been uploaded. But starting from this year, all information on my talks will be posted through this blog rather than on Academia. If you cannot find them on Academia, then you will find some of the pre 2020 talks are found in the various links under my Portfolio page which you can find when you click on the top left bar lines (only seen when you are on the main landing page) that actually make up the menu of my other media sites that show-cased my past professional activities.

Now for some talk-related announcements. These are the two final talks I will be giving this year (I have no plans to accept further last-minute talk requests for the rest of the year).

Firstly, I would like to inform of a talk I will be having tomorrow, at 3 pm, via Google Meets

Next, I will also be giving a talk next Thursday, Dec 2, at a webinar that will start at 10 am, on "Malay Exceptionalism as Counter-Securitization Strategy in Malaysian Social Media." You can register here (you can also read more information in that link if you find the screenshot below hard to read). I'm the last speaker up.

Finally, I want to announce a forthcoming article sometime next year (likely within the first half, if not within the first quarter of next year) on artscience, STEM education, science education and fan-fiction that pretty much bring together a bunch of stuff I had worked on over the summer, and immediately prior. Will announce again once it is out. On top of that, there are three new works forthcoming (well probably four if I turn my cybertroopers talk into an article) in the arena of internet studies and politics. This is also the first year I actually am writing policy briefs and papers based on actual research, instead of the quasi-policy write-ups I was compelled to do in my previous position at a think-tank, which were more for PR spinning than anything else. The Fulcrum commentary-reports I linked to a few paragraphs before are my attempts at turning my research into policy briefs.

In addition, there are still a number of pieces stuck within the review factory, and others I need to find time to revise, with the top on my list being another artscience piece that I am feeling more confident about after all that I'd been up to earlier this year and over the summer.

Finally, while busying myself with the summer fellowship and other new discoveries, I had also begin plotting the framework for the novel I always said I was going to start on again but forever kept at a back-burner. With this, and my other monograph in progress (I still need to get rid of some old under-revision articles) before I can turn to these two seriously.

As one can see, I've never liked doing only one project at a time, as my mind is such that I need multiple projects  for that cross-inspiration.