About this Event
Important Notice
This programme/event is open to members of the National Library Board, Singapore. Please ensure you have your myLibrary username on hand before proceeding with the registration. If you do not have a myLibrary username, you can create one here: https://account.nlb.gov.sg/.
About the Programme:
How is Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days a guidebook to our modern world? And how does Singapore fit into this circumnavigation story? In Verne’s novel, the characters land in Singapore on 31 October 1872, though very little happens that day; Passepartout tries mangosteens, for example, which he finds an “incomparable pleasure.” But the seemingly disappointing lack of action indicates how smoothly this port city was integrated into global networks. In 1972, S. Rajaratnam boasted of Singapore’s maritime connectivity; Verne’s logistical novel showcases how this port was already a “Global City,” a hundred years earlier.
Located at B1 of the National Library Building, the Central Public Library will open on 12 January 2024. Home to the Children’s Biodiversity Library by S.E.A. Aquarium, the library will also offer content on Singapore culture, literature and sustainability.
Click to find out more about Central Public Library, or visit to explore the programmes happening there.
About the Instructor:
Kevin Riordan is Senior Lecturer at Yale-NUS College and has been based in Singapore since 2013. He is a modernism and theatre scholar, who has previously taught in Japan, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates. Riordan’s literary research examines shifting understandings of time and space in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He is the author of Modernist Circumnavigations: Around the World in Jules Verne’s Wake and the editor of Tales of an Eastern Port: The Singapore Novellas of Joseph Conrad. He is a former Writing Fellow at the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study and a co-founder of the Modernist Studies in Asia research network.
About the Series:
Ever wanted to read a classic but felt too intimidated to take the plunge? A Bridge to the Classics is a lecture series that aims to introduce and demystify beloved works of literature. This series will equip attendees with the title’s literary and historical contexts and connect these classics to our lives today.
The ocean accounts for most of the earth’s surface, though we often think about literature in more grounded terms, as belonging to nations or continents. Season 4 of Bridge to the Classics starts on firm ground and then heads out to sea. Singapore has always been shaped by its surrounding waters, whether through maritime trade or the recent rising tides, and this season draws together four works of oceanic literature that somehow touch these shores. On this journey, we will discern sea stories’ distinctive qualities and witness how they both connect us to and separate us from the wider world.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Central Public Library, 100 Victoria Street National Library Board, Singapore, Singapore
SGD 0.00
