{"id":5845,"date":"2025-01-01T06:23:13","date_gmt":"2025-01-01T06:23:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev-alumn-nus.pantheonsite.io\/alumnus\/?p=5845"},"modified":"2025-07-15T16:07:39","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T08:07:39","slug":"meet-the-faculty-noorman-abdullah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/2025\/01\/01\/meet-the-faculty-noorman-abdullah\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet the Faculty: Noorman Abdullah"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Dr Noorman spoke to The AlumNUS about his work and passions.<\/p>

ACADEMIC INTERESTS
<\/strong>\u201cSociology and anthropology provided me with a toolkit to understand the world we live in. That curiosity in trying to engage critically and compassionately with issues pushed me into research and teaching.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>

SENSES & SOCIETY
<\/strong>\u201cI\u2019ve been involved in Senses and Society, a thematic group of the International Sociological Association, for over 10 years. We bring together like-minded academics to discuss how our understanding of society is shaped by and through our senses. For instance, how do sight, sound and smell influence our perception of the world, our identities and our interactions?\u201d<\/p>

JOY IN THE WORK<\/strong>
\u201cResearch is, of course, very illuminating and I find a lot of meaning in it. But being able to translate that research into teaching \u2014 and seeing my students grapple with and engage ideas \u2014 is incredibly gratifying.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>

ADAPTING TO CHANGE<\/strong>
\u201cThe world is now more uncertain and volatile; the University has undertaken significant curricular changes as a result, as well as increased its emphasis on student wellness and other issues. But at the same time, our core values have remained, including our desire to shape students who are compassionate and critical thinkers.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>

ALUMNI CONNECTIONS<\/strong>
\u201cAs an FASS alumnus, I find the work we do in alumni relations both gratifying and meaningful. FASS is admittedly a large and diverse faculty\u2026harnessing and engaging a cohesive network between recent alumni and those who are well-established in their respective fields is important.\u201d<\/p>

OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM<\/strong>
\u201cI am curious about the world that we live in, and love to travel and explore new experiences. In some ways, it\u2019s tied very closely to my discipline and research; when I do fieldwork overseas, it gives me a lens for understanding different cultures and contexts.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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CLASS NOTES<\/strong><\/p>

Course Name<\/strong>: GEH1062\/GEC1024 GHOSTS AND SPIRITS IN SOCIETY AND CULTURE<\/p>

Synopsis<\/strong>: \u201cWhy, in a modern, industrialised society, are so many people still interested in the supernatural?\u201d asks Dr Noorman Abdullah. His General Education course introduces students to the scholarly study of ghosts, spirits and other supernatural entities, demonstrating how corresponding beliefs and practices provide a lens to the various social, political and cultural contexts in which they are situated.<\/p>

For instance, the depiction of a ghost as a dead person is largely reflective of Eurocentric beliefs towards death and the afterlife. \u201cBut the category of the supernatural itself is more wide-ranging, and certain societies will make distinctions between different kinds of ghosts and spirits through terms like hantu, jinn, poltergeists, phantoms, wraiths, and so on.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>

A fundamental objective of the class is to therefore recognise the ubiquity of supernatural beliefs across cultures, while appreciating and explaining their differences and diversity.<\/p>

Recommended Viewing<\/strong>: Alongside academic readings, students use ethnographic films and pop culture to explore how representations of the supernatural reflect societal, gender, ethnic and class dynamics. This includes 1970s horror classics like The Exorcist <\/em>and Carrie<\/em>, as well as more modern and locally based films such as Revenge of the Pontianak<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>

Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr Noorman Abdullah (Arts & Social Sciences \u201902, MSocSci \u201905) is a Senior Lecturer and the Assistant Dean (External Relations & Student Life) within the Department of Sociology & Anthropology and the Department of Malay Studies at the Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences (FASS). His research interests include religion and society; race relations; decolonial pedagogies; and sensory studies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6190,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_theme","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-leadership"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5845"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5845\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6096,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5845\/revisions\/6096"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alumni.nus.edu.sg\/thealumnus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}