Dr. Issa Khan joined in 2015 at the Department of Shariah and Management, Academy of Islamic Studies, University of Malaya as a Senior Lecturer after completing his Ph.D. in Takaful (Islamic Insurance) with Bright Sparks Scholarship from the University. He was also awarded an amount of money for completing this degree within three to four years. Prior he had been awarded the University of Malaya Fellowship for the Master's Programme in Islamic Financial Transactions.   In 2014,  he received Bronze Medal Award from APIUM Academic Open Week (Minggu Terbuka Akademik) and the Best Paper Award from Islamic Finance and Property Research Seminar (Seminar Penyelidikan Kewangan Dan Kehartaan Islam), the University of Malaya in 2013.  Moreover, he achieved his B.A.(Hon’s) degree in Islamic Studies and Da’wah from Darul Ihsan University, Bangladesh. Earlier, he completed Takmil (Dawra Hadith) in Hadith from Jamiyah Arabiyah Makzanul Ulum, Mymensingh, Bangladesh.    

Roshidah Hassan is an Associate Professor at the Department of Asian Languages, Universiti Malaya. She served as Deputy Dean (Undergraduate Studies) from 2018 to 2022 and previously headed the Department of Asian and European Languages. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Malay Studies (Linguistics) and a PhD from Universiti Malaya, as well as a Diploma in French Studies from the University of La Rochelle and a Master’s in Teaching French as a Foreign Language from the University of Poitiers. Her teaching covers French syntax, morphology, phonetics, and phonology. Her research focuses on language acquisition, phonetics, phonology, and ethnolinguistics. She is currently involved in documenting endangered Orang Asli languages and investigating how Malaysian learners acquire French sounds. She also conducts research on the preservation of Portuguese Creole in Malacca. Her work contributes to sustaining linguistic diversity and enhancing language education for minority and indigenous communities in Malaysia.

Trained in Cultural Studies, I am a researcher engaging in interdisciplinary research on culture. My research is primarily concerned with the cultural history of modern and contemporary China through the lens of ‘folk’ or minjian. In particular, I am interested in how ‘folk’ has been discursively constructed by the state and intellectuals throughout the 20th century, and how it continues to be represented at heritage sites, folk art museums, folk art fairs, as well as contemporary art exhibitions in the 21st century. My interdisciplinary PhD training in Cultural Studies in Asia at the National University of Singapore has taught me to be a questioner, committed to promoting critical and creative thinking as a mode of living beyond academia. Being a practitioner of critical pedagogy, I always problematize preconceived ideas that have shaped our understandings of the world. As a lecturer, I believe that classroom is where knowledge is produced and challenged through productive dialogues between teachers and students. Besides teaching in the classroom, I am also an active listener keen on translating students’ personal experience and knowledge into discussion materials. Critical discussion could help students reflect upon how our perception of the world is sociologically constructed. Students are not passive learners but knowledge producers. My role as a teacher is to acknowledge students’ opinions as knowledge and situate their knowledge within a larger socio-political, economic, and cultural contexts so as to allow them to scrutinize their common sense. I am currently not available for PhD supervisions.