Bernard Z. Keo is a historian of modern Southeast Asia, with a particular focus on Malaysia and Singapore. He is a Lecturer in History at La Trobe University in Melbourne and a Research Associate of the Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS) at the National University of Malaysia (UKM). His work explores questions of nationhood, cosmopolitanism, and the legacies of empire in postcolonial societies. Imagining Malaya is his first monograph, drawing on extensive archival research to reconstruct alternative visions of Malaysia’s path to independence.

Rachel Leow is an Associate Professor of Law at the LSE Law School. Her research focuses on agency, unjust enrichment, and trusts, with a particular interest in corporate attribution—also the subject of her award-winning monograph Corporate Attribution in Private Law (Hart, 2022). Her work has been cited by courts including the UK Supreme Court and the Singapore Court of Appeal. Before joining LSE, she taught at the National University of Singapore and completed her LLM and PhD at the University of Cambridge.

This event takes place in the context of the Geneva Democracy Week as part of the programme organised by the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy.