COMMITTEE
The P. Ramlee Society — constituted March 2026 — is anchored by a founding committee of scholars, critics, and cultural practitioners from Malaysia and beyond.
Nazirul Hazim A. Khalim
BUSINESS & CULTURAL POLICY
School of Business, Monash University Malaysia
Nazirul Hazim A. Khalim brings expertise in business strategy and cultural policy to the Society. His work explores the intersections of cultural economics, heritage management, and institutional design — critical perspectives for the Society's long-term sustainability and partnership development.
Siti Raihani Mohd Saaid
FILM & CULTURAL STUDIES
Monash University Malaysia / Universiti Malaya
Siti Raihani Mohd Saaid is a researcher working across film studies and cultural studies with a particular focus on Malaysian cinema and visual culture. Her scholarship engages with questions of representation, national identity, and postcolonial cultural formation in the context of Southeast Asian screen media.
Adil Johan
MUSIC & CULTURAL STUDIES
Asia-Europe Institute, Universiti Malaya
Adil Johan is the author of Cosmopolitan Intimacies: Malay Film Music of the Independence Era (NUS Press, 2018), a landmark study of P. Ramlee's film music that situates it within the cosmopolitan musical landscape of postcolonial Malaya and Singapore. His research spans music studies, cultural studies, and postcolonial theory, and he has published widely on Malaysian popular music, national culture, and the politics of musical heritage.
Marzelan Salleh
CREATIVE ARTS & FILM
Faculty of Creative Arts, Universiti Malaya
Marzelan Salleh is based at the Faculty of Creative Arts, Universiti Malaya, where his research and practice engage with Malaysian film, visual arts, and performance traditions. His work contributes to the Society's engagement with creative and practice-based dimensions of the P. Ramlee legacy, including the bangsawan theatrical traditions that shaped his performative style.
Hassan Abd Muthalib
FILM HISTORIAN & CRITIC
Independent Scholar
Hassan Abd Muthalib is one of Malaysia's foremost film historians and critics, and the author of Malaysian Cinema in a Bottle: A Century (and a Bit More) of Wayang (Merpati Jingga, 2013). An independent scholar with decades of writing on Malaysian cinema, he brings unparalleled archival knowledge and critical insight to the Society. His documentation of P. Ramlee's later career — and the "fall from grace" narrative — is essential to any scholarly account of the oeuvre.
Paul Augustin
HERITAGE & PERFORMANCE
Penang House of Music
Paul Augustin is associated with the Penang House of Music, a heritage and performance institution in P. Ramlee's birthplace. His work connects the Society to the living performance and heritage traditions of Penang — the city where Ramlee was born in 1929 — and to the material culture and exhibition infrastructure that keeps his legacy accessible to general audiences and future generations.
Persatuan P. Ramlee — The P. Ramlee Society — was constituted in March 2026 as a transnational learned society dedicated to the study, preservation, and dissemination of the life, films, music, and cultural legacy of Tan Sri P. Ramlee (1929–1973).
The Society coordinates rather than consolidates — a hub for a distributed network of heritage institutions, archival bodies, universities, and publication venues across Malaysia, Singapore, and beyond.
OBJECTIVES (ARTICLE 3)
FIGURE 10
The institutional infrastructure of P. Ramlee Studies
Sections 6.1–6.5: a coordinated, distributed network anchored by The P. Ramlee Society
6.1 HERITAGE & PERFORMANCE
6.2 ARCHIVAL INSTITUTIONS
6.3 SCHOLARLY CONSORTIUM
6.4 PUBLICATION PATHWAYS
The Society coordinates rather than consolidates — a hub for a distributed network.
Fig. 10 — The institutional infrastructure of P. Ramlee Studies.
click to zoom ↗
Malaysia & Australia campuses. Cultural studies, film, and business research.
USM, UPM. Malay studies, creative arts, and Asia-Europe Institute.
Singapore and Malaysian partners supporting transnational scholarly dialogue.
Film print custody and official national heritage designations.
Singapore-based archive with restoration capacity for MFP-era materials.
Material culture, exhibitions, and performance heritage at the birthplace.
Membership is open to scholars, researchers, students, and film & music enthusiasts worldwide.
Become a Member →For research enquiries, partnership proposals, or press requests, please write to the Society.
[email protected]