The National Higher Education Strategic Plan of Malaysia focuses on graduates who are innovative and knowledgeable to meet the standards and challenges of 21st century. This paper, then, explores how an innovation practice has taken place in a course entitled "Gender Identities: Malaysian Perspectives" where students scrutinize gender across Facebook "texts," as opposed to using literary texts. By using Facebook as baseline data to analyze online gender construction, students have learned the ways in which cyberspace deconstructs certain parameters of identity construction. Following this premise, this article discloses how students analyze gender identities. They analyze Facebook accounts of a male educator in United States, a female Malaysian college instructor residing in United States, and a law/politics Malaysian undergraduate. Firstly, the students revealed that identity in Facebook spaces is shown through genuine names and profile pictures; rightfully so for job, networking, and relationship purposes. Secondly, by selecting specific audiences, negotiating identities of a friend, co-worker, lover and most importantly future employee in Facebook is a difficult task. Conflicts usually occur while "masking" certain information on Facebook as they go about connecting with friends, students, parents, and prospective partners. Thirdly, societal constraints limit opposite gender's approval of friend requests. Lastly, identity construction reveals that having voices and emotions on Facebook have both positive and negative implications. Pedagogical recommendations are also presented as a result of this inclusion of Facebook in literature classrooms.

This article is a comparative study of Sang Kancil, the Malaysian folkloric trickster character with Brer Rabbit (African-American) and Reynard the Fox (French and Dutch) in order to explain the relationship between the Jungian archetypes and Neo-archetypes that may be found in trickster tales found in the printed medium. An analysis of the Sang Kancil stories was conducted by comparing them to these Trickster stories from other cultures to identify the similarities in the trope of the trickster to determine the ways in which Trickster tales have been used to convey messages of resistance against injustice and impart moral lessons, as well as pointing out the importance of intelligence and wit to solve problems. To limit the corpus due to the countless different Trickster tales around the world, we have only used these two animal tricksters who are the most congruent with Sang Kancil. Following from this, the article examines the commonalities in the neo-archetypal elements present in all of the studied tale types which correspond to the ways in which these tricksters are Andersonian cultural artefacts in the cultural imaginary, disseminated through both oral and print mediums. This is due to the well-documented and widespread sources of print literature on both Brer Rabbit and Reynard the Fox. By studying the commonalities of the tales through the archetypal elements present, Sang Kancil may be determined to be an Andersonian cultural artefact in the cultural imagination.

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Japanese indigenous terms such as uchi/soto (inside/outside) and omote/ura (front/back) are common dichotomies employed to understand the differences between expected behaviours associated with group dynamics such as promoting collective harmony rather than individual uniqueness. Haruki Murakami advocates that the Japanese need to move away from these dichotomies in order to embrace the true self and assert an individual voice. This dictum comes after he concluded his observations on the tragic 1995 sarin gas attacks in Japan and noted that individuals should be more assertive in forming their own voice rather than conforming to the collective voice. In his latest novel, Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (2014), he presents a new narrative on individual negotiations with group consciousness. This article seeks to reveal the sense of individuality presented through the frame of the Japanese dichotomies and the psychological response of the main character, Tsukuru. The character will be analysed in relation to the group that he belongs to: in the context of the Japanese uchi (inside) or soto (outside) and within each context, representations of his omote (front) or ura (back) is examined. The findings expose that both uchi and soto are significant in developing individuality. More importantly, how the individual responds while in these contexts determines his ability to construct his identity. This reading suggests that Murakami fulfills his agenda by empowering the individual to explore various ways in being independent. The novel also indicates that the Japanese society is gradually manifesting a growing sense of individuality by departing from its codes of group consciousness.

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