A bar might seem an unlikely place to debate Qing dynasty politics or deconstruct the ghost stories that still haunt hyper-modern Singapore. Yet that is the precise appeal of Remedial Kids, a scrappy lecture series transforming the city-state’s most characterful watering holes into pop-up seminar rooms. Launched in July 2025 by advertising professional Jo Lam, the series has found a permanent home at gritty, unstuffy venues like Druggists and MyX in Holland Village, offering a fresh kind of happy hour for the culturally curious.
Why It Started
Lam founded the series to fill a specific void in Singapore’s culture, which she describes as heavily “centred on professional development and productivity, leaving little room for playful, almost pointless learning and discovery.” The idea took root in New York, where she lived for a time and regularly attended Lectures on Tap, a series pairing academics with a drinking crowd. She returned to Singapore wondering why such a space didn’t exist here. The spark came in July, when a visiting university friend and English professor, Yuan Yin, agreed to pilot the concept with a talk on the quiet melodrama of Korean slice-of-life dramas. It was an immediate hit, and Remedial Kids has been running monthly ever since.
Scouting the Ivory Tower
To keep the ideas flowing, Lam has become an unlikely talent scout, regularly trawling faculty pages at the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, and LASALLE College of the Arts for researchers with compelling, often eccentric interests. “Before going into it, I thought academic research in Singapore would be very serious, or all about STEM,” she says. “I realised there are so many niche topics academics here are looking at, a lot of pop culture.”
The resulting lineup has been wonderfully eclectic: the history of Singaporean punk in the 1990s, social forgiveness in the age of cancel culture, bridal fashion and Muslim identity in China, the evolution of Thai Boys’ Love dramas, and the surprising history of dogs on the island. A talk on the Empress Dowager Cixi drew a hidden crowd of Chinese history buffs, who flocked around the speaker with specific questions, while newcomers beside them scrambled to keep up on Wikipedia.
Learning for Learning’s Sake
Now boasting nearly 4,000 Instagram followers, the series reliably sells out. The crowd is a mixed bag: early-bird regulars, furious note-takers, friends who are mostly there for the drinks, and the occasional overachiever asking for pre-reading materials.
For the academics, the experience is a welcome relief from the conference circuit. “Most of them are very excited that people who are not their students want to pay money to listen to them,” Lam notes. It offers a rare chance to test ideas on a general audience and ensure their research reaches beyond the academic bubble.
Protecting the Vibe
As demand grows, Lam is cautiously eyeing bigger venues but is determined not to lose the format’s charm. “I want to preserve that seminar quality I quite like from university,” she says. “I never want it to be too big, like a lecture hall, where people feel self-conscious about speaking out.” She’s also committed to keeping the series rooted in primary research rather than opinion. “There are a lot of people doing deep research, and it’s important to give them a platform to share that.”
While the lineup leans heavily on the humanities, Lam is expanding into STEM. An upcoming talk explores why people fear certain insects, cockroaches among them. Other planned sessions investigate the ancient origins of food on our plates, the drinking culture of Chinese officials, and the riot grrrl movement in Singapore. She has even launched adjacent formats, like a recent silent reading session followed by drinks.
A Broader Movement
For Lam, Remedial Kids is one piece of a larger cultural puzzle. She sees a rise in grassroots communities across Singapore—book clubs, life drawing sessions, writing groups—that exist purely for enjoyment. “I’m seeing a lot of pockets of grassroots communities around exploring intellectual, cultural interests just for enjoyment, for personal satisfaction,” she says. In a city built on self-optimisation, that feels like a quiet revolution.
Stay up to date with upcoming seminars on Instagram (@remedialkids).