Conferences

The Association for Asian Studies (AAS)

The AAS Program Committee has prepared the following list of 223 panels and roundtables for the 2008 Annual Meeting in Atlanta. Titles may change slightly, but the hourly schedule will remain constant. Organizers are cited with the panels or roundtables they have assembled.

All program participants must preregister, and will receive a preregistration packet in the mail. If you wish to be listed in the Annual Meeting Program, you must register by DECEMBER 6, 2007.

The printed annual meeting Program--which is scheduled to reach members in early March--will cite the chairpersons and discussants, along with a listing of participants and their paper titles. First Class postage is $5.00 for U.S. and Canada; $11.00 outside of the U.S. and Canada. First Class postage is strongly recommended to ensure timely delivery, especially for late and foreign registrants, and is available up to January 25, 2008. All other programs will be sent by bulk mail. Please make sure we have your current address by January 25, 2008 as duplicate Programs cannot be sent. We also plan to have the Program available online in February.

List of panels

Association for Asian Studies, Inc.
1021 East Huron Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48104 USA
Tel: (734) 665-2490
Fax: (734) 665-3801
Conference website: www.aasianst.org/annual-meeting/index

College of DuPage, the ASDP Association of Regional Centers (ARC), and the Asian Studies Development Program (The Asian Studies Development Program (ASDP) is a joint program of the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa and the East-West Center. )

Call for Papers, Panels and Presentations:
On behalf of the ASDP 2008 Program Selection Committee, the Program Co-Chairs welcome proposals for papers, panels, presentations on specific content and/or teaching topics related to scholarly research and teaching of Asian Studies to undergraduates.

Panel proposals, individual papers, workshops, posters, and roundtable proposals are welcome in all areas and fields within Asian Studies and Asian American Studies. Interdisciplinary panels/papers are also encouraged and invited.

To accommodate as many participants on the program as possible, only one proposal per individual will be accepted, although persons may submit more than one proposal. There will be limited space available on the program for poster sessions.

The deadline for proposal submissions is November 15, 2007. (Submissions will be acknowledged with an electronic receipt.) Presenters will be notified by December 15, 2007. Presenters will be responsible for their conference expenses (travel, hotel, registration fee, meals).

Submission Deadline: November 15, 2007

Translating the Political, Re-envisioning the Social: What's the Next Turn for Taiwan?

Since the late 1980s, the socioeconomic and cultural landscapes in Taiwan have undergone cataclysmic realignment and transformation. The defining historical moments, inaugurated by the lifting of Martial Law in 1987 and culminating with the political transition from KMT to DDP in 2000, have reflected continuous, though uneven, processes whereby Taiwan struggles to assert its subjectivity. Apart from the discursive investment in the domain of politics, we also witness the flourishing of various social movements that attempt to reform and reinvent everyday life. These diverse and diversifying social movements provide an indispensable context in understanding political events that have occurred in the past two decades.

With a conference entitled "Translating the Political, Re-envisioning the Social," we do not aim to impose the distinction between "the political" and "the social." Instead, we are interested in the ways these two categories mutually unfold onto each other. To address the changes that have been taking place in the course of Taiwan's democratic history, we need to consider the encounter and enmeshment between state power and social force, especially given that various civil rights have helped propel and give birth to Taiwan's democracy. Today, heretofore silenced and marginalized social lives have relatively more access to articulating their needs, exemplified by voices calling for human rights for gay men, prostitutes, indigenous people, foreign spouses, and imported laborers. However, as demonstrated by the recent debate on the relocation of Le-Sheng Rehab, we sense the urgency for inquiry and examination of how the political has absorbed, appropriated, alienated, exploited and "politicized" the social movements in the New Millennium. At stake are our sense of community and the necessity of re-constituting the social back to the political. Therefore, we want to invite writers from all relevant disciplines to participate in the potentially creative and vitally important acts of "translating" and "re-visioning" different possibilities of political alliance and community formulation.

Minor Themes

A. Taiwan 's Security and Democratic Governance

The practice of Taiwan's foreign policy and national security has an inseparable relationship with the island's ongoing democratizing processes since 1987. From the recent studies on international relations, we see that Taiwan tends to be portrayed as either a "foster democracy of the US" or a "dangerous democracy." Despite the reductive and dichotomous discourses, we might want to examine the tension and the contradiction between Taiwan's need in deepening its democratic governance and the regional interests of its partners like the United States. What are the possibilities of resolving the tension between Taiwan? democratic practice and the regional security? What are the potential repercussions for issues of security? Authors who are interested in this sub-theme are encouraged to ponder on the dilemma that Taiwan faces in negotiating international interests with its concerns for democracy and security.

B. Cultural Industry and Economy of Everyday Life

Besides the usual translational consumption of Japanese and American pop culture, a new market niche has been created over the past several years through revitalization of domestic histories and local identities. On the one hand, Taiwan's cultural industry seeks to promote "choices" of lifestyles, as instantiated by the LOHAS movement or internet bloggers' civil involvement. On the other hand, the emerging subculture of Taike also highlights how economic class figures in the cultural production of identities. Important questions arise from these bourgeoning phenomena: how does Taiwan's cultural industry define a pattern of "educated consumption"? What does this interface of business and culture say about contemporary Taiwanese society? What is the logic of the new economy-based cultural practice? In this sub-theme, we invite submissions that explore different facets in the intersection of Taiwan's cultural and economic lives.

C. Transnational Trend vs. Global/local Activism

After joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2002, Taiwan has been "officially incorporated" into the force of globalization. A whole range of transnational practices have further synchronized social rhythm and standardized our everyday life. At the same time, global economic restructuring has irrevocably diminished traditional industries and threatened the well-being of domestic economy. Today, local activisms have emerged in voicing their discontent with globalization. In this sub-theme we invite scholars to explore different ramifications of globalization in Taiwan: How do we define the relationship between the global and the local in the context of Taiwan? How does this development of local activisms relate to Taiwan's historical and social specificities? How might the local resistance enable the possibility for transnational solidarity and initiate a dialogue on global social justice?

Deadline of Abstract Submission: December 15, 2007

The format of presentation includes panel presentation and poster presentation. Please indicate what kind of presentation you prefer when submitting your abstract through our online submission system at http://www.na-tsa.org/submission.htm. The system will be open from November 1 through December 15, 2007 ( Eastern USA). Conference contributors may be eligible for travel grants; details will be announced on the website in February 2008.

http://www.na-tsa.org/index.htm

secretary08@na-tsa.org

We solicit papers for the 2008 Kobayashi Takiji Symposium at Oxford University, September 16-18, 2008. Conferences on Japanese and East Asian proletarian literature in the past five years have begun the process of reinvestigating the creative and theoretical work of proletarian literature, culture and the arts, and we seek to build on this base with an international symposium at Oxford. The proletarian arts movement was an international movement with diverse participants who -despite their many differences-shared a belief that the world ought to be better than it was, that industrialization was wreaking havoc, and that proletarian arts could play a role in bringing about necessary change.

In the spirit of one of the movement's most gifted authors, Kobayashi Takiji (1903-1933), we are soliciting papers that address Takiji's works and/or topics that were of utmost importance in his writings. Especially welcome are papers on the following topics:

Critiques of (late) capitalism and/or globalization
Gender studies and capitalism
Reinvestigations of modernism and the proletarian movement
Capitalism and transforming media
Internationalism and anti-imperialism
Industrial welfare
State repression and torture
Human rights

In particular, we are interested in reinvestigations of international proletarian arts (not limited to proletarian literature produced in Japan) that shed light on our contemporary moment.

Please send a one-page abstract to: Linda Flores
e-mail: linda.flores@oriental-institute.oxford.ac.uk
By the following date: 31 January, 2008

http://www.takiji-library.jp/announce/2007/20071129.html

Whittall Pavilion, Ground Floor, Jefferson Building, Library of Congress(Jan. 24)
Maryland Room, Marie Mount Hall, UM(Jan.25)

Asian Division, Library of Congress (LOC)
Confucius Institute at the University of Maryland (CIM)

*Day 1: No Registration Fee. Lunch is provided. RSVP by Jan. 18.
*Day 2: Lunch: General public-$10; Students-$5. RSVP by Jan. 18.

*To register for the conference, please contact: E-mail: rmcginni@umd.edu ;   Tel: (301) 405-0213