Conference: AAS-in-Asia2020
Thailand Update: One year After 2019 Election
In March 2019, Thailand held the first election since 2011. Many analysts hoped that this election would end the military’s junta five-year rule and return Thailand to more democratic government. Six months after the election, however, the evidence shows that Thailand is still far from democratization. The junta continues to maintain its power in the …
Representing a New Life: Visual Images and Cultural Reform in East Asia
This panel will examine the tension between the authority and the visual images of everyday life in the formation of a new culture in Japan and China. Visual images, including but not limited to paintings, magazines, comics, and folk art, provided a repertoire for the authority to absorb, sift, and transform to build a culture …
The Everyday Experiences and Practices of Asian Migrants
According to the latest ILO global estimates (2017), there are 258 million international migrants worldwide, and more than 41 percent of them were born in Asia. It is widely documented that people cross borders for a variety of reasons, and that they experience migration in a number of different ways. This panel seeks to examine …
Localizing Contentious Politics in Contemporary Southeast Asia and China
While the ongoing protest in Hong Kong has attracted the world’s attention, it is by no means the only place experiencing frequent forms of contention. In many ways, movements across the region and the globe have emerged which are driven by disaffection with the ability of governments to deal with growing social problems amid heightened …
Examining the Contemporary Dynamics of Japan–China Interactions in the Cultural and Creative Industries
This roundtable explores how we can understand the contemporary transnational interactions of the Japanese and Chinese cultural and creative industries (CCI). The importance of the Asian region in the realm of CCI is rising dramatically, which is a game changer for a field that has long been dominated by Euro-American powerhouses. Japan and China are …
Archives and History Making in 21st-century Asia and Beyond: Politics, Problems, and Possibilities
Asia has not only become a place of strong economic growth, but also a vibrant space for academic research, as well as a dynamic field itself to be studied. This panel discusses the multiple roles and possibilities of archives in today’s academia and society. Archival research involves the study of historical documents which were created …
New Currents in Maritime History: Multi-language Sources and Perspectives for East Asian Waters in Imperial and Global Contexts
In the past half-century, maritime historians such as Iwao Seiichi, Nagazumi Yoko, Leonard Blussé, C.R. Boxer positioned the East Asia maritime world as a global crossroads. Although these scholars were pioneers in using multi-language sources, recent developments in the fields of global and comparative imperial history have opened new pathways for scholars. This “new” maritime …
Social movement, Crisis, and Circulations of Art in the Sinosphere
The “Freedom Summer” of 2019 was not Hong Kong’s alone. A movement of global proportions, it continues to spark waves of intellectual discourse that re-evaluate the relations between politics and aesthetics. From graffiti to post-it walls to Joker-esque face-paint, protest practices arising from this movement articulate collective demands for new polity, while forging citizens’ expressions …
Concepts in Motion – Rethinking the Dynamics of Change and Changing Dynamics in Early Chinese Thought, Politics, and Intellectual Culture
In early Chinese sources, the multifaceted concept of “change” is at the core of a pervasive intellectual discourse (Cheng 2003). Emphasis is placed on its relationship with time and, consequently, on situational adaptivity, timeliness and appropriateness of moral or political action (Hon 2003; Huang & Henderson 2006). The proposed panel explores the dynamics of discontinuity …
Residues of Hiroshima 75 Years on: Nuclear Tests, Trauma, Identity, and the Ending of the War
As we approach the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nuclear issues are still frighteningly relevant. Developments such as the deadlocked US-North Korean nuclear talks, the US withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and the US deployment of “low-yield” nuclear missiles, preclude any sense of historical closure this anniversary. Featuring …