Presentation Type: Panel Presentation
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 Archival research involves the study of historical documents which were created …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 …
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 …
Asian Studies in the Era of Open Science
With the rapid increase of accessibility to both historical and contemporary resources online, the research methodologies and even the research questions in social science and humanities have been changed drastically over the last decade. Asian Studies is not an exception. Pieces in rare collections in libraries with very limited access such as Buddhism manuscripts are …
Knowledge – The State and Resistance in Thailand
Recent works on Thai politics have investigated pressing issues such as statecraft and resistance. Privileging the lens of ideology, they have analyzed how different political orientations and discourses shape state policy, claims of legitimacy, as well as resistance from below. This panel looks at these issues through the lens of knowledge. It explores how different …
Hegemony in Flux and its Ramifications: The Wane of Pax-Americana and Its Impact in the Indo-Pacific
The Indo-Pacific region faces three primary security threats. First, the economic, political and military expansionism by China. Second, the persistent North Korean nuclear threat. And third, the relative decline of American global influence and the departure from its traditional approach to alliance management to one that is more cost sensitive. Combined with rising pressure over …
Visualizing Contested Memories of Wars and Desire for Peace in East Asia
Our panel centres on the affective images of the victims of wars in Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. We will explore the questions of how these visual images represent and reflect war, what emotions they evoke, and how they create a connection between the viewer and the victims. On the one hand, we believe it is …
Cantonese Language and the Imagination of the Hongkonger Community
The Cantonese language has been instrumental and monumental in the shaping and articulating of the imagined community of Hongkongers. Whether as a genre of writing, an identity marker, a language of translation, or a protest expression, this lingua franca of the people of Hong Kong weaves an invisible thread that binds this multiethnic and multicultural …
Modernized Healing and Unhealed Modernity: Reflections on North Korean Cinematography, Chinese Women Physicians, and Chinese Buddhist-Confucian Cultivation Practices in the 20th Century
The transformation of ideas and practices of healing is viewed as a reflection of modernization in East Asia, where “healers” appeared as a modernized, westernized, and progressive image in the early 20th century. Professionalization of healers and healing techniques then grew to be a symbol of modernity in conventional narratives. However, such transformation not only …
East Asian Popular Media: Maneuvering Between Discourses
In this panel, five presentations report on examples of East Asian popular media that represent traditional culture and demonstrate strategic maneuvering among ideological and cultural discourses. Speaker 1 (Hongmei Sun) examines three sets of animated series that share the task of introducing traditional Chinese medicine to young audiences, focusing on their use of myths to …