McGill East Asian Studies Graduate Symposium 2015

17-18 April, 2015

Deadline for Submissions: February 13, 2015

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Peter Perdue (Department of History, Yale University)

For further information, please consult the conference website at: http://blogs.mcgill.ca/easpgsa/symposium-2015/

Or visit the conference Facebook page at: 

https://www.facebook.com/events/1539794866296637/?ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming

Diversifying East Asia: Ideas, Objects, and Identities

East Asia is a geographically expansive and populous region characterized by fascinating social and cultural variation. China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan are the birthplaces of numerous ethnic groups featuring distinct languages, cultures, and identities. All of them bespeak their unique and remarkable cultural traditions and representations, but these distinct cultures are not isolated from each other. In East Asia we have seen multiple dramatic interactions taking place one after the other and overlapping in complicated ways. These interactions include trade, military invasions, waves of migration, transnational media circuits, global interaction through new media forms, and various other diasporic groups that foster the exchange and interaction of objects and ideas. These same forms and circuits have also been dominated and constrained in different ways over time and space. East Asia, in other words, is a region filled with diverse textures but entangled in a web of intricate dynamics. By studying the diversified nature and connectivity of all kinds – cultural, economic, political, historical, religious, ethnic, gendered, social, and intellectual – involving peoples, places, and process in East Asia, we will be able to develop a wider framework to study this region from an interdisciplinary and transcultural perspective.

The aim of the symposium is to bring together various junior scholars with diverse approaches to the theme Diversifying East Asia: Ideas, Objects, and Identities. We welcome applications from graduate students and postdoctoral researchers engaged in any field of East Asian Studies, including history, archaeology, literature, political science, art history, religious studies, media studies, gender studies, sociology, and anthropology. Please submit an abstract of no more than 350 words to mcgilleas[at]gmail[dot]com by February 13, 2015. Papers in English or French are welcome. Any questions can be addressed to the organizing committee at mcgilleas[at]gmail[dot]com.