2017 TEEP Winter Camp - Conflict and Justice: Precarious Bodies in Inter Asia Societies (Deadline extended to 2016/10/21)
**We received volumes of emails asking if we could extend the application deadline. With careful consideration, we decide to extend the deadline to October 21, 2016. We will also provide financial aid to outstanding research proposals. All applications will be reviewed all together by our review committee.
Conflict and Justice: Precarious Bodies in Inter-Asia Societies
Winter Camp Workshop
Hsinchu, Taiwan
January 16-20, 2017
New Application Deadline: October 21, 2016
The International Institute for Cultural Studies (IICS) at National Chiao Tung University (NCTU), Taiwan, in collaboration with the Taiwan Experience Education Program (TEEP) of the Ministry of Education (Taiwan), and the IICS Transnational Network for Critical Inter-Asia Cultural Studies from the University System of Taiwan (UST), invites paper proposals for presentation and participation in the Winter Camp Workshop “Conflict and Justice: Precarious Bodies in Inter-Asia Societies.”
The Winter Camp Workshop will take place on the campus of NCTU in Hsinchu, Taiwan, from January 16 through January 20, 2017.
Hosted by Joyce C.H. Liu (NCTU), with the collaboration of UST colleagues, particularly Andy Chih-Ming Wang (Academia Sinica/NCTU), Kean-Fung Guan (NTHU), Amie Parry (NCU), and Ya-Chung Chuang (NCTU), the workshop will address the theme of “Conflict and Justice: Precarious Bodies in Inter-Asia Societies,” with the following four seminar topics:
(1) Nationalism, Migration, and Precarious Belongings in Inter-Asia Societies
(2) Social Movements, Contestation, and Political Change in Asia
(3) Neoliberalism, Globalization and Corruption in Inter-Asia Societies
(4) The Question of Nature and Environmental Justice in the age of neoliberalism
We invite graduate students and junior scholars to share with us their works on the above listed topics. Applications from all disciplines are welcome.
This Winter Camp Workshop will feature small group seminars led by leading scholars, daily keynote lectures and roundtables, as well as field trips to local cities. Participants are expected to give a 20-minute presentation on their work, to comment on the papers of their fellow seminar participants, and to contribute to the general dialogue of the winter camp workshop.
Prospective applicants should apply online at https://goo.gl/forms/DQocgadWVWujhpUI3, indicating 1) their preferences of the seminar topic(s), with 2) proposals that include a title, a 500-word abstract, and a short C.V. (2 pages), and 3) names and emails of two referees.
Proposals should address problematics of “Conflict and Justice: Precarious Bodies in Inter-Asia Societies” in their fields of work, referring to one or two seminar topics, and should establish any links between the proposal and broader global, historical, and especially interdisciplinary approaches and questions.
To ensure full consideration, applications must be received by October 21, 2016.
Notifications of acceptance will be announced by mid-October, 2016 at the IICS website. Full papers will be expected by January 9, 2017, so as to circulate your papers among your seminar group members.
Registration fee is USD $150. Accommodation and some meals are included.
Financial aid will be given to outstanding research proposals.
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Seminar Topics
- Nationalism, Migration, and Precarious Belongings in Inter-Asia Societies
As the world is once again troubled by refugee crises, terrorist attacks, and territorial disputes, it seems that despite the advocation for a cosmopolitan future, nationalism remains a powerful force that still shapes the world in significant ways by (re-)creating identities and affiliations and generating affect of inclusion and exclusion. The ever-increasing migration and globalization penetrated national borders and rearticulated national feelings with precarious belongings, enhanced and complicated by diasporic connections, colonial memories, and the difficulties of assimilation. Asia, in particular, is a region of states where inter-Asian migration, enabled and disrupted by the history of colonialism, capitalist globalization, and political conflicts, has rendered the nation both politically distinct and culturally malleable. The rise of “alien residents” in Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong has led to anti-foreign campaigns that are ethnically targeted, as articulated through both nativist dispossession and right-wing nationalist sentiment. The disputes over maritime territories in the South China Sea, furthermore, have resulted in not only protest movements in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia but also the 2014 anti-Chinese riot in Vietnam. They also paved the road for U.S. intervention in the region, turning the regional conflict into a contest between global superpowers. Similarly, the dispute over the Diaoyutai/Senkaku Islands since the 1970s has finally led the Chinese citizens to respond with street protests, boycott campaigns, and even outright violence in 2012. Meanwhile, the anti-China protests in Taiwan and Hong Kong of late also emerged as nationalist campaigns seeking to shape Taiwanese and Hong Kong identities as distinctly non-Chinese, aspiring for a future of independence. These incidents invariably show that nationalism is real, active, and dangerous, acting on the feeling of precariousness; it is generative of love as much as hate, and reflective of the precariousness of imagined communities that are once believed to be solid, pure, and unchanging. Therefore, we invite graduate students and junior scholars to come to share with us your research and thoughts on how to understand the affective power that nationalism, xenophobia and neo-racism still commands and its effects in the region and beyond.
- Social Movements, Contestation, and Political Change in Asia
Asia is no stranger to social movements and contentious politics. Contestation and mass mobilization in Asia since the nineteenth century relate to both support for and opposition to modernity in the region, a dynamic that helped shape the polities and societies of the region. The resulting social movements and political mobilization played key roles in fostering everything from revolution and military expansion to anti-colonialism, nationalism, authoritarianism, and political liberalization across Asia. The effects of these movements and the contention around them were felt from Japan through continental Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and across mainland as well as maritime Southeast Asia over the course of the twentieth century. Similarly drawing from indigenous ideas and developments as well as influences from elsewhere, a more recent wave of social movements and contentious politics has been taking place in Asia. This trend is evident in places that experienced mass protest over the past decade, such as South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Malaysia. The force of comparable and related social movements may be less immediately obvious in other areas of the region but no less important. Social movements and contentious politics in Asia during the twenty-first century raises conceptual and empirical issues that this session seeks to address. Some key questions include: What can contemporary social movements draw from each other as well as developments elsewhere in the world both at present and from the past? Why do social movements and contentious politics gain more traction in some parts of Asia and what is driving this phenomenon? How do economic changes such as globalization, social transformation such as migration and growing inequality affect the current wave of social movements in Asia? What roles do changes in governance, political participation, new technologies, and religion play in these developments? What may be the consequences that follow from this recent wave of social movements in Asia? We invite submissions exploring these and related topics.
3. Neoliberalism, Globalization and Corruption in Inter-Asia Societies
The invisibility of market governance (as exploitative, non-transparent, imperialist power deployment) is a general characteristic of neoliberalism; its invisibility is arguably exacerbated in post-authoritarian states, especially those formed in a regional Cold War liberalism. The state occupies a paradoxical position within which when seen as benign it is asked to provide more protectionist policing, while it the same time, as the language of neoliberalism gains political effectivity (a separate issue from policy implementation), the state increasingly joins vulnerable populations as a target for corruption charges (Hill et al). An important body of work on corruption and neoliberalism has emerged in South Asia. Partha Chatterjee, drawing on Laclau, has emphasized that one effect of the use of corruption as a political charge is to demarcate clear boundaries between the political and the people, creating a depoliticized and purified notion of the people. Other South Asian work on corruption covers a range of positions and grounds, from a critique of corruption as scapegoating neoliberal discourse aimed at the purportedly old-fashioned state (Patnaik) to corruption as a neoliberal tool aimed at vulnerable populations seen as culprits because of the invisibility of market governance and state support of that governance (Sengupta). Drawing on this work, Hsing-wen Chang and Wing-Kwong Wong have theorized “organic corruption” to allow an understanding of it as a concept and structural phenomenon. This recent work on corruption as a neoliberal discourse is emerging as part of or in relation to a larger reexamination of (post) developmental and (post) Cold War liberal and illiberal democratic states (Chua), regional cultures, and affects. Recent large scale social movements are equally part of this process; such movements mobilized around democratic rights and transparent procedure have made it possible to open up a regional forum for critical thought on the concept of democracy itself and its associated terms, such as sovereignty, autonomy, rights, transparency, and of course corruption. The study of corruption will be furthered by readings on liberalism and illiberalism (Chua, Yue), freedom (Reddy, Nguyen) and democracy (Mouffe). In addition to theoretical texts students can also explore the ways the concepts related to democracy and corruption are represented in cultural texts. We welcome graduate students and junior scholars to contributions their research and thoughts to the question of Neoliberalism, Globalization and Corruption in Inter-Asia Societies.
4. The Question of Nature and Environmental Justice in the Age of Neoliberalism
The recent global environmental crisis has driven scholars to examine the question of nature and environmental justice in very different ways. Ranging from global warming and loss of biodiversity to deforestation and pollution, the global environmental ills have raised questions about the position of human being in the universe of what is called “nature.” We will especially examine the region’s precariousness after a sequence of environmental catastrophes, including the nuclear incident in Fukushima, Japan, earthquake disasters in Japan, Taiwan, and China, and the tsunami fiascos in Japan and Southeast Asian countries. This seminar will focus on how we can engage with the representations of nature in this age of the Anthropocene, when the exploitive way of human intervention in nature is being questioned. Instead, a new way of thinking upon environmentalism arises, seeking to overcome the dichotomy of culture and nature. Nature is no longer a domain outside human world but extended and mutable environment that accommodates human and non-human beings, both striving to stay alive. This environmentalism of life thus provides alternative viewpoints to examine and challenge the mainstream dominant developmental discourse that highlights exclusionist accumulation. We invite graduate students and junior scholars to come to share with us your research and thoughts on how to understand a possible world of multi-species co-existence on the basis of the reinterpretation of the relationship between culture and nature.
Featured Speakers & Seminars Coordinators
Tel: 03-5712121#58273
E-mail: teep.iics@gmail.comAddress: 30010 新竹市大學路1001號國立交通大學人社二館二樓212室 R212 HA Building 2,National Chiao Tung University,1001University RoadHsinchu,Taiwan Website: http://iics.nctu.edu.tw/zh_tw/programs/teepFB: https://www.facebook.com/TEEPprogram/