Inter-Asia Beyond Asia
Writing Workshop
Room 380 (Bill & Ruth Hamilton Meeting Room)
Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, SFU Vancouver
515 West Hastings Street

SPECIAL ISSUE PROPOSAL

In a recent lecture given in Vancouver, Canada (2016), Chua Beng Huat pointed out that the original intellectual vision and political commitments of Inter-Asia Cultural Studies were not necessarily tied to the geographical reach of Asia, but rather to the ethics and practice of inter-referencing, which are applicable to decolonial projects elsewhere in the world. In this special issue, we propose to explore the impact of inter-Asia scholarship on knowledge production outside of Asia and examine its engagement with adjacent intellectual frameworks such as transpacific, diaspora, and postcolonial studies. We will investigate how various forms of cross-border and cross-platform cultural flows simultaneously construct, disrupt, expand, and discipline how “Asia” signifies globally and consider whether the concomitant production of transnational, cosmopolitan communities still rely on colonial, racialized, and/or gendered notions of identity. Through case studies of cultural research, as well as a visual essay, a conversation forum, and a collaborative roundtable, we hope the special issue will open up new dialogues about the impact of the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies project outside of Asia.

SCHEDULE

Day 1 (Friday, Sep 21, 2018)

9 - 10am: Introduction + Breakfast
Guest editors’ vision (Christine Kim and Helen Leung)

10am – noon: Session 1 + Morning Tea

New Regionality

 “Locating Inter-Asia/Pacific Film Festivals as Sites of Geographical Imagination” (Jia Tan)

“Becoming Water: An Asian American(ist) in Australia” (Jane Park)

Noon - 1pm: Lunch

1- 3pm: Session 2 Diasporas

 “Inter-Asia in Australia: Regional Solidarity and the Asian Australian Studies Research Network” (Olivia Khoo)

 “Inter-Asian Canadian Studies” (Christine Kim and Chris Lee)

3 - 5pm: Session 3 + Afternoon Tea Dialogues

Roundtable piece (moderated by Helen Leung, featuring Phanuel Antwi, Lara Campbell, Robert Diaz, Renisa Mawani, and Y-Dang Troeung)

Interview piece (Chris Lee)

 

Day 2 (Saturday, Sep 22, 2018)

9 - 11am: Session 4 + Breakfast

Novels & Borders

“Inter-Referencing and the Postcolonial Novel” (Fiona Lee)

“Living and Leaving the Borderlands: An Inter-Asian Reading of Krys Lee’s How I Became a North Korean” (Andy Wang, in absentia)

11am - 1pm: Session 5 + Morning Tea Archives

 “Between Asia and Empire: Infrastructures of Encounter in the Archive of War” (Nadine Attewell and Wesley Attewell)

 “Collaboration, hybridization, and localization: Guyanese Mass Games Created through Collaboration between North Korean and Guyanese Artists, 1980–1992” (Vicki Kwon)

1 - 2pm: Lunch

2 - 4pm: Session 6 + Afternoon Tea

Visual Essay, Short Story + Creative Practices

“Wrong Places” (David Khang)

“Crossing the Caucuses” (Chris Patterson)

4 - 5pm: Wrap-Up

Concluding Discussion led by Christine Kim and Helen Leung