East Asian Media Studies Conference–cfp

Call for Papers: East Asian Media Studies Conference at Harvard
East Asian Media Studies Conference
May 6-7, 2017, Harvard University

Keynote Speakers:
Rey Chow (Duke University)
Thomas Lamarre (McGill University)

We invite proposals to the East Asian Media Studies conference at Harvard University. The conference aims to provide a venue for presenting research on historical and contemporary media in East Asia and for discussing the current state and possible futures of this rapidly expanding field of inquiry.

New media technologies are changing the way we think, live and act around the globe. Their impact in East Asia has been particularly striking, transforming cultures and communities, politics and economics, built urban environments and everyday life. Such massive shifts raise important questions about the nature of media and about its past and future in East Asia, questions for which much remains to explore from the vantage points of both media studies and area studies.

They also raise a more fundamental set of questions so far posed primarily in the North American or Western European context. For instance, how do different media connect to one another and form an extensive ecosystem?  What tensions emerge between newer media practices and older media infrastructure and content?  How do different media situations elicit different theories, or even different forms of theorization?

The East Asian Media Studies conference aims to foster interdisciplinary, intermedial, transnational, and transhistorical conversations.  We hope to address three broad questions:

  • What kind of work is being done in East Asian media studies, using what types of theories, methods, sources, and frameworks?
  • How do we understand the many challenges and potentials of such a field of inquiry?
  • Can the coupling of “media studies” and “East Asia” generate new strategies to work against existing disciplinary frameworks, including those drawn along national boundaries, historical periodization, and medium-specific approach to aesthetic/cultural objects?

We invite proposals on all topics related to media culture in East Asia and are open to a broad span of topics and approaches. Proposals should be up to 200 words in length and include a list of three keywords and a few sentences on how the paper contributes to an emergent field of East Asian media studies.

Lodging for three nights will be covered for all conference participants. 

Please send proposals in pdf form by January 10, 2017 to: eamediastudiesconference@gmail.com.

The conference is organized by Tomiko Yoda, Jie Li, and Alexander Zahlten. It is made possible with the kind support of the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University, the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, the Fairbank Center of Chinese Studies, and the Korea Institute.

Jie Li <jieli@fas.harvard.edu>

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