MLA 2024 EAST ASIAN FORUM CFPs
Colleagues: Please consider submitting paper proposals for the following MLA 2024 sessions sponsored by the LLC East Asian Forum. MLA 2024 will convene January 4-7, 2024 in Philadelphia.–Christopher Lupke <lupke@ualberta.ca>
East Asian Literatures in the World
This roundtable will explore the various cultural institutions that have been set up to facilitate the integration of East Asian literature into the global book market and subsequently construct the World literature canon. We hope to understand the mechanism of institutionalization and internationalization of modern East Asian literature by examining the peculiar consequences of achieving recognition at home and abroad, a recognition often mediated by literary awards and the necessity of translation, literary agents, and publishers, booksellers as well as librarians, literary critics, readers. At the center of our inquiry lies the question of which structures undergird the circulation of literature and what qualities merit awarding of prizes in literature. How does a culture of award-giving influence the production and reception of literature domestically and internationally? What does it mean to win a literary award, especially prestigious international prizes like the Nobel, Man Booker, and Newman as well as eminent national prizes such as Akutagawa, Yi Sang, Mao Dun, etc? What is the significance of literary awards to writers, readers, translators, publishers, and other stakeholders? What is the relationship between domestic/national prizes and international perceptions? We will attempt to understand how various cultural institutions authorize their versions of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean literatures and how this claim recirculates in complicating the categories of East Asian and World literature in the age of globalization. Please send a 250-word abstract and a short CV to Jina Kim, University of Oregon, jinak@uoregon.edu by March 1, 2023.
Epistemic Genres in East Asia
The term, “epistemic genres,” first proposed by the historians of medicine, Gianna Pomata and Marta Hanson, usually refers to writing whose primary function is cognitive rather than aesthetic or expressive. However, throughout the East Asian literary tradition, the line between literature and knowledge was often blurred. This session will investigate the intricate relationship between literature and literary forms of knowledge in a wide range of formats, including dictionaries, encyclopedias, legal and medical case studies, maps, illustrations, treatises, technical manuals, textbooks, and treatises. What was the relationship between the production of meaning and the production of knowledge? What literary rhetoric and conventions were used to convey knowledge? What effect did the delineation of specific knowledge have on the textual structure and meaning? How did the power relations draw the legitimate boundary of literature and knowledge? The period before the twentieth century is particularly welcome. Please send a 250-word abstract and a short CV to Suyoung Son, Cornell University, ss994@cornell.edu by March 1, 2023.
AI Text Generation Software and East Asian Literature
As AI software is increasingly able to generate sophisticated text that can pass the Turing test, the implications for the literary field are manifold, including issues relating to literary production, analysis, and pedagogy. From authors using AI software collaboratively for innovative literary production to concerns that similar software has the potential to open new frontiers in plagiarism, these AI resources herald a paradigm shift in how we understand textual production. This panel will examine some of these issues as they pertain specifically to literature from East Asia or written in the languages of East Asia. Papers examining technical, aesthetic, philosophical, sociological, pedagogical, institutional, and other issues are welcome. Please send a 250-word abstract and a short CV to carlos rojas, c.rojas@duke.edu by March 1, 2023.
Representing Biological Reproductivity in East Asian Literature
In an era in which women’s reproductive rights are under siege in the United States and by fundamentalist religious groups worldwide, it behooves us to look at literary representations of these rights and their imperiled status from all over the world, including East Asia. How have women’s reproductive rights, access to abortion, birth control, basic prenatal care, family planning, forms of protection, safe and unsafe sexual practices, and related issues such as post-partum depression, adoption, etc. been represented in the literatures of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean? This Session aims to present an array of papers that examine the range of themes pertaining to women’s reproductive rights as a way of intervening into the larger, global discussion over such issues. Successful proposals could focus on any era, premodern or modern, and any of the CJK languages or comparatively on cross-language/cross-cultural representations. The ideal session will be one that explores this thematic range in various ways that illustrate the diversity of literary interventions into a set of questions that have been raging for centuries and continue to provoke expressions of various kinds down to the present. Please submit an abstract proposal of approximately 300 words and a biographical sketch of approximately 300 words that illustrates why you would be a good candidate for this session to: Christopher Lupke . Deadline: March 1, 2023.