Conceptualizing Asian Commons Online Workshop
Co-organized by
Commoning Asia Collective,
Department of English and Cultural Studies, Christ (Deemed to be University), and
Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Hong Kong Shue Yan University
Date: June 22, 2024
Time: (HKT) 13:00 – 19:30 (IST) 10:30 – 17:00
Venue: Google Meet
This online workshop is the culmination of a project that began with an International Conference on Multiple Decolonialities and the Making of Asian Commons organized in February 2022. The idea was developed further in another Symposium at Centre for Social Studies (CSS), Surat in August 2023. At the conclusion of the Symposium which was attended by scholars based in Asia, it was decided that it was time to form a scholars’ collective to keep the discussion ongoing and alive but also develop common research agenda and collaborations.
This workshop is dedicated towards a research output around the concept of Asian Commons. The papers to be presented in the workshop engage with Asia both in its incredible heterogeneity and its important historical resonance. The intellectual and political desire to create an Asian Commons comes from a collective history of anti-colonial struggles and shared vision for social and economic justice. As a working concept, Asian Commons is informed by the historical resources accumulated through Asia’s varied but connected experience with decolonization, as well as the intellectual project to study such lived experiences on their own terms. The workshop aims to rethink Asia in an inclusive and collective manner without privileging any particular region/state on the basis of economic and political power.
All are welcome, please register here:
Welcoming note
(HKT) 13:00 / (IST) 10:30
Professor John J KENNEDY, Dean, School of Arts and Humanities, CHRIST University, Bengaluru
Mithilesh KUMAR, Department of English and Cultural Studies and Cultural Studies Cell, CHRIST University, Bengaluru; and Founder-Member Commoning Asia Collective
Session 1: Across Nation Borders
(HKT) 13:10 – 14:30 / (IST) 10:40 – 12:00
Why do we Study Tibet? Reflections on Method in Asian Studies
Swati CHAWLA, Associate Professor, School of Liberal Arts and Humanities, Jindal Global University, India
Peace Studies after Oct 2023: Enacting Live Research and Living Research Communities
Fatima Waqi SAJJAD, Associate Professor of International Relations, Department of Political Science and IR, University of Management and Technology Lahore, Pakistan
Discussant: Arahmaiani FEISAL, Artist, Indonesia
Session 2: Commoning Asia Studies
(HKT) 14:40 – 16:30 / (IST) 12:10 – 14:00
Why Asian Commons?
Suruchi THAPAR-BJÖRKERT, Associate Professor, Department of Government, University of Uppsala, Sweden; and
Ruchika RANWA, Assistant Professor, School of Humanities & Social Sciences, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Dubai International Academic City, Dubai, UAE
Commoning a Discipline: Asian Cultural Studies or Cultural Studies in Asia?
Mithilesh KUMAR, Assistant Professor, Christ University, India
Asian Commons, Geography, and Decolonizing Education in India
Sadan JHA, Associate Professor, Centre for Social Studies, Surat, India
Discussant: Avishek RAY, Associate Professor, National Institute of Technology, Silchar, India
Session 3: Southeast Asia Cultural Production during the Cold War era
(HKT) 16:40 – 18:00 / (IST) 14:10–15:30
Managing “Love” in Nanyang Story: The Multifaceted Southern Perspectives in the Thirty Cents Novels
Chih-Chi WENG, Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Taiwanese Culture, National Taipei University of Education, Taiwan
United Front of Asians in Communism: Introduction of Asian literature in Hong Kong leftist periodicals in the 1970s
Ka Ki WONG, Associate Professor, Department of Chinese Language and Literature, Hong Kong Shue Yan University, Hong Kong
Discussant: Dr. Chris SONG (Assistant Professor, Department of Language Studies, University of Toronto Scarborough, Canada)
Session 4: Transcultural East Asia
(HKT) 18:10 – 19:30 / (IST) 15:40 – 17:00
Geographies of Information: The Transmission of the Images of China in East Asia in the 18th Century
Ming Tak Ted HUI, Associate Professor of Classical Chinese and Medieval China, University of Oxford, UK
Transcultural Trails of German and Japanese aesthetics in Chinese Aesthetic Education Movement in 1920s: Examining Yu Ji-fan’s Works
Kevin Ting-Kit YAU, Lecturer, Department of Chinese Language and Literature,
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Discussant: Dr Tak Wai HUNG (Assistant Professor, Waseda Institute for Advanced Study (WIAS), Waseda University, Japan)
Posted by: Ka Ki Wong kkwong@hksyu.edu