Interdisciplinary Doctoral Symposium: ‘(In)visibility: seeing, making visible, keeping hidden’
Venice, 14-15-16 April 2026
Organized by PhD students of the 40th doctoral programme in Asian and African Studies, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice.

Accessing and producing knowledge is never neutral. From the erasure of certain voices in historical narratives to the strategic visibility of bodies, choices are constantly made about what can be seen and believed — and, consequently, what must remain hidden and invisible. Two main forces reflecting underlying hierarchies of power are at play: on the one hand, the partial and ideologically inflected nature of the sources; on the other hand, the situated position of the scholar. Crucially, they can result in the exclusion, marginalisation, misunderstanding or invisibilisation of voices endowed with less power, socially and/or historically.

This symposium questions how presence and absence are constructed, how certain topics or agents are rendered peripheral, and how historiographical, disciplinary, ethical, methodological, but also institutional choices reinforce (or challenge) patterns of invisibilisation. How do our ways of seeing and not seeing shape the contours of knowledge?

Harnessing (in)visibility as a lens on knowledge, this symposium explores three interrelated dynamics: seeing, making visible, keeping hidden. Continue reading (In)visibility: seeing, making visible, keeping hidden — cfp →

The annual Berkeley-Stanford Graduate Student Conference in Modern Chinese Humanities brings together current graduate students from across the U.S. and around the world to present innovative research on any aspect of modern Chinese cultural production in the humanistic disciplines. The conference provides a window into current research in Chinese studies, and serves as a platform for fostering interaction among budding scholars of geographically disparate institutions, facilitating their exchange of ideas and interests. The conference hopes to encourage interdisciplinary scholarship within and between literary and cultural studies, cultural history, art history, film and media studies, musicology and sound studies, as well as the interpretative social sciences.

Currently enrolled graduate students are invited to submit paper proposals for the Berkeley-Stanford Graduate Student Conference in Modern Chinese Humanities, to be held April 10-11, 2026 at UC Berkeley. Conference registration is free. Presenters will be provided with shared lodging, Friday dinner, and Saturday lunch. There is limited partial funding assistance for those who cannot find their own funding.

Proposals/bios due: Friday, November 8, 2025 (11:59 p.m. Pacific Standard Time)

Application Instructions:
To apply, please submit your abstract (up to 250 words) and a short bio (up to 100 words, including current institutional affiliation), and include the following information in the application: Author Name, Author Bio, Paper Title, Subtitle (optional), Keywords, and Abstract. Please follow the link to apply: https://app.smartsheet.com/b/form/a315258c58bb4c6f8511dc3a25350de3

The 2026 keynote speaker is Ying Qian, East Languages and Cultures, Columbia University, and the conference alumni speaker is Julia Keblinska, Film & Screen Studies, University of Cambridge. Continue reading 2026 Berkeley-Stanford grad conference–cfp →

Call for Papers
The Routledge Companion to Xue Mo 雪漠

We invite submissions for an edited volume dedicated to Xue Mo (Chen Kaihong, b. 1963), one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary Chinese literature. This volume will feature contributions from international scholars, alongside one or two original essays by Xue Mo himself.

Xue Mo’s works explore the coexistence of light and darkness in human nature. His novels do not shy away from violence or despair, yet they always leave space for redemption and transformation. Even in the most broken corners of the soul, there remains a thread of conscience and a glimmer of humanity, guiding readers toward renewal and awakening. This tension between light and shadow reflects Xue Mo’s profound understanding of human nature and his belief in the potential for personal growth and inner transformation.

His literary achievements include the monumental eight-volume epic 《娑萨朗》, recognized as the first long epic in Han Chinese literary history. Beyond fiction, Xue Mo has created widely acclaimed cultural works, such as the audiobook of his interpretation of Diamond Sutra on the 喜马拉雅 Himalaya platform, titled  《佛陀的智慧》, has consistently ranked top for year .and a four-volume commentary on the Dao De Jing titled 《老子的心事》I-IV, which has sold nearly one million copies. Institutions in the School of Foreign Languages at Ningbo University and Central South University have established research centers dedicated to studying his works. His work bridges literature, philosophy, and spiritual reflection, making him a major figure in contemporary Chinese culture. Continue reading Routledge Companion to Xue Mo–cfp →

Workshop: Re-Visualizing “The West”: The Sinophone Across Disciplines and Space
Milan, October 1, 2025
Venue: University of Milan, Room T1, Piazza Indro Montanelli 1, Sesto San Giovanni

Dear all,

I am pleased to announce a one-day international workshop exploring Sinophone perspectives across disciplines and space, with particular attention to geo-literary imaginaries and their European resonances. The event is convened by Simona Gallo (University of Milan, Project PI) and will be held in person at the University of Milan.

Speakers include:

• Shu-mei Shih (UCLA)
• Wen-chi Li (University of Bern)
• Irmy Schweiger (Stockholm University)
• Rosa Lombardi (Roma Tre University)
• Melody Yunzi Li (University of Houston, online)
• Serena De Marchi (Ca’ Foscari University of Venice)
• Justyna Jaguścik (University of Bern)
• Martina Caschera (University of Bergamo)
• Simona Gallo (University of Milan)

I warmly welcome your attendance and participation!

Simona Gallo <simona.gallo@unimi.it>

CFP for the Panel for ACLA (American Comparative Literature Association) annual conference Feb 26-Mar 1, Montreal, Canada (Paper abstracts due Aug 26-Oct 2 on acla.org)

Panel title: Mythological Patterns, Themes and Narratives in Modern Literature and Cinema

Panel organizers:

Lily Li (lily.li47405@gmail.com) Eastern Kentucky University
Kaby Kung (kkung@hkmu.edu.hk) Hong Kong Metropolitan University

Panel Proposal:

The persistence of classical mythological patterns, themes, and narratives in modern and contemporary works of literature and cinema invites and even compels us to examine these works to determine what they assert about human nature and civilization and about the apparent necessity of repeating the behavior of the past, even across cultural and chronological boundaries. This panel invites presentations that analyze or discuss such works of the 20^th and 21^st century by excavating their mythic sources and exploring the parallels in these modern works and the departures of the modern versions from their underlying originals. What are the aesthetic, psychological, and sociological implications inherent in the remaking of these myths? How do they constitute a statement about the relation of the past and the present? And what, if anything, do they have to say about the future of the modern culture they depict, or about the fate of universal humanity?

Symposium: Neurons and Texts (Oct 17-18, 2025, Lingnan University)

The symposium Neurons and Texts will be held on October 17–18, 2025, at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. The title reflects the intersection of “neurons,” which are the fundamental units of intelligent systems underpinning natural cognition and artificial intelligence, and “texts,” which embody the diverse forms and patterns of natural and cultural expression.

The symposium aims to expand the limits of interdisciplinary dialogue, showcasing the integration of traditional humanistic approaches with cognitive science, digital tools, and computational theory, thereby advancing the study of Chinese literature and culture.

Venue: Paul S. Lam Conference Centre, LYH 308, Lingnan University, Hong Kong
Time: Oct 17-18, 2025, 9:30AM–6:00PM
Organizers: The Advanced Institute for Global Chinese Studies (AIGCS) and Department of Chinese, Lingnan University

Symposium Schedule 

Day 1 — Friday, October 17
09:30–09:45 — Opening remarks Continue reading Neurons and Texts →

2026 Southeast Conference of the Association for Asian Studies
Asian Studies in the Digital Age, Old and New
January 23-25, 2026

The School of Modern Languages at Georgia Tech is excited to host the 65th Annual Meeting of the Southeast Conference of the Association for Asian Studies (SEC/AAS). We cordially invite proposals for panels, roundtables, individual papers, and workshops that encompass, but are not confined to, the theme of “Asian Studies in the Digital Age, Old and New.”

All disciplines focusing on East and Inner Asia, Northeast Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Asian Diaspora, as well as comparative, inter-Asian, and global Asia topics are welcome. Faculty, graduate students, undergraduate students, and independent scholars from all regions are encouraged to share their work, receive feedback, and network at the conference.

Scholars of disciplines focusing on “digital” may consider this to include both our digitally connected world and broader conceptions such as information exchange, data, coding, encoding, media, and technology. Topics may range from ancient systems of communication to emerging technologies, digital cultures, and technology-driven transformations in politics, art, labor, and literature. We also welcome interdisciplinary perspectives that consider how the digital is imagined, negotiated, practiced, and contested as well as discussions of how Asian Studies itself has been shaped by “the digital.”

The deadline for proposals is October 31, 2025.

Submit a Proposal: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdpqTZpJG_LQJXLvk5zVmlpLcPZXicraS_isIAf3CoJ56rBfg/viewform

Conference Website: https://www.sec-aas.com/conf

Please direct questions about the conference to our local coordinators, Dr. Paul Foster (paul.foster@modlangs.gatech.edu) and Dr. Amanda Weiss (amanda.weiss@modlangs.gatech.edu)

We are looking for abstract submissions for the prosed seminar “Revolution as Kairos: From Classical Theory to Digital Temporalities” at ACLA 2026 (Montréal, February 26 – March 1, 2026).

The proposed seminar description goes as below:

This seminar invites participants to rethink the ancient concept of kairos, the opportune or decisive moment, as a lens for understanding revolutions and radical events across the 20th and 21st centuries. We are especially interested in how such moments of rupture have been experienced, theorized, and represented across diverse historical and cultural contexts, and how they are narrated, contested, or reimagined through literature, film, speculative fiction, and digital cultures.

We ask: How have political actors, thinkers, and communities conceived revolutionary time as kairotic rupture rather than chronological flow? How do today’s digital technologies, algorithmic cultures, and global media reshape what counts as a timely or transformative moment for political, cultural, or social intervention? Continue reading Revolution as Kairos (ACLA)–cfp →

Call for Papers: American Comparative Literature Association 2026 Conference
Seminar: Versatile Bodies in Global Asia
Organizers: Yucong Hao (Vanderbilt University) & Yihui Sheng (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Location/Date: Palais des congrès de Montréal, February 26 – March 1, 2026

Our seminar explores the potentialities of body as method in the study of Global Asian literature and culture. Engaging with interdisciplinary inquiries of literary studies, performance studies, ethnomusicology, and media history, we understand the polysemy of the body, as literary motifs, techniques of embodiment, lived experiences, as well as historical traces, with which we interrogate not only how body matters but what it capaciously enables, both conceptually and methodologically, to the study of literature, performance, and media in Global Asia.

In particular, we recognize the multivalent manifestations of the body in both premodern and modern Global Asian literature and cultures, where the versatility of the body–the technical body that mediates lived experiences, the performing body that enacts alternative imagination, the diasporic body that crosses solidified boundaries, and the posthuman body that disrupts epistemic orders–unleashes agential capacities far exceeding the scope of the Cartesean body-mind dualism, thus creating and transforming reality, subjectivity, and epistemology. Continue reading Versatile Bodies in Global Asia (ACLA)–cfp →

The 2026 Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association will take place at the Palais des congrès de Montréal from February 26 to March 1, 2026. The paper proposal submission portal is now open. All proposals must be submitted exclusively through the portal by October 2, 2025. We hereby invite scholars to submit papers to our panel entitled “Eileen Chang as World Literature,” co-organized by Nicole Huang (nhuang26@hku.hk) and Xiaolu Ma (hmxlma@ust.hk).. Please find the panel description below.

CFP: Eileen Chang as World literature

Eileen Chang (Zhang Ailing, 1920-1995) was a major twentieth-century Chinese author who wrote canonical texts as well as a range of minor narratives in both Chinese and English. Chang’s ambition, from the inception of her long writing career, was to become a successful global writer. She found early literary success in wartime Shanghai, but her Shanghai era was only the first phase in a long journey that crossed continents, islands, and seas.

In recent decades, through translation and cinematic and stage adaptation, Chang’s writings have resonated with an increasingly global audience. Despite her growing acclaim, Chang remains a complex and often controversial figure, famously advocating for an “include me out” perspective. She is often still labeled as a “Shanghai writer,” while her literary journey through four decades of living in the United States has not garnered adequate recognition, nor has she been celebrated as a major English-language author. As Chinese scholarship on Chang has expanded in recent decades, scholarly examinations in English remain few and far between. With this proposal, we offer the case of Eileen Chang as a unique lens through which to collectively explore the encounters, contradictions, and mediations between conflicting cultures and academic traditions. Continue reading Eileen Chang as World Literature (ACLA)–cfp →