Conference Announcements

announcements about conferences, workshops, and colloquia in modern Chinese cultural studies

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art–cfp

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Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art (ISSN 0257-0254) is a most highly-recognized peer-reviewed journal in China, and has been listed in Scopus. TSLA, launched in 1980 bimonthly, publishes original articles in Chinese or English in arts and humanities, especially literary studies. We cover any topic/issue involving, of, about or on but not confined to China in the fields of literary theory, critical theory, aesthetics, philosophy of art, cultural studies, etc.

We welcome articles of 6000-12000 words in length, following MLA style (the seventh edition). In the “Works Cited” section, English translations of all works cited in Chinese must be provided.

Your contribution should have a front page containing the title of the work, an abstract not exceeding 300 words, 3 to 5 key words, and author information including full name, title/designation, affiliation, academic interests/areas of academic specialty, email and/or other contact information. The title, the abstract, the key words, and author information should be in both English and Chinese. Non-Chinese authors are encouraged but not required to provide Chinese translations.

Contributors are assumed to take full responsibility of academic integrity of their submissions, and we will also try to ensure that only works conforming to the principle of academic integrity are accepted.

To submit a manuscript, please visit our homepage https://tsla.researchcommons.org/journal/, click “Submit Article” and create an author profile (Your personal information will be strictly for the editorial purpose). The online system will guide you through the steps to upload your manuscript.

For more information, please visit our official website http://tsla.ecnu.edu.cn/EN/column/column1.shtml

Posted by: Feng Wang fwang@zhwx.ecnu.edu.cn

Reportage Volume–cfp

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Dear colleagues,

Professor Charles A. Laughlin and I welcome proposals on reportage and all forms of nonfiction creative expression in the Sinophone world for a co-edited volume. The deadline for chapter proposal is September 30th (minor extension could be allowed). Sharing an earlier post on MCLC with full description of our volume.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email and ask us. We hope that this volume could include new voices and perspectives in the field and open up exciting conversations about reportage works and traditions in diverse disciplines. Forwarding contact information below:

September 30, 2021: Submission of a 500-word proposal for articles, plus a 150-word bio, to both editors: Charles A. Laughlin, University of Virginia; Li Guo, Utah State University,

Full CFP is here:

https://u.osu.edu/mclc/2021/06/29/contesting-reportage-cfp/

Posted by Li Guo li.guo@usu.edu

Narrating and Visualizing Youth–cfp

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Call for Papers: Panel “Narrating and Visualizing Youth” in ACLA (The American Comparative Literature Association) 2022

Organizer: Miao Dou, PhD Candidate, Washington University in St. Louis.
Co-organizer: Melody Yunzi Li, Assistant Professor, University of Houston

This seminar explores the importance of youth in various cultural and intellectual contexts from the nineteenth century to the present day. The period witnesses the rise of and, more recently, the critique of imperialism, nationalism, and globalization. In the field of children and youth history there has been a shifting focus from adult-centered perspectives to the agency of children and youths. However, the efforts to discuss the histories of youth and its distinction from the histories of children is rather limited. For example, the adult-child binary that prevails in children studies does not neatly apply to the histories of youth, as the concept of youth has been historically used to describe both a biologically defined period of life and a state of mind for some adults. With a focus on youth rather than childhood, recent studies strive to understand “youth” as a mobilization category for politics and gender issues such as adolescent girlhood. Peer-reviewed journals such as The History of Childhood and Youth and Girlhood Studies, as well as scholars such as Akira Iriye, Richard Evan Jobs and David M. Pomfret collectively promote the study of histories of youth in a transnational or global framework. Building on the existing achievements of youth studies, this seminar intends to explore the historical and fictional figures of youth presented in various media and genres of narrative and art from the nineteenth century to the present. While this seminar is open to papers on any aspects of this subject, a particular goal of this seminar is to examine the role that “youth” plays in politically charged historical moments which facilitate our understanding of some historically normalized discourses such as white supremacy, Social Darwinism, heterosexuality, nationalism, etc. We welcome papers that add to the transnational and comparative conversation of the modern history of youth. Continue reading →

Translating Hong Kong–cfp

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CFP: Translating Hong Kong

The topic of the 2021 edition of Backreading Hong Kong: An Annual Symposium is “Translating Hong Kong” 翻譯香港. We are interested in the research that considers translation as a metaphor that attempts to freshen the studies of Hong Kong culture, literature, and languages. We invite presentations that ask inspiring and contentious questions about the translation among various forms of cultural expression about Hong Kong. Does translating Hong Kong imply an open or closed circulation of her culture? How has translation, broadly defined, bettered a global understanding of Hong Kong culture? Does translating Hong Kong only serve to reiterate the colonial dominance of English? What can we say about translating into Hong Kong English or other kinds of English? And what can we say about translating between Cantonese and English? Does translating Hong Kong creative output legitimise it? We also welcome discussions of discoveries and new developments in any facets of translation and Hong Kong, both literary and non-literary. In particular, we would like to explore novel ways of viewing translation in the Hong Kong context.

The 2021 Backreading Hong Kong Symposium, co-organised by the Department of English Language and Literature at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU), the Department of Language Studies at the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC), and the literary journal Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, will take place online on 10-11 December 2021. Continue reading →

Taiwan Literature in the 21st Century–cfp

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Call for Chapter Proposals: Taiwan Literature in the 21st Century
Taiwan Literature in the 21st Century: 16 New Chapters
Editors: Chia-rong Wu and Ming-ju Fan
Publisher: Springer (Sinophone and Taiwan Studies Series)
Proposal Submission Deadline: November 1, 2021

Introduction

Co-edited by Dr. Chia-rong Wu (University of Canterbury) and Professor Ming-ju Fan (National Chengchi University), Taiwan Literature in the 21st Century: 16 New Chapters is an anthology of research under contract with Springer, one of the leading publishers in the world. It not only engages with the evolving trends of literary Taiwan, but also promotes the translocal consciousness and cultural diversity of the island-state. The list of topics includes but is not limited to human rights, political and social transitions, post-nativism, indigenous consciousness, science fiction, ecocriticism, gender and queer studies, and localization and globalization. The edited volume will contain sixteen chapters of approximately 6,000 words each, including footnotes and bibliographies. The editors will consider to extend the volume to twenty chapter upon the approval of Springer. Each chapter closely examines an individual author through vigorous research and engagement with current scholarship. The goal is to rethink existing prominent topics and further explore innovative takes on Taiwan literature. The book is scheduled to be published in 2023. Continue reading →

Thinking the Republic of China symposium

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Thinking the Republic of China: An International Symposium 《思考中華民國》國際論壇
Time: August 21, 2021 to September 6, 2021 (Local Taiwan Time)
Location: Online
Registration is Open and Preferred
Organiser: The Global Sinology Forum at National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan (國際漢學平台在中山）

To register and for program details, please click here and here

In 2015, professor Yang Rur-bin (楊儒賓) published In Praise of 1949 (1949禮讚), a short volume that examined the long term intellectual and cultural impact that the 1949 transfer of the Republic of China (ROC) state structure to Taiwan had on the island. Published at a time of rising nativist nationalism on the island, Yang’s work argued that despite the historic traumas associated with the ROC regime in Taiwan, the 1949 rupture also transformed Taiwanese society in a variety of positive ways, imbuing it with a state structure that not only valued traditional Chinese culture (at a time when it was being openly denounced on the Mainland), but also possessed powerful forces within it committed to liberalism and democracy, grounded in a democratic tradition of thought that went back to the late-Qing.

台灣清華大學的楊儒賓教授在2015年發表了《1949禮讚》，探索了1949年中華民國國體撤退到台灣，長期對島嶼內部文化與知識上的影響。此書出版時，台灣社會的本土意識正在上揚。著論旨在提倡，雖無人能否認中華民國在台灣造成的歷史傷痛，但1949年兩岸的裂解也使得台灣社會開始進行重要的正向轉化。在中國大陸政權否認中華文化的同時，中華民國不僅賦予台灣一個重視中華傳統文化的政體，在其脈絡中亦有重視民主與自由主義的勢力來到島嶼，並以晚清以降的民主主義與民族主義思潮為理論基礎。 Continue reading →

Contemporary Chinese Art Cinema–cfp

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Call for Chapters: Contemporary Chinese Art Cinema
A book edited by Flora Lichaa (Université libre de Bruxelles), Ma Ran (Nagoya University), and Seio Nakajima (Waseda University).

This edited volume, to be published in the Routledge Contemporary Asian Societies collection, follows a research workshop on contemporary Chinese art cinema held in May 2021 (see the program here). From this workshop emerged the conclusion that delineating the borders between Chinese films that should be considered art films and those that should not is extremely challenging given the variety of styles, forms, economic and industrial contexts of contemporary Chinese films that are labelled as such by both the international and domestic industries, audiences, and critics. This diversity is evident in the variety of terms that have been used to refer to Chinese art film, in both English (art, art-house, auteur cinema) and Chinese (wenyi, yishu, tansuo, zuozhe dianying).

Because of the contingency and ambiguity of these definition, existing research has mainly considered Chinese art films as those labelled by European and North American film festival programmers and critics. In this sense, the first Chinese films to be “qualified” as such appeared in the context of China’s opening-up and economic reforms in the mid-1980s. Spearheaded by Chen Kaige’s Yellow Earth being awarded at Locarno Film Festival in 1985, it also included a series of films that were later known as the Fifth-Generation films (Signer 2017). To name just a few, Tian Zhuangzhuang’s The Horse Thief was awarded at Fribourg International Film Festival in 1988, Zhang Yimou’s Red Sorghum at Berlinale in 1988 and Qiu Ju at Venice International Film Festival in 1992, Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine at Cannes Festival in 1993. Continue reading →

China and Global History workshop

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Dear Colleagues,

The “China and Global History” online workshop organized by Ms. Sabine Hinrichs (University of Vienna), Ms. Tanja Kotik (University of Graz), and myself will take place on Zoom between the 1st and 3rd of September. I am hereby sending you the handout of the event, which includes the link to register to the event, the time schedule, and the abstracts of the keynote speeches.

I am looking forward to seeing you online in September.

For further questions please contact the organizers: Sabine Hinrichs (sabine.hinrichs@univie.ac.at), Sebestyén Hompot (sebestyen.hompot@univie.ac.at), Tanja Kotik (tanja.kotik@uni-graz.at)

Best regards,

Sebestyén Hompot

Grad Seminar on Modern and Contemporary China–cfp

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CFP: The Sixteenth Graduate Seminar on Modern and Contemporary China (Chinese University of Hong Kong, Submission Deadline: August 16, 2021)

The Centre for China Studies of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) is pleased to announce this call for papers for the Sixteenth Graduate Seminar on Modern and Contemporary China scheduled for January 6 -7, 2022, at CUHK’s Institute of Chinese Studies.

The Seminar theme is “Land in China, 1900-2022.” We welcome paper proposals on subjects from across the spectrum of environmental, economic, political, legal, social, ideological and cultural approaches to examining changes of the land in China over the last century until today. All disciplines and theoretical frameworks will be considered, provided the papers are based on original, empirical research. We will not accept papers on preliminary work, potential future projects, or of a primarily speculative nature. Continue reading →

Literature in the Time of Contagions–cfp

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CFP: “Literature in the Time of Contagions,” a special section in CLTT (Chinese Literature and Thought Today)

Contagious diseases such as tuberculosis, AIDS, and the current COVID-19 have been concerning modern and contemporary Chinese literature not only as a theme or contents but also as conditions, forms as well as styles of writing. In light of Susan Sontag’s critiques (1978, 1989), we should understand contagions not as moral metaphors, but rather as illnesses per se, as interdisciplinary studies of health humanities, as medical metonyms of pressing socio-politicalproblems, or as a linguistic devolution that strips the discourses of disease bare. This special section welcomes contributions with regard to the literary representation of infectious illnesses. We call for both research and reflections on transmittable diseases and their narratives or lyrical expressions, including academic articles and creative writings or English translations of Sinophone prose and poetry about plagues and pandemics from mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and beyond. For scholarly essays (which will be peer-reviewed before acceptance), our preference is for an engaging, accessible discussion style that also retains research rigor. Please submit your full work (up to 7,000 words) with a 200-abstract to guest-editor Dr. Howard Y. F. Choy (choyyf@gmail.com) and CLTT Acting Editor-in-Chief Dr. Ping Zhu (pingzhu@ou.edu) by June 1, 2022.

Writing Chinese–cfp

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We are delighted to share the first Call for Papers from Writing Chinese: A Journal of Contemporary Sinophone Literature (WCJ). This new journal, published by White Rose University Press, showcases the latest peer-reviewed academic research on contemporary Chinese-language literature and its translation and global reception, alongside features on practitioners. WCJ’s combination of academic articles and practice-based notes provides a platform for, and facilitates dialogue between, both primary and secondary actors in the field. A key objective of the journal is to engage directly with scholarship in East Asia and throughout the Sinosphere, and so one section in each issue will feature newly commissioned English translations of the latest Chinese-language research.

WCJ has an Editorial Team based in The Leeds Centre for New Chinese Writing, with Dr Sarah Dodd and Dr Frances Weightman as Editors-in-Chief. They lead an international Editorial Board in supporting this new journal and shaping its growth. Dr Weightman said “there has never been a more important time to engage seriously with contemporary Chinese literature.” Dr Dodd added “We’re also looking forward to publishing newly translated works of Chinese scholarship, in order to really engage with current debates. We hope that the Journal will become a key platform for some of the exciting scholarship being carried out in this field. ” Alongside submissions received in response to this Call for Papers, the inaugural issue of WCJ will also include keynotes from Professor Bonnie S. McDougall (Honorary Associate in Chinese Studies at the University of Sydney and Professor Emeritus at the University of Edinburgh) and renowned poet, academic, and translator Xi Chuan 西川 (Beijing University).

The journal is proud to be entirely Open Access, with no financial charges for authors who publish with WCJ. Kate Petherbridge, WRUP Press Manager, said “It’s great to see this journal put out its first Call for Papers. The articles published by WCJ will join the growing pool of high-quality scholarship available globally without financial barrier. It’s also fantastic to see that the journal charges no publication fees to authors, making it both free to publish with and free to read”.

The WCJ website gives more details on this Call for Papers, as well as information on Submissions and Author Guidelines. Expressions of interest should be addressed, in the first instance, to the Editors at writingchinese@leeds.ac.uk, as should any general enquiries about the journal.

Frances Weightman f.weightman@leeds.ac.uk

Teaching Hong Kong–cfp

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CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

Teaching Hong Kong, Hong Kong Teaching: A Hong Kong Studies Symposium (Saturday 4 December 2021)

The late Hong Kong writer Leung Ping-kwan famously asked, “Why is the story of Hong Kong so difficult to tell?” The enduring nature of the question and its unanswerability is partly due to the city’s constantly changing identity and the various factors that influence how its story can be told, or can be told at all. In this symposium, we try to look at another facet of Hong Kong and its local and global representation—in terms of teaching. How do we teach Hong Kong in Hong Kong, and how do we teach Hong Kong in the world? What considerations are taken? Which Hong Kong? What aspects of Hong Kong can be taught? Can Hong Kong teach the world something? Can Hong Kong be taught something from elsewhere in the world?

Interested scholars are encouraged to submit an abstract of 300-500 words along with a third-person biography of around 150 words in one WORD document for consideration.

Submissions should be sent to hongkongstudies@cuhk.edu.hk before Friday 15 October 2021. Fully developed articles post-symposium (6,000-8,000 words) will be considered for publication in forthcoming issues of Hong Kong Studies.

2022 SEA Intl Young Scholars Conference–cfp

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CFP: 2022 SEA International Young Scholars Conference: “Borders, Territories, Spaces of the Sinophone World”

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

The 2nd “Sinophone Studies in Europe and the Americas” (SEA) International Young Scholars Conference Call for Abstracts is now open. This year’s topic is “Borders, Territories, Spaces of the Sinophone World”, divided into three subsections:

  • Categories and Boundaries in Transcultural Perspective.
  • Inclusivity and Demarcation in Sinophone Religions.
  • Sinophone Studies in Practical Horizon.

This call is open to every graduate student, Ph. D. candidate and postdoctoral researcher with an interest in the fields of Sinophone and Chinese studies. We encourage the development of new research topics and approaches to these fields, as well as to promote dialogue and collaboration between young scholars from Europe, the Americas and Asia. Continue reading →

Memory Studies in East Asia–cfp

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Call for Abstracts: Proposed Special Journal Issue on Memory Studies in East Asia
By Mary M. McCarthy

East Asia (defined here as comprised of Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia) is a region ripe for exploration of the role of memory in a non-Western context. It is a region of post-colonial and post-conflict societies that have struggled with and addressed myriad issues related to transitional justice, memorialization, commemoration, and reconciliation both within borders and across them. It contains examples of both historical justice achieved and memory “wars” ongoing; mnemonic practices that are unique to their local context and those that are translatable to other countries or regions.

Yet, despite the richness of this region for an exploration of these issues, the field of memory studies, which was originally developed in European and Holocaust studies, has yet to fully integrate what Asian perspectives can bring to the field. Asian studies can inform and transform the field of memory studies, with its insights and lessons, as well as new theoretical and methodological approaches.

Acknowledging the important role that Asian case studies and Asian perspectives can and must play in this nascent field, the Memory Studies Association will hold their 6th annual conference in Seoul, July 3-8, 2022. In anticipation of this event, I seek to create a special journal issue on memory studies in East Asia, the contents of which will be proposed for presentation at the conference. This is an opportunity for those of us working in this field to publicize and promote new and cutting-edge research in East Asian memory studies, while also networking and exchanging ideas to deepen and expand our own scholarship. (Participation in the Seoul conference is not required for inclusion in the special issue). Continue reading →