CFP: KOREA COMPETENCE WEEK 2023 FOR GRADUATE STUDENTS AND PHD CANDIDATES, FREIE UNIVERSITÄT BERLIN

Korea Competence Week 2023 for Graduate Students and PhD Candidates,

Freie Universität Berlin

The Korea-Europe Center at the Institute of Korean Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, (FU-IKS) is pleased to announce the Workshop Series <Korea Competence Week 2023> for graduate students and PhD candidates intending to enhance the academic and political competence of those involved in Korea-related research and politics.

The workshop series comprises the following four parts: (In each workshop, more experts will join as instructors.)

1. Methodology Workshop

• Monday, 25th September 2023

Instructors: 

• Dr Axel Rüdiger, FU-IKS

This workshop is designed to invite Ph.D. students and scholars researching themes related to Korea to meta-analysis and self-reflection of their research. Over the course of this workshop, participants will gain greater awareness of implicit presuppositions, guiding perspectives and values, and blind spots of their own research design. This type of training will enable participants to a more conscious and reflective handling of research methods and the theoretical baggage that comes with them. It will also enhance participants intercultural competence in an increasingly globalizing academic context, and especially that of area studies.

Process of Workshop:

(1) Each participant is expected to give a presentation (20 min.) of the methodology based on the methods of his or her current research.

(2) Each presentation will be followed by a round of comments and discussion with the possibility to focus in-depth on key issues in participants research designs.

2. Publication Writing Workshop

• Tuesday, 26th September 2023

Instructors: 

• Dr Christoph M. Michael, FU-IKS

This workshop focuses on the dos and don’ts of academic research paper writing and publication. Participants will enhance their ability to write academic papers and how to clearly structure them, focusing on key components such as abstract writing and preparing the finished paper for submission to a journal. Participants will also learn about publication processes. With the help of an experienced journal editor, they will learn how to choose the right journal for their paper, navigate peer review, and think strategically about building visibility for their expertise.

Participants will be expected to bring a short sample of their writing, preferably a paper there are currently working on. This workshop will employ a set of peer-tutoring methods among a variety of other techniques.

3. Policy Paper Writing Workshop

• Wednesday, 27th September 2023 lecture and group work

• Thursday, 28th September 2023, morning session: group report and evaluation

Instructors: 

• Mr. Kim Yonho, Associate director of George Washington Institute of Korean Studies, USA

This workshop teaches basic techniques and strategies of writing policy papers. Participants have the opportunity to gain knowledge, skills and first-hand insight from people, who are engaged in policy paper writing. The workshop intends to illuminate the context in which policy papers are produced, why they are written, and how they potentially influence decision making processes. The workshop will consist of interactive training sessions, group work and practical exercise.

4. Strategic Dialogue Workshop

• Thursday, 28th September 2023, afternoon session: lecture

• Friday, 29th September 2023 including group work and presentation

Instructors: 

• Mr. Kim Yonho, Associate director of George Washington Institute of Korean Studies, USA

Strategic dialogue has been a term used with increasing frequency, both in private and public sectors. It is generally understood as denoting a processual development among groups or teams intending to reach a common understanding concerning goals, concepts or projects in view of a future. Nevertheless, what does "strategic dialogue" exactly mean? How does it differ from a regular "bilateral" or "multilateral" meeting? Is it a formal or informal process? How does it compare and contrast with 1.5 and 2-track discussions? Can academics participate in strategic dialogues, or is it a format limited to practitioners, mostly from the field of politics? Who sets the strategic agenda and how is strategic dialogue organized in practice?

The workshop will examine these and other questions providing a comprehensive overview of the instrument of strategic dialogue. The seminar will host speakers with rich experience and a proven track record in conducting such strategic dialogues with partners in Asia and, in particular, in both Koreas. The guest speakers will share their expertise and provide hands-on experiences. This workshop will also include a model-strategic dialogue in which participants will have the opportunity to prepare and simulate a strategic dialogue under the guidance of experienced practitioners in the field.

Eligibility

Applicants must be either enrolled in a Korean Studies graduate program or undertaking research on a Korea-related theme at a university in Europe.

Application period:

Until August 3rd 2023

The Korea-Europe Center will provide the selected participants with

• roundtrip train ticket (2nd class) or airfare (economy class) within Europe,

• board and lodging for the duration of the workshop

Application:

Submit the following documents in one PDF file with the applicants family name as the file name to Dr CHOE Hyondok (hyondok.choe[at]fu-berlin.de)

• Letter of Motivation

• Curriculum Vitae

• List of publications (if applicable)

• Copy of certificate of enrollment at a European university

Contact:

Dr CHOE Hyondok : hyondok.choe[at]fu-berlin.de

DOWNLOADS

More Information:

• Date: 25.- 29. September 2023 (Mon.-Fri.)

• Venue: Institute of Korean Studies, Freie Universität Berlin

• Application deadline: August 3, 2023

CFP: "SUSTAINABILY AND RESILIENCE IN EAST ASIA" SYMPOSIUM, UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA

“Sustainability and Resilience in East Asia” symposium,

University of Arizona

The Center for East Asian Studies (CEAS) at the University of Arizona is pleased to announce that the symposium “Sustainability and Resilience in East Asia” will be held in October 2023.

This biannual one-day hybrid symposium is open to both the local public and to virtual audiences online. We invite scholars and graduate students from any field to discuss the past and future of environmental awareness and challenges with East Asia as the context. In addition to what is conventionally considered East Asia, we will also consider proposals that focus on Vietnam and the Himalayan region.

The following topics are some examples, but we welcome presentations that examine all issues related to the scientific, social, and cultural dimensions of the environment and sustainability in East Asia.

• Changes in East Asia’s environments from multiple perspectives (geosciences, culture, history, religion, etc.)

• East Asia's climate challenges and solutions in the past, present, and future (arid regions, water and natural disasters and their management, pollution, and green initiatives, etc.)

• Cultural construction, negotiation, and representations of environmental sustainability and resilience in East Asia (e.g., literature, TV and films, music, anime/gaming culture, theater and performance, digital media, etc.)

• New and interdisciplinary approaches to the study and understanding of environments in the East Asian context (new meanings of environmental studies, transnationality, ecocriticism, shifting boundaries of the field, posthumanism, etc.)

Dates: October 2023, date TBD

Location: Biosphere 2, Tucson, Arizona

Organizer: Center for East Asian Studies (CEAS), the University of Arizona.

For more information about the symposium and CEAS, please visit the conference website.

Please submit an abstract (up to 250 words) and a brief bio (up to 100 words) to EAS-Center@arizona.edu by August 15, 2023.

CFP: "CURRENT COMPARATIVE LITERARY STUDIES IN EAST ASIA", CONCENTRIC LITERARY AND CULTURAL STUDIES

“Current Comparative Literary Studies in East Asia”,

Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies Vol. 50 No. 2 September 2024

This special issue seeks articles that address issues related to current comparative literary studies in East Asia, including its establishment as a discipline, institutionalization, historical development, methodological models, critical paradigms, etc., and more importantly, the tendencies within the discipline in the face of the drastic changes in current culture and society. The discipline of comparative literature in East Asia, including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and others, was established largely after World War II, although some would argue that it germinated during much earlier historical stages. In other words, the institutionalization of comparative literature in East Asia was greatly influenced by the Cold War geopolitical framework over which the US had the prevailing dominance. This fact also explains why the entire “interpretative community” of comparative literary studies in East Asia has been closely associated with that in North America and followed closely its critical paradigms. As a result, East Asian literatures often become literary examples to attest to “Western theories,” and sometimes are viewed as an integral part of Area Studies from the American perspective.

However, the common background and tendency in the development of the comparative literature discipline in East Asia by no means suggests that this region should be considered as having a literary and cultural unity and can be treated uniformly. Instead, different countries and areas in East Asia have developed various ramifications of comparative literature with distinct characteristics based on their own linguistic environments, historical experiences, political conditions, national objectives, etc. Some countries regard comparative literature as an extension of a national literature, whereas others recognize it as a branch of foreign literatures. In a similar fashion, some institutes lay stress on native language and local issues, whereas others emphasize the use of English as a necessary channel to connect to the outside world and to gain better visibility for their local affairs. These diverse and discrete concerns demonstrate precisely one prominent feature of comparative literature in East Asia—i.e., existing in an interspace between East and West, native and foreign, local and global, etc.

Like in other regions, comparative literature in East Asia has always faced challenges that were caused either by the changes in geopolitics or precipitated by paradigm shifts within the discipline. The last decade has witnessed a reform of the discipline in confronting various obstacles, especially the urgency of reconsidering the idea of East Asia. In brief, the idea of “Asia as method” proposed by the Japanese scholar Takeuchi Yoshimi more than half a century ago has been raised once again as a useful reference for reviewing contemporary humanities studies in the region. However, it places an emphasis less on overcoming the so-called Western modernity than on a return to the East Asian context. This quest provides a chance to examine the divergence and diversity of East Asian literatures and cultures, which may deviate from the long-standing Western criteria for comparative studies and also create alternative connections between various areas in the region and beyond. Take, for example, the emergence of Sinophone studies. It provokes a time-space reconstruction of the Sinophone articulation with an emphasis on voicing the minority’s conditions. Clearly, the call for reshaping the social and cultural order in the Sinophone world echoes perfectly the discourse on world literature that promotes a “worlding” process rather than a presumed world order.

At present, comparative literature faces even more challenges than before. The breakout of the COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed our daily lives, means of communication, social relations, and many other aspects of life, not to mention the radical changes in domestic governance and international politics. Literature of our time will focus on and describe these transformations; likewise, comparative literary studies will examine the effect of all these changes on the human condition, e.g., from the perspectives of political economy of affects, mode of bio-politics, and the geopolitical situation, etc. Alongside the COVID-19 pandemic, other important developments like the continuing war in Ukraine, the advancement of science and technology, the emergence of cyberspace, the surge of populism in politics, racial conflicts and climate change, to name just a few, are having profound impacts on the environment and human lives. Considering all these challenges, comparative literature in East Asia is no doubt approaching a new phase that requires a more wide-ranging and comprehensive vision.

Please send complete papers of 6,000-10,000 words, 5–8 keywords, and a brief biography to concentric.lit@deps.ntnu.edu.tw by December 30, 2023. Manuscripts should follow the latest edition of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. Except for footnotes, which should be single-spaced, manuscripts must be double-spaced in 12-point Times New Roman. Please consult our style guide.

Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies, indexed in Arts and Humanities Citation Index, is a peer-reviewed journal published two times per year by the Department of English, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan. Concentric is devoted to offering innovative perspectives on literary and cultural issues and advancing the transcultural exchange of ideas. While committed to bringing Asian-based scholarship to the world academic community, Concentric welcomes original contributions from diverse national and cultural backgrounds. In each issue of Concentric we publish groups of essays on a special topic as well as papers on more general issues.

For submissions or general inquiries, please contact us.

CFP: EAST ASIAN ECOCINEMA CONFERENCE, UNIVERSITY OF IDAHO

East Asian Ecocinema Conference,

University of Idaho, February 22-23, 2024

Description:

Ecocinema has recently drawn scholarly attention in East Asian cinema studies, though usually within nation-state frameworks. This conference will contribute to exploration of ecological thinking with regards to media by encouraging inter-Asian conversations about ecocinema. Given the global issue of climate change, it is urgent to develop ecocritical perspectives beyond national cinema frameworks. For example, what can we learn about the relationship between cinema and natural disasters by comparing documentaries from Japan and China? How did filmmakers capture the changing cityscape and landscape during industrialization in different regions in East Asia? Challenging the Euro-America-centric discourse of Theory, what kind of ecocritical approaches and concepts are formed in media theories and criticisms in Asia? Can the increasing popularity of anime, which often reflects on natural disasters such as 3/11, inspire ecocritical thinking in the global audience? By providing scholars in East Asian cinema with a space for dialogue, this conference aims at mapping out alternative perspectives toward ecocinema beyond national borders.

This conference invites paper proposals from all areas in East Asian film studies. Interdisciplinary submissions from across the humanities are welcomed. Possible topics include but are not limited to the following:

• Catastrophe in anime

• Eco-activism by celebrities

• Ecocinema as a genre

• Ecocriticism and media theory in Asia

• Ecological documentary

• Environmentalist film

• New media and environment

• Non-anthropocentric worldview

• Sustainability and the film industry

Keynote speakers:

• Kiu-wai Chu, Assistant Professor of Environmental Humanities, Nanyang Technological University

• Rachel DiNitto, Professor of Japanese Literature, University of Oregon

Submission process:

We invite scholars at all stages of their careers, across multiple disciplines as well as employing diverse methods and theories to submit proposals to this in-person conference. We will consider publishing selected contributions in an edited volume. The conference sponsor (the Idaho Asia Institute) will provide presenters with three nights lodging at a hotel in Moscow, Idaho (room shared with one other participant) and some meals. Participants will be expected to fund their own travel to and from Moscow, Idaho and other expenses.

Please submit the paper title, a 300-word abstract, and a short CV to Yuta Kaminishi (yutak@uidaho.edu) by July 30, 2023. Acceptance of proposals will be communicated by August 14, 2023.

Conference Organizers:

• Yuta Kaminishi, Postdoctoral Fellow in Asian Cinema, University of Idaho

• Jeff Kyong-McClain, Associate Professor of Chinese History, University of Idaho

ÚLTIMAS PUBLICACIONES ACADÉMICAS 2023 (III)

Continuamos con nuestra revisión de los libros académicos relacionados con los estudios coreanos que se han publicado a lo largo del segundo trimestre de 2023. Un listado centrado en diversas y muy variadas áreas dentro de los campos de las Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, puestos ya a disposición de todos por las diferentes editoriales que facilitamos a continuación:

CFP: "GUEST-WORKERS OF THE WORLD" 5TH EUROPEAN LABOUR HISTORY NETWORK CONFERENCE

“Guest-workers of the World”, Uppsala, 11-13 June 2024

5th European Labour History Network (ELHN) Conference

ELHN’s “Labour Migration History” working group invites proposals for papers for the Fifth European Labour History Network conference. The event takes place from 11–13 June 2024 in Uppsala, Sweden, and is organised by the Swedish Labour Movement’s Archives and Library.

So-called guest-workers programs spread out in many transnational contexts during and after the Second World War through agreements that involved various actors at the national and transnational levels. Much has been done in relation to specific cases, but we aim to bring together the different historical context in which they were developed to draft a picture of guest-worker programs at the global level. We are looking for papers about labor programs established under binational agreements in the period 1942-1973 in any world region.

Empirical works related to this topic are welcome by colleagues of any career level. We invite colleagues working on guest-worker programs from various regions in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas to submit abstracts that addresses one or more of the following themes (but not limited to):

• process of recruitment and establishing of processing centers;

• process of mobility and sites of immobilization;

• negotiation between states;

• labor contract’s condition under the binational agreement;

• coercion, indebtment, discriminations and racialization;

• protests, self-organization of guest-workers and connection with unions;

• deportation and repatriation;

• workers’ perspective of life and working conditions abroad;

• cultures of mobility;

• national identity making through the guest-worker program;

• relation between the program and economic transformations (i.e. agrarian reforms, displacement, extractivism, etc)

We are looking for proposals for individual papers of max. 300 words. They should include your name, current affiliation, email address, an indication of whether they are participating onsite or online, and be sent to the coordinating committee by September 5, 2023.

For further questions, please contact the coordination committee:

Claudia Bernardi: claudia.bernardi@unipg.it

Anna Batzeli: abatzeli3@gmail.com

CFP: "THE MICRO AS MACRO; NARRATING WORLD HISTORIES OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND ENVIRONMENT" CONFERENCE

Graduate Student Conference

“The Micro as Macro: Narrating World Histories of Science, Technology, and Environment”,

UC Santa Cruz Center of World History Grad Student Conference; October 20, 2023

The UC Santa Cruz Center of World History is now accepting applications for papers or entire panels from presenters for our annual graduate student conference, "'The Micro as Macro': Narrating World Histories of Science, Technology, and Environment," to be held Friday, October 20, 2023 in Santa Cruz, CA. Since the early 2000s, the UCSC Center for World History has fostered a rich set of lectures, conferences, pedagogical workshops, and scholarly conversations in global, regional, and transnational histories. Those interested in presenting should submit a paper title and 300-word abstract. Please email your proposal to cwh@ucsc.edu by August 11.

While world history topics have expanded recently to include diverse areas, the Euro-American experience continues to dominate scholarship and is often treated as the assumed global model. The UCSC Center of World History invites paper proposals for its fourth (almost) annual graduate student conference, which explores non-European places and actors by centering on techno-scientific, environmental, sensorial, and spatial-based themes that reveal how the relationship between “small” subjects like microorganisms have shaped world history in ways that challenge or reimagine conceptions of progress and development. With this in mind, this conference will focus on histories spanning from 1700 to the present that tell global stories through small subjects such as viruses, cotton seeds, and metal alloys. By inviting a wide range of chronological and geographic loci, we hope to expand our definition of world history to one that does not default toward Euro-American experiences.

We hope to solicit individual papers that address the following topics:

• non-Western case studies that address techno-scientific, environmental, sensorial, and spatial-based themes

• Small subjects contributing to global histories

• Small subjects challenging Western epistemologies

• Small subjects informing/shaping indigenous communities

• Intellectual ways to challenge Western hegemony

We hope to focus on histories of science, technology, and the environment that highlight marginalized and micro histories. With conference presenters, we hope to apply new and needed insights to the ways in which we understand the past. Dr. David Fedman, Associate Professor of History at UC Irvine and author of Seeds of Control: Japan's Empire of Forestry in Colonial Korea, will deliver the keynote address.

We strongly encourage in-person participation, but the conference will have remote options for those who request it. For participants who do not have conference funding from their own institution, we have limited funds for travel support.

The deadline for proposals is Friday, August 11, 2023.

Proposals should include a paper title and 300-word abstract. Please email your proposal to cwh@ucsc.edu by August 11.

We look forward to reading your proposals!

Clara Bergamini, Piper Milton, Alexyss McClellan-Ufugusuku, Jinghong Zhang (Conference Organizing Committee)