Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Society

Friday, July 22

Opening remark

09:10-09:30

Panel 1. The Long March of 50 year People’s Movement: The works of Muto Ichiyo

09:30-12:30

If one has to name a visionary thinker who has inspired different generations of critical intellectuals, movement activists in particular, in the Post-World War II Asia, Muto Ichiyo is undoubtedly the most respected choice. In the past 50 years, as an activist, a movement organizer, a teacher, a writer, a theorist, and a genuine human being, Muto has contributed to the interactions, or should one say, integration, of critical circles in Asia. His visionary practices to carve out non-statist spaces of people’s movement in the form of a trans-border democracy has created new possibilities and new theories of struggles in Asia. In this panel, we invite intellectuals, who have the experiences to work with Muto in different projects at various historical moments, to critically reflect on different aspects of Muto’s work. We think this is the best way to honor an important Asian thinker.

• Organizers: Francis Lee Daehoon and Kuan-Hsing Chen
• Moderators: Cho Heeyeon (Sungunghoe University) / Agnes Khoo (ARENA)
• Respondent: Muto Ichiyo (PPSG)
• Panelists:
  • Keiichi Amano (PPSG, Tokyo), Post war Japan and Asia - Muto’s view point
  • Po-keung Hui and Kinchi Lau (Ling-nan University, Hong Kong), Reflections through a local lens on Muto’s Ideas of Alternative Practices: A Hong Kong Perspective
  • Jermey Brecher, Transborder Participatory Democracy: Problems and Prospects
  • Jai Sen (independent researcher, CA/CIM, New Delhi, India), On Incivility and Transnationality : Towards Alliances of Critical Hope. Steps towards critically engaging with Muto Ichiyo’s concept of transborder participatory democracy
  • Ohashi Seiko (the Philippines), Towards ‘Numberless International’: Rethinking our solidarity works in 80s and 90s
  • Luis Lopezllera (Promotion of Popular Development, Mexico), Common hopes across the ocean
  • Francis Lee Daehoon (People Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, Seoul)

* Panel 1 is co-sponsored by Asian Regional Exchange for New Alternatives (ARENA).

Panel 2. Trans/Asian Trans/Gender: New Approaches to Transgender Cultures in Asia

13:30-15:30

One of the most notable new developments in the area of gender and sexuality studies over recent years has been the emergence of a new body of work focussing on cultures of transgenderism. “Transgender” is a term that has been coined to cover cultures of non-normative gender identity ranging from regimes of secondary gender in lesbian and gay subcultures, to forms of androgynous/ ambiguous gender identity, to pre- and post-operative transsexual identities. The boom since the mid-1990s in queer studies within Asia has begun to produce a wide array of new work focussing on transgender cultures localized in Asian contexts. What kinds of transgender culture and politics are found in local contexts within the Asian region? How do local transgender cultures relate to Western theories and cultures of transgender? How do Asian transgender cultures relate, intra-Asia, to each other? How can we map the complex relationships between transgender cultures and the various institutions and ideologies of the nation-state in an era that some proclaim to be moving toward the post- or trans-national? These are some of the key questions that this panel will address.

• Organizers: Fran Martin (University of Melbourne), Josephine Ho (National Central University, Taiwan)
  Moderator: Fran Martin
• Discussant: Chae Unjo (Department of Middle Eastern and African Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies)
• Panelists:
  • Lee Kyung, Lost in Transsexualism: Ha, RiSu and their outcome as belle of TV
  • Josephine Ho (Center for the Study of Sexualities, National Central University, Taiwan), Gender Embodiment and Trans Subjectivity in Taiwan
  • Junko Mitsuhashi (Joint researcher at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies), Transgender World in Modern Japan

Panel 3. Cross-bordering and the Politics of ‘Anti-national’ in Asian Pop Music

16:00-18:00

Since the 1990s, in the aftermath of the Cold War, pop culture has become glowing hotter in East Asia than any other regions in the world. It has not stopped at the boundaries of national culture, and has spread throughout the region in terms of production, distribution and consumption. Many questions can be raised with regard to this phenomenon: Is it an effect of globalization/global culture, merely one of its many regional versions? Does it present itself as an alternative to the western pop culture, as a pan-Asian pop culture? In other words, we wonder whether it is another phase of ‘Americanization’ of Asian culture, or a new ‘modern’ Asian culture through transcultural negotiations and hybridization.

The proposed panel attempts to provide answers to these questions by focusing on youth culture and pop music in the East Asian region. Questions are more specifically readdressed in this context: Why is the notion of ‘Asia’ being blurred among the Asian youths who find their cultural identity in the contemporary pop music and pop culture in general? What are the implications of their desire to ‘deterritorialize’ with regard to the cultural politics in East Asia? There are many factors to be considered, such as music industry (as a part of culture industry), media flows, national political situations, musical institutions of Asian origin (e.g. karaoke).

The (trans)formation of regional and national versions of pop music involves a complex process of production, distribution, and consumption, through which the global hegemony of pop culture is translated into national languages, and therefore creates national variations as well as the regional hierarchy of the cultural industry. In terms of pop music, we may conceive the formation of multiple Asian pop(s), under which such national versions as J-pop, K-pop, Cantopop, Pinoypop, Thaipop etc. are communicating and competing with one another on a regional scale.

In through the researches, we will watch cross-bordering and national/postnational character of Asian pop music.

• Organizer: Shin Hyunjoon (Sungkonghoe University, Seoul)
• Moderator: Lee Kee Hyung (Kyunghee University, Seoul)
• Discussant: Koich Iwabuchi (Waseda University, Tokyo)
• Presenters:
  • Toshimaru Ogura (Toyama University, Tokyo/Japan), Nationalism in J-pop
  • Anthony Fung (Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong/HKSAR), The Emerging (National) Popular Music Culture in China
  • Ho Tunghung (Fo-Guang University, Ilan/Taiwan), Taiwan’s Alternative Popular Music Scenes and Their Localizing Anglo-American Practices
  • Terestia Maceda (University of Philippines, Quezon City/Philippines), Problematizing the Popular: The Dynamics between: Pinoy Pop Music and Popular Protest Music
  • Ubonrat Siriyuvasak (Chulalogkorn University, Bangkok/Thailand) and Shin Hyunjoon (Sungkonghoe University/Seoul), Mainstreaming Asian Pop: Thai youth and K-pop consumption

* Panel 3 is co-hosted by Institute for East Asian Studies at Sunkonghoe University and co-sponsored by The Korean Culture and Arts Foundation.

Saturday, July 23

Panel 4. A Roundtable on Changing Cultural Imaginary of “China”

09:30-12:30

Why do we want to study the question of the imaginary of China? What makes the imaginary of China a meaningful problematic? In Asia, especially when discourse in Northeast Asia has begun to receive public attention, how to describe and analyze the international relation in the region is, however, not self-evident. Most of the existing modes of analysis, adopting postcolonial theory developed in Euro-America to account for the relations in Northeast Asia, are often insufficient. Alternative tools and new perspectives are urgently needed. Fro instance, how can we adequately conceptualize China which is still very much in transition? Because the existing China studies cannot fully explain the socio-political conditions of China, it constrains the understanding and judgment on China’s international influence in actual situation. At the same time, various political tensions emerging in the Northeast Asia also require more sophisticated analysis. Therefore, how one imagines and perceives China will directly influence a series of political judgments and decisions, as well as effect the constellation of the international relations in the region. To study the changing imaginary of China is thus a subject for cultural studies, intellectual history and political science. It has strong implications for practices.

There are two parts of the question to the imaginary of China: internal and external imaginaries. The major difference between the two aspects is that the internal one is concerned with the unstable elements emerging in the processes of specific events, and therefore it is impossible to imagine China in a singular form; and the external one tends to integrate dispersed elements, and hence to reach clear and unified judgment of China. The internal and external imaginaries do not necessarily mean the actor or observer’s own imagination; they can be oppositional or exchangeable, and in certain conditions, the two can be complementary. In short, as the basic modes of analysis, these two modes of imagining China in different locations need to be further problematized.

These different imaginaries of China ultimately point toward very concrete elements, which are difficult to study. For instance, whether China is a capitalist country? Whether China is actually effecting threats to the entire region? Whether to adopt the critical perspective of nationalism is able to clarify China’s history and reality? And so on. With a tendency to over-generalize the East Asia discourse, there is an urgent need for adequate analytic tools. Perhaps, through the discussion of the imaginary of China, such an adequate discourse on Asia can be further developed to deal with concrete realities.

• Organizers/Moderators: Sun Ge (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing), Baik Youngseo (Yonsei University, Seoul)
• Panelists:
  • Baik Youngseo (History, Yonsei University, Seoul)
  • Lei Qili (Communication, Eastern Chinese Normal University, Shanghai)
  • Zheng Hongsheng (Writer, Taipei)
  • Eric Ma (Media, Chinese University of Social Sciences)
  • Josh Hong (Center for Strategic Information, Malaysia)
  • Mori Yoshio (History, Oasaka Unversity)

Panel 5. A Roundtable on Critical Legacies for Feminism

13:30-15:30

The main concern of this round-table will be to trace the conceptual-political legacies of contemporary feminisms. It is an attempt to carry forward the conversations begun in the 2000 IACS conference in Fukuoka and the 2001 Bangalore conference on Feminisms in Asia. While the earlier conversations focused on laying out the ground from which initial inquiry could begin, the present panel aims at detailing the issues that could (a) illuminate the present situation of feminism in a variety of Asian contexts, and (b) provide the basis for genuine comparative discussion.

• Organizer/Moderator: Tejaswini Niranjana (Centre for the Study of Culture & Society, Bangalore)
• Panelists:
  • Kim Eunshil (Ewha Womans University, Seoul)
  • Ding Naifei (National Central University, Taiwan)
  • Ko Gaphee (Hanshin University, Korea)
  • Melani Budianta (University of Indonesia)
  • Firdous Azim (University of Dhaka, Bangladesh)

Panel 6: New Media

16:00-18:00

The panel looks at the relationships between digital media and their political and cultural possibilities. It will address a number of issues. Firstly, this panel will examine how new social and political movements utilize artistic expression through new digital media such as the internet, in order not only to gather and circulate relevant information but also to mobilize people. Secondly it considers the way in which cultural identities and transculturation are expressed in the digital media. Thirdly it tries to see how the traditional categories of art, media and politics are now being transformed through the development of information technologies.

• Organizer/Moderator: Ashish Rajadhyaksha (Centre for the Study of Culture & Society, Bangalore)
• Discussant: Shunya Yoshimi (Tokyo University)
• Panelists:
  • Yoshitaka Mori (Tokyo National University of Arts and Music, Tokyo), New technology, New Art and DiY Culture
  • Audrey Yue, Dept. of English and Cultural Studies, Melbourne University, Hawking in the Creative City: Cultural Citizenship and The Politics of the Creative Class in Singapore
  • Liu Shi-diing (Dept. of Media Studies Macau University), History as legacy and project against neocolonialism: A discussion of anti-Japan cyberculture in China
  • Jeon Gyuchan (KNUA), The Contradiction of Capital and Culture in New Media/Technology Development

Panel 7. East Asian Cinema Spectatorship

18:30-20:30

This panel will be an exploration of “East Asian cinema specatorship” on new terms. First of all, here “East Asia” is not the geographically reductive conception of space determined by national borders, but rather a complex mediatory imagination between empire and colony. Both “cinema” and “spectator” will serve as both object of analysis and instruments for the analysis of the formation of colonial modernity through the multilayer histories of the regions. Specific foci include the asymmetrical developments of various “local” cinemas; the subaltern status of cinema; and the various modes in which “East Asian cinema” has been assimilated into world systems. In sum, we will demonstrate how “cinema” and the histories of its reception transfigure “East Asia” from geopolitical territory to a critical method.

• Organizer: Kim Soyoung (KNUA)
  Moderator: Paik Wondam (Sung Gung Hoe University)
• Discussants: Rob Wilson (UCSC) / Baek Moon Im (Yonsei University, Korean Literature)
• Panelists:
  • Ju Changkyu (KNUA, Korean Cinema), Theorizing Subaltern Spectatorship in East Asia
  • Park Pyongwon (KNUA, Chinese Cinema), Poetry, Peking Opera, Wu Xia: Aesthetic Perspective and Imagined State-Images in Chinese Films
  • Kim Kyung Hyun (University of California, Irvine), The A-semiotics and the A-history of Dictatorship

Sunday, July 24

Panel 8. Transformation of knowledge production in the era of neo-liberal globalization

09:30-12:30

Under the neo-liberal globalization pressure, academic production in Asia is confronting a new phase. The universities in Asia have been pursuing the reform of local universities in reaction to the globalization movement. The Japanese national universities have been semi-privatized and universities in many Asian countries, such as Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Malaysia, have tried to strengthen competitiveness by putting emphasis on global recognition. However, these universities fail to consider the local historical background and the standard of the reform is focused on American universities only. What has been changed and what is the reaction of the local universities? What were the effects and what kind of problems does the university reform have? Further, for the sake of international competition, academic regimes have taken the US based commercial index, SSCI and A&HCI, as point of measurement for ‘national strength’. Since the implementation of this system, from late 1999’s onward, tremendous problems have emerged to affect intellectual work in Asia. English, or more precisely American, writings have become the priority for scholar to adopt, and local and national languages are de-valued. Cultural consequences are immense. This panel attempts to bring together scholars in East Asia to analyze the actual conditions and impacts of neo-liberal globalization and to find alternative ways of academic productions.

• Organizers: Cho Hee-Yeon (SungGungHoe University), Kang Myung-Koo (Seoul National University), Chen Kuan-hsing (National Tsing Hua Unviersity; National University of Singapore)
• Moderator: Paik Nakchung (Seoul National University)
• Respondent: Shim Kwang-Hyun (KNUA)
• Presenters:
  • Hiroaki Ozawa (Chiba University, Tokyo), Japanese National Universities in the Age of Neoliberalism
  • Chu Wan-wen (Academia Sinica, Taipei), Knowledge production in a latecomer: Reproducing economics in Taiwan
  • Huang Hou-ming (National Chenchi University, Taipei), Science as an Ideology: SSCI, TSSCI and the evaluation system of Social Sciences in Taiwan
  • Angel Lin (City University of Hong Kong), The Colonization of Higher Education by Global Management Discourses and Systems: Impact on Academic Culture in Hong Kong
  • Kang Myungkoo (Seoul National University), Toward Globally Top, Locally Third-Ranked Universities
  • Hong Deok-Ryul (Daegu University, Seoul), A Critical Analysis on the University and Academy Accreditation System in Korea
  • Minoru Iwasaki (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies) *, The Deception of the Idea of Self-Responsibility’ and ‘Individualization’: Neo-liberal Rhetoric as Revealed in the Corporatization of Japan’s National Universities
  • Chen Kuan-hsing (National Tsing Hua Unviersity) and Sechin Y. S. Chien (Academia Sinica) *, Knowledge Production in the era of Neo-liberal Globalization

Panel 9. Sex and Mobility: the Case of Women Migrant Workers in the Entertainment Sector of Asia

13:30-15:30

The new world order of global capitalism is generating a new pattern of life and labor, namely, international migration through an unequal distribution of economic resources. International migration, which is the moving of "living human beings," has long been a part of the everyday reality of Asia. The recent process of globalization indicates the phenomenon of the "feminization" of migration. The number of women in the migrant population is rapidly increasing and many women are crossing national borders in search of jobs in the ‘care’ sector, typically treated as "women’s work," such as housework, childcare, patient-aid, and jobs related to sexual intimacy. The so-called ‘sex’ industry being propelled in the late modern society of the commercialization of intimacy and sex, is promoting the international migration of women of different races, religions and nationalities, identifying them as new "resources" of entertainment and recreation. The migration of Asian women in particular bears such "gendered" traits of international migration of labor. The purpose of this panel is to figure out how to conceptualize the migrant women of the sex industry as sex workers, and to understand the limitations and possibilities of such efforts, by examining cases of experiences of women from Japan, Korea and Taiwan.

• Organizer: Kim Hyun Mee (Graduate Program in Culture and Gender Studies and the Dept. of Sociology, Yonsei University)
• Moderator: Nah Yoonkyeong (Graduate Program in Culture and Gender Studies, Yonsei University)
• Respondent: Chua Beng Huat (Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore)
• Panelists:
  • Wang Fang-Ping (Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters, Coswas), Migrant Worker’s Rights and Good Anti-Trafficking Campaign: the Experiences of Asian Sex Workers in Taiwan
  • Kim Hyun Mee (Graduate Program in Culture and Gender Studies and the Dept. of Sociology, Yonsei University), Moving bodies in the Korean-Style entertainment: the Case of migrant women in the Entertainment Sector of Korea
  • Aoyama Kaoru (People’s Plan Study Group, Tokyo; PhD, Department of Sociology, University of Essex, UK), Becoming someone else: Migrant Thai Women from ‘Sex Workers’ to ‘Sexual Slaves’ in Changing Social Structures

Panel 10. ‘New Woman’: Colonialism, Globalization and Inter-Asia Feminism

16:00-18:30

The "New Woman" in Japan, China and Korea was an emerging new subjectivity in early 20th century. As a lliminal figure at the threshold of pre-modern and modern, she has paved a torturous and productive path for contemporary feminism to come. As an oblique counterpart to the one in the West, the emergence of New Woman in East Asia involves a complex historicization and articulation of globalization and feminism. Moreover, it urges to reflect upon the legacies of Japanese colonialism in the furthering of Inter-Asia Feminism.

• Organizer/Moderator: Kim Soyoung (KNUA, Korea)
• Respondents: Meaghan Morris (Cultural Studies, Lingnan University, Hong Kong) / Ayako Saito (Meiji Gakuin University, Japan)
• Presenters:
  • Kim Soojin (Seoul National University), Excess of the Modern: Three figures of New Woman in Colonial Korea, 1920-1930’s
  • Dai Jinhua (Peking University, China), Modern girl, New women in Early Chinese Film
  • Ahn Minhwa (Meiji Gakuin University, Japan), The New Woman, the Modern Girl, and their Histories in Modern Japan
  • Earl Jackson, Jr. (University of California, Santa Cruz / KNUA), Fantasy that Matter: The Counterhistories of Bertha Pappenheim and Ito Noe

Closing Party

18:30-21:00