Conferences Accepting Submissions

Call for Submissions: Justice in Translation

The Justice in Southeast Asia Lab (JSEALab) is calling for submissions to Justice in Translation, a web publication series that will publish one short-to-medium length translation [up to 10,000 words] from a Southeast Asian language to English each month. This may be a law, a court decision, an essay, a short story, a poem, a protest declaration, etc. — any piece that a given translator would like to share with a broad, English-reading audience including scholars, practitioners, journalists, and others. Translators should provide a short [500-1000 words] introduction to their translation elaborating its context and significance. Accepted and published translations will receive a 100 USD honorarium.

The JSEALab is part of a five-year initiative on Social Justice in Southeast Asia at the University of Wisconsin-Madison generously funded by the Henry Luce Foundation and located in the Center for Southeast Asian Studies and the Human Rights Program. A combination of intensive exchange between faculty and graduate students and public-facing events that aims to foster significant collaboration between academics and practitioners, reflecting both the recognition that a growing number of MAs and PhDs in Southeast Asian Studies are choosing to pursue professional careers outside the university and that there is a need for academic work to be directly responsive to ongoing social justice crises in the region.

Send submissions and questions to: tyrell.haberkorn@wisc.edu.

CFP | Monarchy in Southeast Asia and their Impact on Urban Development Now
National University of Singapore (NUS)

Submission Deadline: April 11, 2022
Workshop Dates: August 25-26, 2022

This workshop explores the overlooked question of the influence of monarchies in shaping contemporary urban development in Southeast Asia. The royal institutions of Southeast Asia have varying degrees of legitimacy: some are residual powers with little influence, others have emerged as personality-driven agents of urban change. Current, and often Western-centric, understandings of urban change privilege the institutions of the state and the market. But in Southeast Asia, monarchical power may also play a part. This workshop seeks to chart that role, be that in the form of the symbolic geographies of extant royal buildings re-branded as heritage, the power of privilege of property ownership, or through entrepreneurial development initiatives. Guiding questions for the conference include:

  • What type of agency do contemporary Asian monarchs have over the development trajectories of the cities they identify with and are located in?
  • How is that influence exercised and what are its urban consequences?
  • What is the relationship between royal authority, modern state power, and the market in Asian urban contexts?
  • To what extent is this urban agency articulated in and through inherited morphologies and forms versus contemporary urban visions?
  • How does royal power and planning power intersect?

Monarchies in Asia have received extensive scholarly attention but primarily through the lenses of history and anthropology, perspectives that often overlook the ways in which royal institutions act as contemporary social agents. In the context of Southeast Asia, for example, much has been made of the diminishment of royal power through colonial decisions or postcolonial nationalism ideology (Porananond & King, 2016). Far from residual, many monarchical systems survive in the present, albeit with varying degrees of authority and transparency with respect to contemporary state-based institutions and market forces (Kershaw, 2001). These persistent monarchical systems operate in dynamic and varied political contexts, ranging from autocratic, militarised, faltering democratization, and new trends of political decentralization. In the context of Thailand, for example, scholars speak of ‘royal power’ as a dispersed elite ‘form of network governance’ (McCargo, 2005; Winichakul, 2008), one that has served anti-democratic forces (Ivarsson & Isager, 2010). In Indonesia, laws on Yogyakarta Special Province have allowed the sultan to be automatically appointed as the governor, offering a form of local power (Hudalah et al., 2014), while other members of the royal family hold positions in influential organizations and government departments (Eswe, 2008; Marwan, 2016). In Malaysia, scholarly attention is turning to the entrepreneurial ‘re-emergence’ of the Sultan of Johor (Hutchinson & Nair, 2016). In sum, the monarchs of Asia are not merely residual royal institutions, they enjoy political and economic privileges which in turn allows them to shape urban development in various ways.

This workshop gathers scholars with an interest in urban change in Asia and the way it responds to or is shaped by royal institutions. While there is growing attention to monarchical power from a political perspective, only limited attention has been given to its agency with respect to urban development trajectories in Asia. More information here.

2nd Annual AIFIS-MSU Conference on Indonesian Studies
American Institute for Indonesian Studies (AIFIS) and Michigan State University (MSU)

Submission Deadline: April 17, 2022
Conference Dates: June 21- 25, 2022

The American Institute for Indonesian Studies (AIFIS), in collaboration with Michigan State University (MSU) Asian Studies Center, will hold the 2nd annual AIFIS-MSU Conference on Indonesian Studies from June 21 – 25, 2022. The Conference celebrates the growing and evolving academic study of Indonesia, and expands research dissemination and collaboration by connecting Indonesian scholars with international colleagues in a bilingual and virtual format.

Indonesian Studies: Emerging Discourses and Collaborations in a New Age

This year’s theme draws attention to the dynamic growth of academic scholarship on Indonesia and the voices of long-term and new members of the research community. The AIFIS-MSU Conference on Indonesian Studies highlights the community’s contributions to and engagements in transnational dialogues through new modalities despite great global challenges, leading to new insights on historical and contemporary issues related to Indonesia.

The Conference encourages connections and boundary-crossings among scholars of Indonesia across geographical and disciplinary divides. Together we seek to multiply the spirit of kerja sama / collaboration among a greater diversity of scholars and scholarly communities. We welcome paper, panel, and roundtable proposals from across the academic fields.

More information available here.

Southeast Asia Digital Library Undergraduate Paper Award
Committee on Research Materials on Southeast Asia (CORMOSEA)

Submission Deadline: May 2, 2022

The Southeast Asia Digital Library Undergraduate Paper Award seeks papers from undergraduates concerning original research in Southeast Asian Studies. The first place winner will receive their choice of two books from the Southeast Asia Program Publications catalog. Both first and second place winners will have their papers published on theSoutheast Asia Digital Library

Applicants Eligibility

Applicants must be current undergraduate students at CORMOSEA affiliated institutions* at the time of submission. Applicants must agree that, should they win, their papers will be made openly accessible and published online on the Southeast Asia Digital Library

Paper Eligibility

Eligible papers must be within the field of Southeast Asian Studies and reference primary source materials. Papers may be written for a class or independent study within the past three academic years: Spring 2019 – Spring 2022. Papers must be between six to twenty pages in length, excluding references and figures.

Evaluation Criteria

Winning papers will demonstrate the student’s ability to support original research with analysis of primary source materials. Papers that reference materials held in Southeast Asia Digital Library collections will be given increased consideration.

Submission Materials

Submission packets should include a cover page containing the paper title, author name, author email, institutional affiliation, and date. Papers should be submitted as a separate PDF document listing only the title. No author information should be included in the paper itself to allow for blind evaluation.

2022 Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs
University of Kansas

Submission Deadline: May 31, 2022
Conference Dates: September 16-18, 2022

Read the full call for papers here. Note also the paper prizes (open to graduate and undergraduate students, papers on Asian Studies in any field) with submission deadline of June 3, 2022. Awards for undergraduates and graduate students include prizes and travel funds as well as conference presentation and publication opportunities. See conference website for more details.

The 5th Philippine Studies Conference in Japan (PSCJ)
University of Tokyo

Submission Deadline: June 3, 2022
Conference Dates: November 26-27, 2022

Philippine studies have been in the interphases of various intellectual efforts. As a part of area studies, most of the scholars engaging in Philippine studies appreciate multidisciplinary approaches and are open to discussion beyond national borders. Since the first Philippine Studies Conference of Japan (PSCJ) in 2006, we have cultivated this tradition of multidisciplinary approaches with international settings.

While Philippine society has become globalized, academia has gradually broadened its eyesight into two frontiers: multispecies ethnography and international relations. The PSCJ steering committee appreciate s the pioneering work of Tsurumi Yoshiyuki’s Banana and the Japanese (1982) and further studies on sea cucumber, whales, or a new generation of banana studies, which are arguably a part of multispecies ethnography in Anthropocene.

Meanwhile, the rise of China has brought international relations back into area studies. While more and more researchers have discussed Philippine foreign policy with geopolitical frameworks, they have not sufficiently collaborated with Filipinists. Such collaboration may generate new intellectual frontiers for both kinds of scholars. These are, of course, only segments of academic disciplines the PSCJ 2022 will cover. Since the COVID 19 pandemic started in early 2020, we have faced new challenges and revisited the old issues with new lenses. Following the tradition of halo halo, we welcome proposals for panels and individual presentations from various areas of inquiry, which would stimulate interdisciplinary discussion on a broad range of topics.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to:
– Economic liberalization, development policy and its effects on everyday lives in rural and urban contexts
– Emerging trends in gender and sexualities studies
– Shifts in international geopolitical and legal policy in the Post-EDSA Philippines
– New challenges of Bangsamoro and “Mindanao”
– Predicaments and resistance of Lumad people (IPs) in the age of development
– Emerging dynamism of ethnicities and identities
– New trends in transnational migration and the Filipino diaspora
– The Duterte administration: the ‘Drug War’, extra-judicial killings, emergent populism and civil society
– Risks and resilience amidst natural and man-made disasters in the past and present
– Continuity and discontinuity of natural resource management
– Tourism and/or new insights into the cultural heritage and cultural resource management
– Revisiting the Philippine Revolution and/or the Philippine historiography
– Religious lives in historical and contemporary contexts
– New media, “fake news” and the online public sphere
– Film, literature, popular culture, and the arts in the past and present

Submission guidelines:
We accept two types of proposals: panel proposals and individual paper proposals. A panel with 3 presenters will run for 90 minutes while panels with 4 or 5 presenters will run for 120 minutes For proposals that involve performances, the showing of films, or the like, please use the panel proposal format and describe your plan in the “note” section. Please submit your proposals for papers and panels by June 3, 2022 by using the following links:

Individual Presentation
Panel Proposal

Notification of acceptance will be sent by the end of July or beginning of August, 2022.

For inquiries, please send an email to the following email addresses.
philstudies2018[at]gmail.com
okada[at]ask.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp

2022 Annual Council on Thai Studies Meeting

Submission Deadline: July 1, 2022

Conference Dates: October  21-23, 2022

Center for Southeast Asian Studies
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Ingraham Hall, Room 206
1155 Observatory Dr, Madison, WI 53706

The Council on Thai Studies (COTS) is an informal organization of scholars interested in all aspects of Thai
studies, broadly defined. First established in 1972, COTS annually provides scholars with a venue for reporting
preliminary findings, opportunities to receive prepublication feedback and a forum to discuss field and archive
challenges. Please consider giving a presentation or gathering a small group for a roundtable discussion or panel.
Graduate students are particularly encouraged to submit papers, although everyone is welcome. Individual topics
or groupings of papers are also welcome. An effort will be made to group individual papers into panel sessions
around common themes. Each presenter will have a maximum of 15 minutes for an oral presentation.
This year is the 50th Anniversary of COTS, and thus this conference will be historic. Keynote speakers will
include Professor Emeritus Thongchai Winichakul (University of Wisconsin-Madison) and Professor Pinkaew
Laungaramsri (Chiang Mai University).

Please send brief abstracts (no more than 300 words, including contact information and institutional affiliation)
to Ian Baird (ibaird@wisc.edu) by the deadline of July 1, 2022. Acceptance of paper proposals, information regarding scheduling of panels and assignment of panel moderators and discussants will be sent via email. All presentations will be given in-person, and the conference will not provide virtual access.

A block of rooms will be held at the Middleton Fairfield Inn, which is farther than walking distance from the
conference site. Conference participants should make their own reservations as soon as possible at: 608-831-
1400. These rooms will be held until September 20, 2022; please mention the Council on Thai Studies Conference group block. We are also willing to help graduate students from other institutions arrange to stay with UW-Madison graduate students.

22nd Congress of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association

Submission Deadline: August 15, 2022
Conference Dates: November 7 – 12, 2022

  • We accept abstracts in English. If it helps to reach a wider readership, a translated version of the abstract in the author’s preferred language can be included later, once the abstract has been accepted.

  • Authors must be registered and be included in the IPPA mailing list to ensure receipt of all updates concerning the conference. Visit the Contact Us page to update your details.

  • An author can present a maximum of two papers. However, this only applies to lead authors and panel chairs, e.g., as a panel chair and one paper, as a chair to two panels (but no paper presentation), etc. We might consider a separate poster presentation depending on authorships and circumstances. Please contact the IPPA Secretariat to confirm your eligibility for a separate poster entry.

  • In submitting the abstract, the author also grants the IPPA Secretariat and the organising committee the right to publish abstracts in the conference program, both online and in print format. The author also agrees to abide by the presentation criteria and other guidelines set by the IPPA 2022 organising committee and the session panel chair (such as time limits, structure, etc.).

  • Accepted abstracts may be edited, if necessary, but it is the author’s responsibility to ensure the lack of errors in its final format.

  • The IPPA 2022 organising committee reserves the right to reject any abstract if it does not meet these criteria.

  • All papers are to be presented in person at the IPPA22 Congress. IPPA cannot guarantee that facilities will be available for remote presentation during the conference.

More information available here. 

Upcoming Conferences

Emerging Voices in the Study of Theravada Civilizations
The Theravada Studies Group

Meeting Dates: March 24-27, 2022

The Theravada Studies Group Meeting, as part of the annual Association of Asian Studies meeting, is hosting a series of short presentations showcasing new research by recent PhDs and graduate students who are working on their dissertation.

The TSG Committee Members are accepting proposals from recent PhDs and graduate students to present their meeting at the AAS meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii (March 24-27; Precise date to be announced). At this point, we are planning the meeting will be held in-person, but we will do our best to also accommodate virtual presentations.

We are interested in roughly 10-minute talks on any aspect of Theravada civilizations. The presentations may focus on recent field or archival work, or on a new critical framework of analysis for Theravada societies. Nominations of younger scholars by thesis advisors are welcome.

Please send a brief prospectus of no more than 200 words on your topic. Please also include a brief description of your current status (i.e., year of graduate study, ABD status, or recent PhD (last three years), and academic affiliation). Send inquiries to Brooke Schedneck <schedneckb@rhodes.edu> and Jack Meng-Tat Chia <jackchia@nus.edu.sg> and your proposals to theravadastudiesgroup@gmail.com.

More information available here.

Fragilities Unmasked: Emerging from Social Isolation, Social Inequalities and COVID
14th Annual Muslim Mental Health Conference

Conference Dates: March 25-26, 2022

The unprecedented challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent global lockdowns continue to unmask our fragilities, long existing social inequalities, and have had a profound impact on society and our mental health as life continues to transition and shift. Our knowledge of the impact of the pandemic is evolving, will continue to expand, and the lessons for how we have adapted need to be highlighted. In this year’s conference, we invite conversations on how COVID-19 has impacted your practice: what insights have you gained, how has your practice shifted, what is emerging from the research, and what visions do we have for the future of the mental health field in the era of COVID-19? We welcome insights from practitioners, community organizations, researchers, and religious leaders, thus seeking diverse perspectives of the ways in which COVID-19 has served as a mirror for our vulnerabilities, and the ways in which we have responded and risen to the occasion.

  • To submit a proposal, complete the Cover Sheet online here.
  • Abstracts should be submitted via online form by September 30, 2021.
  • Format: Abstracts must adhere to the American Psychological Association (APA) format and must not exceed 300 words.
  • Notification: Authors will be notified by December 6, 2021.

1972: The War Between North and South Vietnam
Vietnam Center & Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive

Conference Dates: April 1-2, 2022

The Vietnam Center & Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive and Institute for Peace & Conflict at Texas Tech University, and the War and Society Program at Chapman University, are pleased to announce a Vietnam War conference focused on the year 1972. This conference will approach a wide range of historical events and topics by hosting presenters who examine diplomatic, military, international, regional, social, cultural, and domestic aspects of the Vietnam War. We also seek presentations that reflect the recent and emerging scholarship on the policies, strategies, and decisions of the military, political, and diplomatic leaders of all nations involved as they sought to bring a successful conclusion to the war. Find more information and registration here.

2022 School of Pacific and Asian Studies Graduate Student Conference
Technologies & Adaptations: Celebrating Innovations in Human Knowledge Across Asia
University of Hawai’i at Mānoa

Conference Dates: April 6-7, 2022

The University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa School of Pacific and Asian Studies Graduate Student Conference is an annual event inviting graduate students in any academic discipline with a focus on Asia to present their research.

The conference has been held for over three decades and gives students an opportunity to present their research to a friendly group of peers and professors. As many students from across the United States, Europe, and Asia attend the conference, there are ample opportunities to network with fellow academics with a passion for the study of Asia. More information available here.

Transitions: Asia Through Space and Time
Trans-Asia Graduate Student Conference (TAGS)
TAGSA UW-Madison

Conference Dates: April 8-9, 2022

The Trans-Asia Graduate Student Association is pleased to announce the Eighth Annual Trans-Asia Graduate Student Conference at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, encompassing Asia-related research across a wide range of fields. Participants will have a valuable opportunity to share work with and receive feedback from peers and senior researchers as well as to gain insight into recent developments in Asia-related research across various disciplines.

This year’s conference aims to provide broader insight into Asian studies by exploring Asia-related themes through the prism of “transition” in the broadest sense. Potential subjects may include but are not limited to: periods of political, social and cultural transition, migrations and cultural influences within or outside Asia, transitions within methodologies.

Taking the participants’ specific fields of study as a starting point, we want to look for various perspectives and inspiration on Asian studies. Potential fields may include, but are not limited to: literature, linguistics, history, art history, geography, philosophy, economics, anthropology, sociology, education and any other related humanities and social science fields.

More information here.

Beyond Crisis: Anthropology in Transit Conference
UC Irvine

Conference Date: April 8, 2022

Scholars across disciplines have wrestled with how to think, write, speak and teach about the Covid-19 pandemic–particularly the conditions of its emergence, its unevenly distributed harms, and its implications for the future. Researchers and lay people alike often latch onto the concept of “crisis” to emphasize the exigencies of the pandemic and its capacity to throw into relief the impact of climate degradation, anti-Black violence, religious and ethnic persecution, authoritarianism, failed infrastructures, and so on. Approaching these phenomena as “crisis” re-invigorates ongoing debates about inequality and power within and outside the academy.

However, when “crisis” is ongoing and continuous, what analytical value does the term have for grasping the complexities of social suffering? Moreover, when conditions such as poverty, precarity, and illness are presented as crisis, “is it not the case that certain questions become possible while others are foreclosed?” (Roitman 2014). Following Roitman, we seek to move beyond “crisis” and pursue more meaningful and constructive language for addressing present conditions of “stratified liveability” (Wahlburg and Burke, 2021).

More information available here.

Buddhist Identities in Twenty-First Century Asia
University of Cambridge

Conference Dates: April 8-9, 2022

The Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge invites scholars to submit proposals for papers for an international conference on the theme of Buddhist identities across twenty-first century Asia. The conference is associated with Cambridge’s Global Humanities Initiative, which aims to develop approaches to the humanities that engage with scholars around the globe and across religious, cultural, linguistic and political borders.
The conference will explore the character, changes and challenges of Buddhist identity in contemporary Asian cultures. Papers may concern the evolving nature of how Asian Buddhist identities are constructed, negotiated and intersect with other modes of identity in the globalized, technologized twenty-first century; they may investigate the dynamics of modern Asian Buddhism in relation to other religious groups, as well as cultural contexts, ethnicity and/or political institutions in different regions and settings. A central aim of the event is to provide a forum for discussion between scholars working on regions of Buddhist Asia from a distance, such as those affiliated to Western academic institutions, and those who conduct research at institutions within or proximate to Buddhist cultures, whether in South, Central, East or Southeast Asia.
Proposed contributions may employ any relevant methodology or concern any narrower subject matter that illuminates the themes outlined above. The conference is particularly interested in and encourages papers submitted by scholars at any stage in their career, including the late stages of doctoral research, who are affiliated to universities or research centres in regions of Buddhist Asia.

Five keynote speakers will present papers that deal with a range of Asian Buddhist contexts:
Prof. John Clifford Holt (Bowdoin College, USA)
Dr Elizabeth Harris (University of Birmingham, UK)
Dr Adam Yuet Chau (University of Cambridge, UK)
Dr Nicolas Sihlé (CNRS, France)
Dr Johannes Beltz (Museum Rietberg Zürich, Switzerland)

The conference will take place in Cambridge over 8–9th April 2022. The event will take a hybrid format, allowing for some contributors to present remotely, although the aim is to host in person as many participants as circumstances permit. Authors of chosen submissions will be offered accommodation in Cambridge between 7­–10th April 2022. Contributors will be encouraged to seek institutional funds to support travel to and from the event, but will also be eligible to seek financial support for travel from the conference.

Paper titles and abstracts no longer than 400 words, anticipating papers no longer than 30 minutes in length, should be submitted together with a CV by 1st December 2021 to the convener, Dr Chris V. Jones, at the following address: cubuddhistidentities@gmail.com. Queries may be sent to this same address. Outcomes will be communicated by early 2022.

LCTLS Preparing Nations and Learners for a Multicultural World
National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages (NCOLCTL)

Conference Dates: April 22-24, 2022

The 25th annual Virtual Conference of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages is scheduled to be held April 22-24, 2022, (with pre-conference workshops scheduled for April 21, 2022). The NCOLCTL Conference Committee invites proposals for individual papers, colloquia, and poster sessions to be presented at this conference.

The conference aims to pursue a new pathway for advocating innovative approaches in research and teaching practices, maximizing professional exchanges and collaboration among LCTL educators, and leveraging resources and strengths in the LCTL community. We cordially invite researchers, educators, practitioners, program developers, and administrators to submit proposals and attend the conference.

TARGETED TOPICS:

Compelling proposals should address the needs of today’s learners and educators by focusing on innovative programs, emerging trends that are relevant to the language profession. Submissions should fall broadly within the conference theme: LCTLS PREPARING NATIONS AND LEARNERS FOR A MULTICULTURAL WORLD. Although proposed presentations may focus on individual languages, each paper should strive to address issues with relevance to many languages. These proposals can be generated based on any of the topics listed below. Other topics relevant to the conference theme are also welcomed.

The focus of session topics includes:

  • LCTL Curriculum and Material Development
  • LCTL Teacher Professional Development
  • LCTL Leadership and Advocacy
  • LCTL Innovation and Technology
  • LCTL Pedagogy
  • LCTL Research
  • LCTL Assessment
  • LCTL Learner Diversity

Other topics for consideration may include: heritage language education, bilingual education, interculturality, literacy, languages across the curriculum, personalized learning, Standards-based instruction, and professionalism.

Find more information here.

Change, Adaptation, and Perseverance
World Languages Graduate Student Organization (WLGO)

Conference Date: April 23, 2022

The World Languages Graduate Student Organization (WLGO) invites you to submit abstracts for academic papers or creative writing pieces that explore the topics on change, adaptation, and perseverance within and between disciplines including, but not limited to, linguistics, language acquisition, education, anthropology, history, cognitive and behavioral sciences, computer science and information technology, literature, literary translation, cinema studies, cultural studies, gender, women, and sexuality studies, performance studies, the fine arts.

Please submit abstracts of 250 words to wlgoiaconf@gmail.com by 5:00 pm on Monday, March 7, 2022. We prefer abstracts and presentations in English, but we will consider submissions in other languages. Final presentations for the conference should be in English. In your abstract, please specify if your presentation will be an academic paper or a creative writing piece. We welcome both individual presentations and panel proposals of 3-4 presenters. (Please note we may consider individual presentations for inclusion on a panel.) Presentations will be 15 minutes followed by 5 minutes for questions.

In addition to your abstract, please provide:
• Your name
• Your university affiliation
• The title of your presentation
• Whether you are proposing an individual presentation or a panel discussion
• A short academic biography

Mobility and Cultural Exchange in Southeast Asian Ports
Center for Global Asia, NYU Shanghai

Workshop Dates: May 2022

This interdisciplinary workshop seeks to spotlight the role of Southeast Asian port cities as places of cultural and intellectual exchange from the early modern period to the contemporary present. The workshop will be held in-person in Shanghai in May 2022. If an in-person workshop is not possible, it will be held in a fully online format. More information here.

 Southeast Asian De/Neo/Inter/Post-Colonialism
SEASGRAD at UC-Riverside

Conference Date: May 20, 2022

More information available here.

31st Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society (SEALS 31)
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa

Conference Dates: May 19 -21, 2022

The Department of Linguistics at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa invites scholars working on Southeast Asian linguistics to the 31st Annual Meeting of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society (SEALS), May 19-21, 2022, with a special virtual poster session on May 13, 2022. SEALS 31 (2022) will be a hybrid conference, held concurrently in-person (on the campus of the University of Hawaii at Manoa) and online. Authors of accepted abstracts will be asked to indicate by February 15, 2022 whether they will present online or in-person:

  • Online presenters of oral talks will submit pre-recorded video of their 20-minute talk by April 15, 2022, and attend a live (online) 10-minute-long discussion session, during which questions may be asked from online or in-person attendees.
  • In-person presenters of oral talks will deliver a 20-minute talk to the audience in Hawaii, while being live-streamed online (permitting remote participants to watch the talk live). This will be followed by a 10-minute-long discussion period, during which questions may be asked from online or in-person attendees.
  • Poster presenters may present online (at the virtual poster session on May 13, 2022) or in-person during live poster sessions during the May 19-21 conference.
    If COVID-19 conditions worsen, SEALS 31 will revert to a fully online conference. That decision will be made before acceptance decisions are announced.

More information available here.

Inter-Asia Intermediality: A Two-Part International Workshop
Part 1: University of Southern California
Part 2: Chinese University of Hong Kong

Workshop Dates: Part 1 – May 20-21, 2022
Part 2 – June 10-11, 2022

“Inter-Asia Intermediality: A Two-Part International Workshop” intends to highlight the intersections between these two emergent fields by bringing them into a productive scholarly conversation. Beyond the continuity and smoothness of encounter and passage within and between different forms of media (as well as between Asian subregions), we are interested in intermediality’s contradictions and frictions amid the tenuous relationships within Asia. Neves and Sarkar’s pioneering edited volume Asian Video Cultures (2017) highlights how video acts as a mediator for the social and historical contradictions of a diverse region such as Asia. Similarly, we seek to explore in this conference how intermediality can intervene in similar, multiple ways in the dynamic and elusive cross-cultural, intraregional, and trans-border exchanges between East, Southeast, and South Asia.

The impact of the rise of digital media (and digital media’s refashioning—or remediation—of older media forms) as a catalyst of processes of inter-Asian regionalization—as well as its exposure of tensions and challenges in those processes—has not been sufficiently interrogated.  To this end, our workshop will foreground two reciprocal and mutually reflexive questions for further inquiry:
How do processes of intermediality (including the frictions, contradictions, connections, and divergences between different platforms of media convergence) break up homogeneous or regionally bounded conceptions of Asia?
By modifying platform-specific media content for distribution and exhibition on unintended platforms or for unanticipated audiences, how do regionalized inter-Asian productions and circulations of media content challenge homogeneous or disciplinary-bounded understandings of specific media platforms?

Subjects for submission may include:
The integration or cross-pollination of media platforms from East, Southeast, and South Asia, including but not limited to cinema, multimedia art, street art, televisual media, microblogging, live-streaming, video-sharing, video games, and music videos.
Inter-Asian media convergence through regional co-production, celebrity culture, cross-border migration and tourism, transnational racial and religious identities, feminist and LGBTQ+ activism, multilingual code-mixing, and shared environmental concerns (e.g., haze, typhoons, tsunamis, flooding).

Please note:
We are currently planning to hold the two-part workshop in a hybrid format (using Zoom-enabled conference rooms at both USC and CUHK), with both in-person and remote (via Zoom) participation options available to presenters. As this workshop aims to curate a published volume, only previously unpublished papers or those not already committed elsewhere are preferred.  As cinema and media studies scholars will comprise majority of the contributors, we hope to draw in some contributions from other areas, including art, literature, and photography. The workshop will give special consideration to scholars working on South Asia and Southeast Asia as well as underrepresented languages and cultures (especially Indigenous ones) in the fields of Asian studies and media studies.

EuroSEAS Conference 2022
European Association for Southeast Asian Studies

Conference Dates: June 28 – July 1, 2022

The European Association for Southeast Asian Studies (EuroSEAS) will hold its 12th conference at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), on the new Campus Condorcet, Paris-Aubervilliers, France, from 28 June to 1 July 2022.

EuroSEAS invites scholars and PhD students from all academic disciplines with an interest in Southeast Asia to submit panels that explore relevant research topics from an interdisciplinary perspective as well as discuss theoretical and methodological aspects of research generated in the field of Southeast Asian Studies.

Proposals are invited for classical panels, roundtable discussions, laboratories that would develop cross-disciplinary collaboration, and for screenings with academic discussion of documentaries or artistic movies on various topics from Southeast Asia. More experimental formats are also welcome.

The deadline for sending proposals for panels, roundtable discussions, laboratories, screenings with academic discussion or alternative formats (for example book forums) by email to euroseas@kitlv.nl is 3 December 2021. The selection committee preserve the right to advise on how to strengthen less clearly articulated proposals or on possible merges of similar panel proposals.

For more detailed information, please consult the EuroSEAS website or email your inquiry to euroseas@kitlv.nl.

Aquatic Powers: Divine Animals of the Asia-Pacific
University of Oslo

Conference Dates: June 1-3, 2022

From the Himalayan glaciers to the expanses of the Indian and Pacific oceans, Asia is intersected and connected by waterways. Riverine and maritime trade networks have long enabled cultural and economic exchange between different parts of the Asian continent and the larger Pacific region. Countless human and non-human animals depend upon the Himalayas and the plains and deltas of rivers like the Mekong, Yangtze, and Ganges for survival. Myriad others live along continental and island coasts and depend upon the sea. Asia-Pacific societies and ecologies are shaped by the glaciers, rivers, lakes, deltas, seas, and oceans that connect them. To many people, these waters are sacred—as are the creatures that inhabit and protect them.

The sacred waterways of continental Asia and the maritime Asia-Pacific region are home to a variety of divine animals. People worship albatrosses, catfish, cranes, crocodiles, dolphins, dragons, dugongs, nagas, octopuses, orcas, rays, sharks, squid, turtles, whales, and other animals. These animals are divine messengers, incarnations of ancestral spirits, and the embodiments of gods. They are divine agents who affect human lives and are central to numerous Asian and Pacific cosmologies and ritual traditions. But they are also threatened: by habitat loss, climate change, overfishing, river dams, and pollution. What happens to more-than-human spiritual ecologies when divine animals die out? What new meanings do these sacred creatures acquire in a time of mass extinction, ecological breakdown, disenchantment, and religious transformations?

For this conference, we invite scholars working on one or more Asian and/or Pacific traditions to share their research on divine aquatic animals. We welcome historians, scholars of religion, anthropologists, geographers, political ecologists, Indigenous studies scholars, environmental scientists, biologists, philosophers, and everybody else who feels affinity with and has done research on this topic. The conference will have an interdisciplinary, exploratory, and small-scale character. We welcome applications by scholars in all stages of their academic careers, from all parts of the world. For more information on how to submit, click here.

Gendering Labor in Contemporary Asian Religions
Centre for East and Southeast Asian Studies, Lund University

Workshop Dates: June 21-23, 2022

This workshop will investigate how worlds, individuals, collectives, and the things they produce are transformed through gendered/gendering realities by exploring labor at the intersection of religion and gender within contemporary Asian contexts. The workshop will take place in-person. Check the website for more information.

Halo-Halo Ecologies: A Transnational Workshop on Emergent Philippine Environments and Foodways

Virtual Workshop Dates: June 2022

CFP (abridged): Acclaimed Filipino food scholar Doreen G. Fernandez once wrote that “In the act of eating, we ingest the environment.” In the everyday practice of eating, however, food can be easily disembodied from its environmental underpinnings, even as writers like Fernandez serve up its cultural and historical bearings. Take halo-halo, the iconic crushed-ice dessert beloved by many. Food writing frequently describes this midday treat as a colorful assortment of local and foreign ingredients now considered prototypically Pinoy. Rarely, however, is this concoction understood as a material product of Philippine ecosystems — that is, as an eclectic blend of environmental tales in an ever evolving and highly politicized Philippine foodscape. Crushed ice, for instance, might tell the story of urban Manila’s classed transformations with the democratization of refrigeration technologies. Evaporated milk betrays tales of colonial ranching, the supplanting of local carabao-centered cultures, and shifting human-animal relationships with military incursion. Tropical fruit toppings like mangoes, bananas, and jackfruit are windows into the rise of plantation agriculture and the scientific management of Mindanao’s landscapes. And ube, the purple tuber world-famous as comfort food for the diaspora and as a social media phenomenon, has become a harbinger of climate change to the farmers of the Cordilleras.The “Halo-Halo Ecologies” Workshop endeavors to explore the intersection of food and environment by bringing together a transnational community of scholars, writers, activists, and food enthusiasts from the Philippines and the diaspora. We invite papers on any Filipino food item or practice, mundane or iconic, that combines the cultural commitments of food writing with attention to agrarian, marine/maritime, or urban-ecological issues. We hold that the Philippines and its diasporic networks are exemplary sites through which to examine this topic. Our main goals for this workshop are to:

  • create a transnational community of Philippines and Filipino/x Studies scholars, writers, activists, and food enthusiasts interested in these issues,
  • to map the contemporary body of literature on food and environment on the Philippines,
  • craft a space within global theoretical discourse for our collective contributions, and
  • contemplate on the trajectories, promises, and limitations, as well as set an agenda for the future.

We endeavor to achieve these goals by preparing a collection of selected papers from the workshop in the form of either an edited volume in a reputable international university press or a special issue in a high-impact journal. For the full CFP, as well as instructions on how to apply to participate, please see our website. This workshop is co-organized by Dr. Alyssa Paredes (University of Michigan, Anthropology) and Dr. Marvin Montefrio (Yale-NUS, Environmental Studies). It is sponsored by Yale-NUS College and the University of Michigan’s Center for Southeast Asian Studies.

For inquiries and abstract submissions, please write to halohaloecologies@gmail.com.

“Engineering Buddhism: Infrastructure and Soft Power in Asia and Beyond”
Center for Contemporary Buddhist Studies
University of Copenhagen

Conference Dates: June 23-24, 2022

Buddhist social activities have gained increased visibility recently in national and transnational contexts. Various Buddhist organizations (temples, charity groups, NGOs) have begun to actively engage with social and global issues—education, poverty, environmentalism, etc.—and this, in turn, is changing their relationships to societies, states, and global politics. This workshop addresses these changes in Buddhism, using various ethnographic examples to explore how Buddhism is playing a role in providing platforms and resources for matters that were once largely considered state or political affairs. By focusing on this “new” role of Buddhism at the national and global levels, this workshop asks how Buddhism, and religion more broadly, serve as forms of infrastructure and “soft power” in national and transnational contexts; it examines whether or how Buddhism itself operates as a physical or virtual network, or as a platform for facilitating and (dis)connecting movements, ideas, people, and technologies; and in doing so, how Buddhism challenges, confirms, or transforms state governance and global relationships within and beyond Asian countries. The workshop will mainly focus on, but is not limited to, the following questions:

  • What are the (new) roles of Buddhism in transnational contexts and how are they taking place? Why now?
  • How does Buddhism function as a form of infrastructure that can support or impede flows of materials, ideas, and people?
  • What does “thinking infrastructurally” or “religion as infrastructure” mean in global Buddhism?
  • Is Buddhism effective as soft power in global politics?
  • What is the relationship between Buddhism and development?
  • What actants are at work and what roles do they play in engineering Buddhist social activities?
  • What does it mean to do ethnographic research on faith-based organizations as forms of infrastructure or soft power for the state? What are the challenges and how are such settings different from non-religious settings?

We seek papers that address these issues in a broad range of societies, not only in Asia where Buddhism has been influential and well acknowledged, but also in countries where Buddhist influence is traditionally weak, but where one can see the clear emergence of Buddhist activities. The papers must be based on original research and have not been published previously. This workshop brings together scholars from around the world who work on this cutting-edge phenomenon of globalizing Buddhism, and in doing so, seeks to understand the new role of Buddhism, and religion broadly, in global society and politics. For more information and to submit an abstract, click here.

Oceans as Archives
University of Amsterdam

Conference Dates: July 2-4, 2022

This conference follows up on a recent symposium held at the University of British Columbia. For more information, click here.

 Asia Pacific Dance Festival Conference Ulana—To Weave or Knit
University of Hawai’i – Manoa and the East-West Center

Conference Dates: August 12-14, 2022

For more information, click here.

Southeast Asian History in Literature
Modern Language Association
CLCS Southeast Asian and Southeast Asian Diasporic Forum

Conference Dates: January 5 – 8, 2023

The CLCS Southeast Asian and Southeast Asian Diasporic Forum invites submissions for a panel at the Modern Language Association Annual Convention on January 5–8, 2023 in San Francisco, California:

Southeast Asian History in Literature

In traditional terms the part of the world between China and India, Southeast Asia lies at a global crossroads where its powerful neighbors, the giants of the continent, have historically spread their influence and where the East met the West in the European scramble for “the (East) Indies.” The region’s position at a Pacific borderland has led it to be conceived, even prior to post–World War II globalization, as a transnational contact zone, thereby to be defined in reference to or from the perspective of external actors—as intimated by a name for its peninsular half, “Indochina”—or in indeterminate ways—as intimated by a name for its maritime half, the “Malay Archipelago.” The multifarious colonial histories—Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, British, French, American—that bear on the different territories in the region, not to mention the diverse precolonial regimes, have, moreover, tended to thwart the development of a regional identity at the same time that the nation-state persistently proves to be a potent political framework despite the area’s global entanglement.

In the context of this indeterminacy rooted in overdetermination, what does the history of Southeast Asia look like from Southeast Asia? Given the undermining of regional autonomy by larger forces and the reassertion of autonomy at the level of the nation, how might an autonomous history of Southeast Asia be told? How has this history been told in literature from (nations in) the region, given literature and history’s shared narrative structure and incommensurability? To what extent can such literature be thought of as postcolonial, given the historical separation of Southeast Asian from postcolonial studies? What might the reading of Southeast Asian literature as a site of subaltern history contribute to postcolonial theory? What do the traces of neglected or appropriated history in liminal literature say about the (im)possibility of learning history from literature? How do gender and sexuality complicate the relation between history and literature as they give rise to alternatives to the discourse of the “motherland” written by the “fathers” of the nation in Southeast Asia?

This panel seeks proposals that reflect on any of these questions to think about the ways in which Southeast Asian history gets narrated in literature from specific, if also emblematic, nations in the region. Focus on any genre of literature in the expansive sense (including not only the novel, the literary medium of the nation, but also, e.g., creative nonfiction, life writing, critical travel writing) is welcome. Send a 250-word abstract for 12–minute papers with your CV to Ryan Ku (English Literature, Swarthmore College) at aleryando@gmail.com no later than March 15, 2022. Please note that all accepted speakers will be asked to provide a 100-word bio and must be members of the MLA by April 1, 2022. More information available here.