Calls for Papers Archive

Trier University, Germany
6-7th Jul 2024
Deadline: 29th Apr 2024

The emergence and the development of the notion of “modernity” in Europe is related to the industrial revolution, the rise of cities and scientific progress. It is accompanied by spiritual renovations, like “renaissance”, “reformation” and “enlightenment”. Their basic ideas and values are still forming the way modern humans think and live, not only in Europe. This development is a continuing process and subject of constant discussion.

In the course of the reception of European culture, Confucianism also came into contact with ideas and values related to “modernity”. An exchange began, accompanied by conflicts and resistance, as well as a reflection upon its genuine values and potential for further development. This process is continuing today and leads also to the question, whether Confucianism might be able to develop a form of modernity appropriate for Chinese culture.

Taking a look at Confucianism from the perspective of “modernity” means on the one hand, to analyze how Confucianism looks at “modern” values and ideas, like individualism, subjective right, explicit expression of own interests, freedom, equality, rule of law, the culture of contract just to name a few, and to investigate whether there exist corresponding spiritual resources in its own tradition.… Read more ⤻

Dublin, Ireland
17th May 2024
Deadline: 29th Feb 2024
This one day workshop, held at University College Dublin on 17 May 2024, develops international collaboration on zones of contact between the Russian Empire (1721-1917) and the Qing Empire (1636/1644-1912). These zones are, on the one hand, geographically defined borderlands in Central, Inner, and East Asia, and, on the other hand, cultural, intellectual, political, and economic spaces wherein people from these two empires (and beyond) met and interacted. The workshop seeks to generate conversation about local and regional entanglements, networks, and exchanges across these vast Eurasian territories. While conventional histories of the two empires have treated them as two separate political entities, the workshop aims to adopt transregional and transnational approaches to overcome the narrow and traditional idea of territory – and in doing so, to propose alternative spatial, economic, and cultural histories of the region that contribute to attempts to de-nationalise and de-territorialise the historiography.
Confirmed speakers:
• Sören Urbansky (Ruhr-Universität Bochum): “Yellow Peril in Vladivostok: The Chinese Diaspora in Russia and the Soviet Union”
• Yuexin Rachel Lin (Leeds): “Frontier activism, ‘rights recovery’ and international law: Early Sino-Soviet relations revisited”
• Meng Zhang (Vanderbilt): “Inter-ethnic commercial disputes on the Qing Inner Asian frontier”
• Eric Schluessel (George Washington): “Mazars, Merchants, and Immiseration: Pious Economy and Chinese Capital in Turn-of-the-Century Xinjiang”

We now invite proposals for papers of 15 minutes in length from PhD and Postdoctoral researchers.… Read more ⤻

Tallinn, Estonia
27–30th Aug 2024

The conference is organized by the EACS in collaboration with the Department of Asian Studies at the Institute of Humanities of Tallinn University (TLU). Scholars in all areas of Chinese Studies from Europe and beyond are kindly invited to submit their proposals for contributions in one of the following disciplinary categories:

1. Language and Linguistics
2. Chinese as Foreign Language, Education
3. Literature (Premodern)
4. Literature (Modern)
5. Philosophy and History of Thought
6. History (Premodern)
7. History (Modern)
8. Religion
9. Law
10. Economics
11. Politics and International Relations
12. Art and Archaeology
13. Museum Studies and Material Culture
14. Environmental Studies
15. Anthropology and Sociology
16. Digital Humanities
17. Music, Media, and Performing Arts
18. Gender and Queer Studies
19. Science, Technology and Medicine
20. Sinophone Worlds
21. Interdisciplinary field

The board accepts proposals in the following formats:

1. Individual paper proposal: abstract, max. 250 words.
2. Panel proposals: panel abstract, max. 250 words; names of the panel organizer, chair, participants, and optionally a discussant; 3-4 individual abstracts, with max. 250 words each.

University of Cagliari, Italy
18-20th Mar 2024
Deadline: 27th May2024

The 21st century has been defined as the “Asian century”, a new global phase after the European and the American centuries. (Mahbubani 2022). If “the future is Asian” (Khanna 2019), Asia’s role as the leading continent calls for a radical rethinking of Western political and cultural epistemic categories, prompting scholars to build on the emphasis placed by Chakrabarty (2000) on “antihistorical collective memory of the past” applied to Asia.
We invite scholars working in a range of disciplinary fields including literature, linguistics, history, and cultural studies to submit proposals pertaining, but not limited, to the following research questions:
What is Asia from a cultural point of view?
How has Asia represented itself in its diversity and/or to different cultures?
How has Asia represented other cultures?
How have other cultures represented Asia?
How have contacts between Asia and other cultures shaped the continent?
What is the role of postcolonial and decolonial approaches in enhancing our understanding of Asia and its entanglements?… Read more ⤻

Deadline: 15th Aug 2023
Vila Lanna, Prague
14–15th Nov 2023

Masaryk institute and Archives of the Czech Academy of Sciences
Department of Chinese Studies, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

In spite of the considerable scholarly interest in the historical exploration of radical nationalism and fascism, the association between fascist and radical nationalist ideologies and specific East Asian nationalist thinkers has been noticeably overlooked by Western scholars. The primary objective of this conference is, therefore, to convene experts from various disciplines within the social sciences and humanities, both within and beyond Europe, in order to initiate an interdisciplinary discourse concerning the origins, essence, ideology, and manifestations of fascism and radical nationalism in East Asia, as well as the transnational connections between European and East Asian movements. The conference will examine the fringes of East Asian involvement with fascism, exploring the notion of the genuineness of organicist concepts of community and nation in the twentieth century, whose proponents acknowledged resemblances to fascism and subsequently Nazism.… Read more ⤻

University of Cambridge, UK
6th – 7th Jul 2023

Like the flow of currents, the dissemination and diffusion of Buddhism in East Asian societies takes place in various directions. Robert E. Buswell Jr. conceptualises currents and countercurrents to describe the diverse regional strands of influence on the East Asian Buddhist tradition. Beside cross-regional developments, currents or subcurrents within a regional Buddhist tradition can manifest in the convergence and divergence between institutionalised teachings and local practices. Dominated mainly by lay people’s experiences of Buddhism, local practices and popular beliefs usually present a considerable degree of religious and cultural hybridity. Moreover, on a local level, religious rituals and liturgical performances are often integrated with vernacular genres of storytelling such as literature and drama. Since the inception of the eastward Buddhist missionary in the second or third century, some of these local currents prosper concomitantly with Buddhist monasteries that have been centres of regional learning and practice, while others are considered illegitimate and constantly banned by political authorities.… Read more ⤻

25-26th Oct 2023
Leibniz Institute for Educational Media
Georg-Eckert-Institut, Braunschweig, Germany
Deadline: 15th Aug 2023

In this workshop, we want to bring scholars together in order to use the ‘What is the problem represented to be’ approach created by Carol Bacchi to analyse policies on educational digitalisation in China and to explore the following three areas. Firstly, we want to bring fresh theoretical impulses into the analysis of policies issued by the state. For decades China has been a policy ‘borrower’ in the field of education but in recent years the Chinese government has placed an increasing emphasis on the construction of its own discourses and on positioning itself as a key player in the field of educational digitalisation. We aim to move beyond a merely descriptive analysis, and primarily to understand what visions of good education or of good pupils, teachers and parents are articulated and normalised in state discourses. We further-more intend to look into the role ascribed to other agencies involved in the digitalisation of education such as ed-tech companies and NGOs.… Read more ⤻

Schwerte, Germany
22-23rd Jul 2023
Deadline: 10th May 2023
The “Iserlohn Network” is a loose circle of young social scientists working on China. Our annual workshop will be held from 22 to 23 July 2023 at Haus Villigst near the town of Schwerte.

This year, we focus on “Social Practices in Contemporary Chinese Studies”. In academia, our work often consists of documenting, analysing and classifying the behaviour, agency, and activities of individuals and groups. Which actions or actors in your research field arouse your interest and why? Where do you see yourselves in the research process, what is the starting point for your study, and in which direction are you drawn? The presentations should address the social practices examined in your project and/or the research practice guiding your inquiries. We hope that this broad topic speaks to many of you and are looking forward to a diverse range of contributions!

The workshop provides a forum for young scholars who would like to present and discuss their PhD theses, post-doctoral, or other research in a casual environment with other social scientists exploring China.… Read more ⤻

Workshop Youth in Chinese History: Education and Representations of Young People
in Chinese Sources between Tradition and Modernity

14-15th Sep 2023
Oxford University, Centre for Chinese Studies, Lucina Ho room

Organizers
Giulia Falato (Oxford University)
Renata Vinci (University of Palermo)

In China, childhood and education have historically been intertwined with ritual practices and social relations, with their ultimate scope being the construction of an ideal society and the formation of a virtuous elite. While canonical texts and conduct books have constantly played a crucial role in shaping children’s original character, the development of educational theories and practices throughout Chinese history has also been deeply influenced by endogenous and exogenous doctrines such as Daoism, Buddhism, Christianity and Western thought. This workshop proposes to generate discussions around the evolution of educational practices and representations of children across the centuries and literary genres, particularly from a cross-cultural perspective. It seeks to highlight the diachronic correlation between family units and broader society, and how the moral and intellectual cultivation of children aimed at creating pillars upon which the ideal of stability rested.… Read more ⤻

St Hilda’s College
University of Oxford
23-24 March 2023
Extended Deadline: 2nd Jan 2023

The global payments system represents the underlying plumbing of globalisation, determining the efficiency and security of cross-border payments for goods and services. Despite its fundamental importance surprisingly little is known about the evolution of this system, especially the dynamics of the network of bilateral bank relationships used for cross-border settlements across the past 150 years.
The European Research Council funded ‘Global Correspondent Banking 1870–2000’ project would like to invite proposals from researchers at all levels for a conference on the evolution of the global payments system during the 19th and 20th centuries. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Correspondent banking, international banking networks and the development of the global payments system

• The changing shape, patterns and dynamics of international banking networks, and the impact of financial crises, world events and regulatory changes

• Banking technologies and the ‘plumbing’ of the international payments system, e.g.… Read more ⤻

Macerata, Italy
16-18th Jun 2023
Deadline: 31st Dec 2022

The 4th Biennal Conference of the European Association for Chinese Philosophy (EACP) will take place in Macerata (Italy) on June 16-18, 2023. The theme of the conference is “Interpretation and reinvention.”

Every philosopher always has a forerunner to interpret. Any new philosophical theory is grounded in an existing theory, which it reinvents or contrasts. Every concept has its own history of contrasting and converging interpretations and reinvention. While this is obvious in the case of Western Philosophy, it is not always the case for China, whose cultural history is often improperly represented as static, converging, and repetitive. We all have in mind Raffaello Sanzio’s fresco The School of Athens that plastically represents the opposing visions of nature in ancient Greece. The painting is dynamic and full of individual traits of the more than twenty philosophers represented. Those figures, freshly painted by Raffaello, are opposing, rejecting, or reinventing their masters’ teachings and common sense.… Read more ⤻

1-3rd Feb 2023
Deadline: 15th Nov 2022
University of Malta

The Department of Middle Eastern & Asian Languages & Cultures at the University of Malta and Confucius Institute at the University of Malta

present the

First All-Mediterranean Chinese Studies Conference

“Chinese Studies Beyond the Centre of Gravity”

The geographical location of Malta has made it a gathering place for peoples across the world. As such, it has become a salient point of contact between Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Mediterranean. The Department of Oriental Studies at the University of Malta was established in 1999. The Chinese studies programme was formalized in 2009 with the help of the Confucius Institute. Since that time, the Department has been dedicated to Chinese language teaching and research in Chinese area studies and has recently been renamed the Department of Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures. The Department of Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures, in conjunction with the Confucius Institute, warmly extends an invitation for scholars around the world to participate in its inaugural conference on Chinese studies to be held in February 2023.… Read more ⤻

Beyond Comparison: Towards a Connected Philology
Ludwig-Maximilians-University
Munich, Germany
14–16th Jun 2023
Deadline: 30th Nov 2022

Much of the recent work on global philology has focused on pointing out parallels between philological methods and traditions in various cultures; that is, on straightforward comparison. This conference is focused rather on identifying and examining the actual connections that create or lie behind such parallels. As scholars in transcultural studies have pointed out, global connectivity and migration are not only features of modernity, but are in fact an essential part of the formation of culture. Considering the temporal depth and geographical breadth of philological tradition(s), it is limiting to assume that the philological traditions of a specific culture have remained untouched by these connections, no matter the enthusiasm with which a state may employ their manuscripts and philological history in service of their respective “unique” nationalist identities.
This conference topic encourages a practice of philology in full view of the extended contacts and relationships between cultures, against the “methodological nationalism” of our existing disciplinary frameworks.… Read more ⤻

London, UK 11 - 12th Nov 2016 Deadline: 1st Feb 2016

Marking the 50th Anniversary of the Cultural Revolution, Making the New World: the Arts of China’s Cultural Revolution, is a two-day international conference programmed by the Centre for Chinese Visual Arts (CCVA) at Birmingham City University in collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery.