conference

Barbarians, Monsters, Hybrids and Mutants: Asian Inventions of Human “Others”, University of Michigan,

When and under what circumstances do people invent the concept of the other? This question has been posed and responded to many times over in a largely modern, colonial, Eurocentric context. However, the invention of others is not simply a European prerogative: it is a practice common to cultures and societies throughout the world, past and present. This timely symposium proposes to examine these issues in a visually rich, historically grounded and contextualized collection of talks and discussions that focus critical analytic attention on the manifold Asian imagination and invention of others. We seek to highlight and examine the robust and visually potent technologies of othering deployed in Asia by Asians past and present while addressing the multiple contexts, regional variations, and sets of interests, involved. In this way, we can focus both multi-media representations of “others” and on how and why these variable constructions were mobilized around complex cross- and intra-cultural negotiations over time.… more

Emergent Forms of Engagement and Activism in Japan: Politics, Cultures and Technologies

This conference brings together an international, multi-disciplinary group of scholars seeking to document and understand emergent forms of political activism, social engagement and cultural resistance among youth in Japan. From street politics to new forms of socialities, from creative representation to active resistance, our goal is to develop a critical language that captures the range of alternatives to what was once considered political. Through the heritage of post-war student and citizens’ movements, popular culture shifts during 1970‚ affluence, and post-bubble recessionary disenfranchisement, we will explore these alternative currents right into our post-3.11 moment.… more