Cfp: A Conference on the Xi Jinping Effect, Banff, Alberta, Canada, from June 26-28, 2019

Ashley Esarey at University of Alberta and Rongbin Han at University of Georgia are co-organizing a conference on the Xi Jinping Effect. The conference will be held in Banff, from June 26-28, 2019. 

For details, please click the following link:

https://www.ualberta.ca/china-institute/news-events/news/2018/december/call-for-papers

We welcome the submission of abstracts from scholars in any discipline in the humanities and the social sciences, with the aim of revising select conference papers for an edited volume published by a university press. Interested researchers should send abstracts of 400 words or less to christine.bertok@ualberta.ca by January 21, 2019. For questions about the Xi Effect conference or book project, email Ashley Esarey at esarey@ualberta.ca. Notifications of acceptance will go out on February 4. The China Institute will provide participants with lodging for three nights in Banff, meals during the conference, and limited travel expenses, when necessary. 

Does President Xi Jinping’s leadership mark the dawn of a new era for China? 
In what ways has his rule transformed “politics as usual” in the People’s Republic? 

Since Xi’s elevation to General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012 and to the Chinese presidency in the following year, he has pursued policies with far-reaching ramifications. His unprecedented anti-corruption campaign, effort to consolidate authority leading up to the 19th Party Congress, widespread suppression of political dissent, and initiatives to build new linkages between China and global markets are indicative of the momentous nature of Xi’s ascent in Chinese and world politics. Meanwhile, his nationalist vision has also extended deep into official cultural policy, limiting education in English language and foreign cultures at the secondary and post-secondary levels, while extending patriotic education in the Chinese classical tradition.

From June 26-28, 2019, the China Institute at the University of Alberta will host a group of international scholars to present interdisciplinary and multi-disciplinary research at a conference on the “Xi Jinping Effect” in China to be held in Banff.

The conference will cover a range of topics. However, papers on the following subjects are of particular interest:

·       Xi's engagement with China's classical traditions, and how those are turned to political use in his published writings
·       Xi Jinping’s leadership in comparative perspective
·       Reforms to the state structure and changes to norms governing leadership succession
·       The anti-corruption campaign and its impact on political and economic development
·       Central-local relations and the centralization of political authority
·       Propaganda work and media censorship
·       Ideological control and monitoring of Chinese academic institutions
·       Popular support for Xi’s government and changing patterns of political participation
·       Nationalism, ethnic policy, and United Front work
·       International trade, sustainable development, and poverty alleviation
·       The Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Belt Road Initiative
·       Sovereignty disputes concerning, for example, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the South China Sea
·       The “export” of the norms and practices of Chinese politics to the developing world and to international organizations
·       Promoting the export of Chinese cultural goods while limiting the reach of foreign cultural influences
·       New narratives concerning Chinese aspirations for global leadership 

Co-organizers Ashley Esarey and Rongbin Han encourage the submission of abstracts from scholars in any discipline in the humanities and the social sciences, with the aim of revising select conference papers for an edited volume published by a university press. Interested researchers should send abstracts of 400 words or less to christine.bertok@ualberta.ca by January 21, 2019. For questions about the Xi Effect conference or book project, email Ashley Esarey at esarey@ualberta.ca. Notifications of acceptance will go out on February 4. The China Institute will provide participants with lodging for three nights in Banff, meals during the conference, and limited travel expenses, when necessary. 

So, you too have problems with the Mexicans

Cfp: Ganga to Volga: India’s Connectivity with Inner Asia 6-7 March 2019 Venue: School of International Studies (I & II) Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Call for Paper Submission INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE Ganga to Volga: India’s Connectivity with Inner Asia 6-7 March 2019 Venue: School of International Studies (I & II) Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
Concept Note
India’s connection with Inner Asia, which constitutes five republics of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan), Mongolia, three regions of China – Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Tibet, and Afghanistan, is as old as Methuselah. The foundation stone of this linkage was laid by land trade that witnessed regular contacts between traders/merchants from India and Inner Asia. The knowledge and wisdom of India during ancient period had percolated into the hearts and minds of people in Inner Asia, which has been reflected in the discoveries and explorations of western scholars. The civilizational linkage between the two regions not only blossomed with the influx of religion and philosophy, arts and culture from India, but also thrived for centuries. Reproduction of Ajanta in Dun Huang, replica of Kailasa Monolith on the Khullam or the work of Indian scholars/monks in Tibet, the overhaul of Kushan antiquities etc. demonstrates India’s academic pursuits. Sanskrit words, such as Ratna, Mani and Guru in Tibet and Mongolia, and the transformation of the word Vihara into Bukhara or of Sartha into Sart in western Turkestan are symbols of Indian culture in the entire Inner Asian region. In contemporary times, Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore and several other Indian scholars and historians continued to highlight role of Inner Asia in the life, culture and civilisations of India, and narrated how races from Inner Asia had found their permanent habitat in India as well. At the present juncture, the age-old bonding between the two regions is strengthened further, as the countries in Inner Asian region and India have been braving new challenges in the post- Soviet period, such as non-traditional security threats, posing serious threat to humanity. However, this situation brings a new opportunity for both to have a common stand against the aforesaid challenges. It is against this background, the UGC Area Studies Programme of the Centre for Inner Asian Studies proposes to organize a two-day International Conference on the theme “Ganga to Volga: India’s Connectivity with Inner Asia” at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi on 6-7 March 2019. The following themes/issues are proposed to be dilated upon:

1. Historicallinkages 2. TheFabledSilkRoute:From“Old”to“New” 3. Geo-strategic,Geo-politicalandGeo-economicDynamics 4. Culture, Commerce and Connectivity (trade and economy, industry,

education, and science & technology, people to people contact) EnergyIssues,TransportationNetworksandlinkages CommonIssues:Ethnicity,Politics,NationalismandReligion Common Challenges: Non-traditional security threats, religious extremism, terrorism, human security, ecology and sustainable development

Submission of Paper
This international conference is open to scholars/academics, who wish to submit full paper and make a presentation. The full-length papers (preferably 5000 words) must be submitted to the conference organizers in the following e-mail IDs: maxeew@gmail.com / mdebata@mail.jnu.ac.in on or before 15th February 2019. All papers submitted for presentation at the Conference are subjected to a double-blind peer review process. Decision on the acceptance of papers for this Conference will be communicated by 22nd February 2019. Selected papers from the conference will be considered for publication in an edited book by a reputed national/international publisher. The guidelines for submission of full paper for the Conference are given below:
Details of the Paper Presenter (name, designation, organization, address, telephone, mobile and email) must be mentioned along with a short biographical note (100 words).
 A 200-word Abstract narrating objective/scope/rationale, research methods, main arguments, findings/conclusions and recommendations.
 At least five Keywords should be given.
 The participants must adhere to plagiarism rules (in the paper) as per
UGC notification (below 10 per cent). 

Full paper submission (maximum 5000 words) must follow the referencing style as per SIS Research Manual 2006.
 Style-sheet of the paper: Format (MS Word), Font (Times New Roman), Font size (12) and Spacing (1.5).
Local Hospitality for Paper Presenters
Local travel and hospitality (boarding, lodging and transport in New Delhi) will be provided to paper presenters. In case of jointly authored paper, the main author/one presenter only can avail the aforesaid facilities. All outstation paper presenters will be provided modest accommodation in the University Guest Houses (Aravali, Aravali International and Gomti) from the evening of 5th to 7th March 2019. Accommodation for accompanying persons and extended stay shall be chargeable and has to be communicated well in advance to the conference organisers.

Important Dates of Conference
Deadline for Submission of Paper: Notification of Acceptance of Paper: Conference Date:
Conference Organizing Committee

15 February 2019 20 February 2019 6-7 March 2019

Prof. Sharad K. Soni, Chairperson, Centre for Inner Asian Studies Prof. Sangeeta Thapliyal, Centre for Inner Asian Studies Dr.Ambrish Dhaka, Centre for Inner Asian Studies
Dr.Tsetan Namgyal, Centre for Inner Asian Studies
Dr. Mukesh K. Mishra (Research Associate)
&
Research Scholars of Centre for Inner Asian Studies
Conference Coordinator
Dr. Mahesh Ranjan Debata
Director, UGC Area Studies Programme, Centre for Inner Asian Studies School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi Tel: 011-26704750 (Office) 9818105957 (Mobile)
Email: maxeew@gmail.com / mdebata@mail.jnu.ac.in

Call for Applications: 2019 Penn State Global Asias Summer Institute “Digital Asias”

Penn State University invites applicants for its annual Global Asias Summer Institute, to be held June 3-7, 2019. This year’s Institute, co-directed by Joseph Jonghyun Jeon (UC-Irvine) and Jonathan E. Abel (Penn State), focuses on the topic of “Digital Asias.”
Institute participants spend a week reading and thinking about the annual theme, as well as significant time workshopping their work in progress. Particularly strong work will be considered for publication in an upcoming special issue of the award-winning journal, Verge: Studies in Global Asias (https://www.upress.umn.edu/journal-division/journals/verge-studies-in-global-asias).
Penn State will cover housing and meals, and offer an honorarium to help defray travel costs (USD 400 from the East Coast, 600 from the Midwest, 800 from the West Coast; USD 1000 from Europe; USD 1350 from Asia). Applicants must have completed their PhDs no earlier than June 2014, or be advanced graduate students who are completing their dissertations.
On the theme:
We have been willing participants in our own digital colonization. This digitalization has some historical roots in Asia and today is routed through Asia. It is saturated in stereotypical techno-orientalist images of a futuristic Asia, and proliferates through Asian media, finance capital, and artistic production. In short, Asia has been entangled in the global digital culture that occupies our everyday. As a major node in digital mediations of the world, Asia plays a primary part in producing computational gadgets (whether made by Sunway, LG, or Fujitsu), designing new forms of social media (Line, Weibo, SyncYu, and KakaoTalk), or creating innovative digital content (Bollywood, K-pop, anime). The 2019 Global Asias Summer Institute is interested in promoting scholarship on all forms of Digital Asia. This may include, for instance, the role Asian diasporas play in global digital life; the social, political, economic, and artistic functions of digital connectivity in Asian communities around the world; the stereotype of Asian identity as binary; the global infrastructures and logistical innovations that increasingly characterize global Asia; and Asian inflections of global activities like the algorithimic determination of risk for venture capital and the corporate and government abuse of big data.
We seek to answer, at least provisionally, some of the following interrelated questions: How has the digitalization of life in Asia, and of Asian lives, transformed the world? How does a consideration of cultures that are born digital differ from those that grow up analog? If daily life has been colonized by the digital, what is globally consistent about contemporary digitalization? How is Asian cultural digitalization different from, innovating on, or
resistant to popular modes elsewhere? If the putatively real public persona has reigned supreme online since the dawn of Web 2.0, why have anonymous internet activities continued to flourish in Asia? How do the supposed “new” economies that surround digital production reimagine and/or restructure late capitalist practices, particularly as deindustrialization becomes an increasingly global phenomenon? What is new about Digital Asia and what is atavistic? What does this focus on the digital in all of its forms bring to the surface in Asian and Asian American Studies that would not otherwise be visible?
The Institute broadly will broadly consider how the study of digitalization and digitization impacts our understanding of Global Asias—itself a nebulously defined, contested, and generative concept. As such, we invite applications from the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences for projects that examine the culture, politics, economics, mathematics, networks, and aesthetics of “Digital Asias” as they manifest in Asia, Asian America, and global Asian communities.
To apply, please send the following documents to vergevents@psu.edu by March 4, 2019. Items #1-3 must be sent as a single PDF file; the recommendation letter for applications from advanced graduate students may be sent separately.
1. An abstract of 1500 words outlining research project and clarifying its
connection to the Institute theme.
2. A sample of current work.
3. A current c.v. (no longer than 2 pp).
4. A letter from a principal advisor about the advanced status of work (in the case
of graduate students).
Decisions will be made by mid-April 2019. Other inquiries regarding the Summer Institute may be directed to Jonathan E. Abel (jonathan.abel@psu.edu).

Cfp: Chinese Overseas and China: Through A Global Lens - 8-11 November, 2019 Jinan University, Guangzhou, China

Call for Papers

International Conference of ISSCO X

Chinese Overseas and China: Through A Global Lens

Organizers: organized by the School of International Studies and Academy of Overseas Chinese Studies, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China and the International Society for the Study of Chinese Overseas (ISSCO)

Dates:                                 8-11 November, 2019

                                            Arrival Date:                      8 November 2019

                                            Conference: 9-10 November 2019

                                            Fieldtrip:       11 November 2019  (qiaoxiang)

Languages:  Chinese   English

Venue:            Jinan University, Guangzhou

As we move deeper into the 21^st century, we are witnessing an intensification of various global flows impacting on a changing socio-economic, socio-political, and socio-cultural landscape. Existing communities have been reconfigured and new communities have arisen as a result of these global flows intersecting and inter-relating in variable ways. From territorial-based to virtual communities, at the local and global levels, communities have become more diverse.

Historically, the Chinese overseas have maintained different kinds of identity, affinity, and relationship with China, as an actual or imagined ancestral homeland.  The sentiments and relationships of this group of people with China vary from place to place and change over time, depending on the politics of the respective host countries, China’s position in the world-system, and China’s policies towards ethnic Chinese abroad. In the 21^st century, with China’s rise to a position of power on the global stage, a different set of opportunities and challenges for the Chinese overseas has also emerged. The opportunities and challenges are intertwined with mixed feelings about China’s role on the global stage (whether a powerful ally or competitive foe), robust or weak connections to China as an ancestral homeland, and personal life and economic strategies, among other forces. Irrespective of their actual relationships with or sentiments about China, however, the Chinese overseas are implicated in all things related to China.

The ISCCO X Conference theme “Chinese Overseas and China: Through A Global Lens” welcomes multidisciplinary scholarship on Chinese Overseas and China that will shed light on various issues including migration, identity and cultural formation, social, economic and political interaction.

Proposed topics include, but are not limited to the following:

• Chinese diaspora identities and China
• Transnational, circulatory, and talent migration
• New and old Chinese diaspora communities and the nation-state
• Chinese overseas entrepreneurship and China
• Gender, marriage, and kinship
• Religion and spirituality
• Chinese overseas cultural activities and China
• Histories and personalities

Submission

• Individuals are welcome to organize and propose their own panels. Each panel cannot exceed four panelists. The abstract proposal for a panel should be within 500 words and include a list of the participants (title, affiliation, and role in the panel).
• Individuals are also encouraged to submit their own abstract proposals. Individual abstracts should be within 300 words.
• Please submit all abstracts (word/pdf named as ISSCO2019_Your last and first names) to ISSCO2019@qq.com and ISSCO2019@gmail.com.
• To submit your abstract, please download the form from the following website: https://sis-aocs.jnu.edu.cn   OR http://www.issco.info/

Important Deadlines

Deadline for submitting abstract: 15 March 2019

Notification of selected abstracts: 10 May 2019

Deadline for submitting full paper: 16 September 2019

Further Details

• English and Chinese will be the main languages used during the conference.
• There will be no registration fee, but all conference participants will pay for their own transportation and accommodation.
• On the last day of the conference (11 November 2019), there will be a self-paid excursion to a Chinese overseas village (qiaoxiang) in Guangdong Province.
• Information on hotels in Guangzhou will be provided in May.

Inquiries

Contact person: Ms. XU Hanpeng          

Tel. (+86) 15626210541 (mobile);   email: xuhanpeng_hk@163.com

Website: https://sis-aocs.jnu.edu.cn;  http://www.issco.info/

A New Book: What Is China? by Ge Zhaoguang

What Is China?

Territory, Ethnicity, Culture, and History

Ge Zhaoguang
Translated by Michael Gibbs Hill

Harvadr University Press, 2018
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674737143

Ge Zhaoguang, an eminent historian of traditional China and a public intellectual, takes on fundamental questions that shape the domestic and international politics of the world’s most populous country and its second largest economy. What Is China? offers an insider’s account that addresses sensitive problems of Chinese identity and shows how modern scholarship about China—whether conducted in China, East Asia, or the West—has attempted to make sense of the country’s shifting territorial boundaries and its diversity of ethnic groups and cultures.
Ge considers, for example, the ancient concept of tianxia, or All-Under-Heaven, which assigned supremacy to the imperial court and lesser status to officials, citizens, tributary states, and tribal peoples. Does China’s government still operate with a belief in divine rule of All-Under-Heaven, or has it taken a different view of other actors, inside and outside its current borders? Responding both to Western theories of the nation-state and to Chinese intellectuals eager to promote “national learning,” Ge offers an insightful and erudite account of how China sees its place in the world. As he wrestles with complex historical and cultural forces guiding the inner workings of an often misunderstood nation, Ge also teases out many nuances of China’s encounter with the contemporary world, using China’s past to explain aspects of its present and to provide insight into various paths the nation might follow as the twenty-first century unfolds.

Table of Contents
Preface Translator’s Introduction
Introduction: On the Historical Formation of “China” and the Dilemma of Chinese Identity
1. Worldviews: From “All-under-Heaven” in Ancient China to the “Myriad States” in the Modern World
2. Borders: On “Chinese” Territory
3. Ethnicity: Including the “Four Barbarians” in “China”?
4. History: Chinese Culture from a Long-Term Perspective
5. Peripheries: How China, Korea, and Japan Have Understood One Another since the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries
6. Practical Questions: Will Cultural Differences between China and the West Lead to Conflict?