Authenticities East and West

[Jonathan Abel]

     The Society for Intercultural Comparative Studies

318 East Pyne
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ 08544


C A L L   F O R   P A P E R S

Authenticities East and West
March 30 - April 1, 2001

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE: January 31, 2001


The Society for Intercultural Comparative Studies is a newly formed
organization that seeks to foster the growing community of scholars in the
field of cultural criticism by providing an on-going and open forum for
discussion. One of the Society?s first projectsis the graduate symposium
"Authencities East and West," to take place March 30 ? April 1, 2001, at
Princeton University.

Common to much critical practice, notions of authenticity underlie various
units of study such as events, texts, and identities. To compare cultures
with no benefit of historical influence, the scholar must examine
assumptions of what is authentic from various angles: from its root meaning
of authority to representations of origins and authorship through
metaphysical ideas of truth. What constitutes an authentic text, event,
genre, subject, or author in disparate traditions? To whom is this
authenticity important? Are authenticities important at all? What do
authenticities mean in relation to accounts of historical moments across
cultures? How do authenticities relate to the material and ideological
implications of "different" cultural products? What practical and
theoretical difficulties for the comparatist arise in writing and reading
authenticities? These important issues are at the heart of our conference.

We invite papers from both graduate students and recent post-doctoral
scholars from all fields of humanities, ancient or modern. Papers may engage
with literary, cultural, political, and historical topics and issues. The
first restriction, however, is that they must address one Western culture
(of European tradition) and one East Asian culture (of Chinese, Japanese, or
Korean traditions). Second, we will exclude problems of reception or
influence (that is direct connections between two cultures)

Papers submitted should deal EITHER (1) with theoretical issues of
comparison, OR (2) with a comparative study of specific works that will
provide insight to such theoretical issues.

Some examples of potential areas of inquiry include, but are not limited to:


 What constitutes authenticity in differing traditions at different
moments? What constitutes authenticity for the comparatist?

 What, if any, are viable units of comparison? Genre, period, media,
socio-political events, technology? Can one apply the problematics of one
literary tradition or one culture to analyze another?

 Why is such comparison necessary?  What does comparison achieve, with
respect to, for instance, the politics of comparison, or the relation of
subject to object?

 Does the nature of historically and culturally unconnected comparison
differ from other kinds of comparison?  If so, how and what are the
implications? What is the role of the comparatist in creating this
comparison?

 How will East-West comparison not based on historical connections be
useful to other comparative and  non-comparative studies?

Each paper will be allocated 20 minutes for delivery with generous time for
discussion, which designated respondents will initiate. We will offer a
travel fellowship to encourage international papers or papers from distant
institutions from the West Coast or Hawaii.

Rey Chow, Karatani K?jin, and Robert Wardy will conduct workshops in their
areas of expertise. Brown?s Rey Chow, a cultural theorist on modern China,
the author most recently of Ethics After Idealism, will be giving a workshop
titled  "Asymmetry, Appropriation, Authenticity: Persistent Problematics in
East-West Comparative Studies." Karatani K?jin, arguably the most
influential literary critic in Japan in the past twenty years whose most
recent work in English is Architecture as Metaphor, will lead a workshop
entitled: "Transcritique: Kant and Marx."  A complementary workshop,
"Inauthenticity: Some Examples," will be conducted by Robert Wardy, a
Cambridge Hellenist who recently published Aristotle in China: Language,
Categories and Translation.

Abstracts of 500 words or two pages may be submitted by January 31, online
at:

    [http://web.princeton.edu/sites/sics/application.htm]

or  by mail to:

    Society for Intercultural Comparative Studies
Attn: Authenticities East and West
318 East Pyne
Princeton University
Princeton, NJ  08544

For more information on the Society for East-West Comparative Studies please
consult 

[http://www.princeton.edu/sics/].

All questions and comments to Jonathan Abel (jonabel at princeton.edu), Shion
Kono (skono at princeton.edu), or Kevin Tsai (stsai at princeton.edu).