CFP: "Desire: The 10th Annual East Asian Studies Graduate Student Conference, University of Toronto"

[Baryon Tensor Posadas]

CALL FOR PAPERS

DESIRE:
The 10th Annual East Asian Studies Graduate Student Conference
University of Toronto

13 March 2009

How might the understanding of "East Asia" - be it in terms of a 
geographical, historical, and cultural locus or as a space of fantasy and 
the imaginary - be illuminated by accounting for the ways in which desires 
are produced, structured, regulated, and mobilized through various 
institutions and discursive formations? Whether understood as lack or a 
productive force or a form of affective labor, desire is a concept that 
intersects with and imbricates a range of complex issues operating on the 
level of the libidinal as well as the material economy. Nationalism and 
imperialism, genders and sexualities, aesthetics and consumer culture, and 
the politics of alterity are but a few, yet are all significant to the study 
of East Asia.

The East Asian Studies Graduate Student Conference at the University of 
Toronto invites paper submissions for its 10th annual conference titled 
DESIRE, to be held on March 13, 2010. We seek papers that can critically 
interrogate the operations of desire, articulating how they are embedded in 
different modes of social organization at historically specific moments and 
bringing them into relation with larger issues of how East Asia is situated 
in the world. Submissions from graduate students around the world in all 
disciplines within and beyond the field of East Asian Studies, including 
history, sociology, anthropology, economy, art, literature, cultural 
studies, philosophy, and others are welcome.

Possible topics for papers include (but are not limited to):

- theories of desire and their complications in the East Asian context;
- literary and cultural representations and mediations of desire;
- the mobilization of desires and affects through cinema and other visual 
spectacles;
- intersections of nationalism and the construction of national identities 
with the constitution, regulation, and circumscription of desire;
- the interplay of capitalism, commodity culture, and desiring production in 
East Asia;
- gender, sexuality, and the regimes through which desire is disciplined;
- the construction of East Asia as a space of fantasy, and its consequent 
structuring as object of desire.

We invite all those interested in presenting papers to submit an abstract 
(300 words maximum) along with brief biographical information by December 
21, 2009. Submissions from both individuals and panels of three (panelists 
should send individual abstracts and a panel abstract) are encouraged. 
Submitted papers are also eligible for consideration for the East Asia 
Forum, a journal edited and published by graduate students in the Department 
of East Asian Studies at the University of Toronto. Please indicate whether 
you wish to have your completed paper considered for publication.

Selected participants will be asked to submit completed papers by February 
15, 2010. Those who wish their papers to be considered for publication 
should submit a publication-ready copy (about 4000 words). During the 
conference, participants will be given 20 minutes to present their work; 
actual presentation papers should be about 1500-2500 words long.

Please e-mail submissions and queries to easgsc2010 at gmail.com. Further 
information as it becomes available will be posted on the conference website 
at http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/easgsc/


Baryon Tensor Posadas
PhD Candidate
Department of East Asian Studies
University of Toronto