# Association for Asian Studies New England Regional Conference #### calendar\_today Date and Time **December 6, 2021** 08:30AM - 05:00PM EST #### pin\_drop Location **Online (Zoom)** [ here arrow\_circle\_right ](https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0ucu2gqz4sHdRBceGSdrMPdpH7VghJ5IEZ) A group of academic centers and institutes that support the study of Asia at Harvard University will jointly host the Association for Asian Studies New England Regional Conference via a virtual platform on Monday, December 6, 2021. *Co-sponsored by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard Asia Center, Harvard-Yenching Institute, Korea Institute, Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Program on U.S.-Japan Relations at Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies* \*\*Register for the conference [here](https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0ucu2gqz4sHdRBceGSdrMPdpH7VghJ5IEZ)\*\* While there is no registration fee, we suggest that attendees [donate to the Association for Asian Studies](/https:/www.asianstudies.org/donate/) at a level that is comfortable for them. Full schedule of the Conference 8:30 – 8:45 AM EST: Welcome and Introduction 8:45 – 10:15 AM EST: Panel A1-A6 10:30 – 11:45 AM EST: Panel B1-B5 12:00 – 1:15 PM EST: Keynote 1:45 – 3:15 PM EST: Panel C1-C4 3:30 – 5:00 PM EST: Panel D1-D5 **8:30 – 8:45 AM EST:** **Welcome and Opening Remark** Elizabeth J. Perry Former President, Association for Asian Studies (2007-08) Director, Harvard-Yenching Institute Henry Rosovsky Professor of Government, Harvard University To be followed by Zoom logistics guidelines by Mark Grady, the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies **8:45 – 10:15 AM EST: Panel A1-A6** (The following 6 panels take place simultaneously) **Panel A1 –** ***Liquid State: The Politics of Dam Construction*** Chair/Discussant: Rohan D'Souza (Kyoto University) Hydrosociality and Power in the Struggle over the Ishiki Dam Charlotte Ciavarella and Joshua Linkous (Harvard University) Hydropower Dams and Politics of River Development in Vietnam Nga Dao (York University) Dam Politics in South Vietnam during the Cold War: The Case of the Da Nhim Dam Chu Duy Ly (National University of Singapore, currently a visiting fellow at the Harvard-Yenching Institute) Learning from the Tennessee Valley Authority: Hydropower Cooperation between China and the United States in the 1940s Xiangli Ding (Rhode Island School of Design) Urbanization and Rural Politics in the Ch’ungju Flood Zone Will Sack (Harvard University) **Panel A2** **–** ***Margin(s) and Center(s) of Empire and Literature: Wang Wei and Meng Haoran*** Chair: Christopher M. B. Nugent (Williams College) Discussant: Jack W. Chen (University of Virginia) Meng Haoran and Wang Wei in the Eyes of Their Contemporaries Paul W. Kroll (University of Colorado) ‘I’m at leisure (閑 *haen*) in the mountains (山 *sraen*), but I have to turn back (還 *hwaen*) now and close (關 *kwaen*) my gate’: Rhyme-Words and Poetic Argument Stephen Owen (Harvard University) Plowing at a Distance: Perspectives on Agricultural Labor in the Poems of Wang Wei Christopher M. B. Nugent (Williams College) Wang Wei as a Case study for Classical Chinese Poetry in Translation Cathy Shen (Harvard University) **Panel A3 –** ***Knowledge, Books, and Text*** Chair: Si Nae Park (Harvard University) Making Different: Reproducing the Histories of Koryŏ in the Twentieth Century Graeme R. Reynolds (Yale University) Making Dungan Literary History: Formation of the Sinophone Muslim Literary Tradition of Central Asia Kenneth J. Yin (City University of New York) Choi Namsŏn in the Transnational Publication World Jeonghun Choi (Harvard University) The Construction of Knowledge Archive in Early Modern South Asia Sushmita Banerjee (University of Delhi, Indi) Flowing with Wind and Stream: The Affect of Fengliu 風流 in the Hongzhi Edition of The Story of the Western Wing 西廂記 Xiaoyue Luo (University of Colorado, Boulder) **Panel A4 –** ***Gender and Sexuality*** Chair: Rachael Joo (Middlebury College) Subfertility as an Active Planning for Pregnancy in Neoliberal South Korea Jean Young Kim (University of Texas at Austin) The Saigon Sisters: Privileged Women in the Resistance Patricia D. Norland (Independent writer) Protest with a party: The Semiotic Landscaping of Metro Manila Pride March as Southern Praxis Christian Go (National University of Singapore, currently a visiting fellow at the Harvard-Yenching Institute) Japan’s Gay Seoul: Behind the Scene at a Korean ‘Snack Bar’ in Tokyo Albert Graves (Doshisha University) Attraction as a Mode of Power: Matchmaking, Romantic Fetish, and the State in Contemporary China Shanni Zhao (Harvard University) **Panel A5 –** ***Chinese State and Governance*** Chair: Elizabeth J. Perry (Harvard University) Numbers, Fiscal Capacity, and Capacity-Building in China, 1500-1800 Liu Ziang (London School of Economics and Political Science) Local Deliberations and Market Development during the Mao Era Kristine Li (Brown University) Echoes of Revolution and Civil War: Party Building in Chinese Counties, 1949- 2005. Zheng Zhang (Chinese University of Hong Kong When Clans Meet Power: Elite Competition and Rural Governance in China Meina Cai (University of Connecticut) **Panel A6 –** ***Narrative and Translation*** Chair: David Wang (Harvard University) Forgetting as Knowing: Knowledge and Wisdom in Zhuangzi’s Stories from *Inner Chapters* Shangtong Cui (Harvard University) War, World Literature, and the “Real”: Futabatei Shimei and the Problem of Literary Translation in the Post-Russo–Japanese War Period in Japan Yuki Ishida (Columbia University) Transcultural Dialogues: Eileen Chang’s Autobiographical Fiction Jessica Tsui-yan Li (York University) Visual and Poetic Imagination in *The Four Seasons*, A Ming Handscroll in the Metropolitan Museum Mo Zhang (University of Pennsylvania) **10:30 – 11:45 AM EST: Panel B1-B5** (The following 5 panels take place simultaneously) **Panel B1 –** ***Revisiting East Asia through Mission Collections in New England*** Chair: Sharon Yang (Harvard University) Digital Frontiers: The China Historical Christian Database Alex Mayfield (Boston University) The Archival Collections on East Asia at the Yale Divinity Library Christopher Anderson (Yale University) Harvard-Yenching Missionary Collection Sharon Li-shiuan Yang (Harvard-Yenching Library) The Ricci Institute: A Global Resource for the Interdisciplinary Study of Christianity in East Asia Mark Mir and M. Antoni Ucerler (Boston College) Missionary Research Library: More than Theology Leah Edelman (Columbia University Libraries) **Panel B2 –** ***Knowledge Production in State-building during the Early PRC*** Chair: Sigrid Schmalzer (University of Massachusetts Amherst) Woven Together: Cotton Trade and the Making of Trade Practices in Cold War Asia, 1950-1959 Bohao Wu (Harvard University) Learning through Hosting: Cameroonian Delegations to the PRC and Chinese Knowledge Production on Africa, 1956-1965 Caitlin Barker (Michigan State University) History Education in Shanghai’s Secondary Schools in the 1950s Guanhua Tan (University of Massachusetts Amherst) Quantifying Rural China: Wartime Land Reform, Statistics, and State Fiscal Capacity in North China (1946-1949) Xiaoyu Gao (University of Chicago) **Panel B3 –** ***Constitutions and Citizenship*** Chair: Tyler Giannini (Harvard University) The Use of Programmatic Beliefs in EU-China Trade Disputes in the WTO DSM Salvatore FP Barillà (University of Edinburgh) Myanmar Citizenship Laws: Making Rohingya Muslims Stateless Ronan Lee (Queen Mary University of London) Obstructive Constitutionalism: Democratic Transitions and Pre-Emptive Authoritarian Constitution-Making in Southeast Asia John Chua (Harvard University) **Panel B4 –** ***Folklore, Ghosts, Monsters, and the Fantastical*** Chair: James Robson (Harvard University) Encountering ghosts: haunting and intercommunal relations in Phang Nga Chantal Croteau (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) Tender Warriors Against the Pandemic in Japan: Kumamon, Quaran & Amabie Michael L. Maynard ( Temple University) Viral Monsters for a Viral Era: Japan’s Folkloric Response to COVID-19 Isabel Bush (Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies) A Space of the Subordinate: On the Development of “The Three-body Problem” Fandom Shuwen Yang (UCLA) **Panel B5** **–** ***Identity*** Chair: Arunabh Ghosh (Harvard University) Power and Identity of the Manchu and Mongol Bannermen in Qing: A Study of Household Economies by Means of Confiscation Inventory Lists Yitong Qiu (London School of Economics and Political Science) Vietnamese International Students in the Asian American Movement (1968-1975) Cai Barias (University of Massachusetts Amherst) “In-between” Asian Americans: Falling through the intersectional cracks of Liminality Kristin Kim (Korea University) Documentary Betrayal: Migrant Worker, the Aesthetics of Cruelty, and Fabulating Otherwise Yufan Chen (Harvard University) Migration, Race and Nation: Chinese Views in Comparative and Global Context, 1900s-1940s Lisong Liu (Massachusetts College of Art and Design) History, Identity and Hong Kong: A Constructivist Approach to the De-colonisation of British Hong Kong Matthew Hurst (University of Oxford) **12:00 – 1:15 PM EST:** **Keynote** Hy V. Luong President, Association for Asian Studies Professor of Anthropology, University of Toronto Local Culture or Global Neoliberal Ideology?: Reflections on a Shifting Intellectual Landscape **1:45 – 3:15 PM EST: Panel C1-C4** (The following 4 panels take place simultaneously) **Panel C1 –** ***Assessing China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Strategic Evolution and the European Case*** Chair: Nargis Kassenova (Harvard University) From Ambiguity to Articulation: Belt and Road Initiative’s Dynamic Process in China Min Ye (Boston University) Burning (Atlantic) Bridges? China’s Rise in Europe and its Implications for U.S. Grand Strategy Thomas Cavanna (Tufts University) From Maritime Silk Road to Health Silk Road: Belt and Road Initiative’s Dynamic Process in Europe Grant Rhode (Boston University) **Panel C2** **–** ***Thinking through the Asian Diaspora, Racial Oppression, and Intersectional Identity*** Labor’s Advocacy for Whiteness and Chinese Exclusion in Defense of the “American Standard of Living” Pat Reeve (Suffolk University) Wang Hao, the Chinese Diaspora, and Philosophy Montgomery Link (Suffolk University) Evangelical Christianity, Sex and the Massacre of Asian American Women in Atlanta on March 16, 2021 Amy Fisher (Suffolk University) A Feminist Critique of Anti-Asian Violence in the Context of U.S.-China Relation Micky Lee (Suffolk University) The Invisibility and Microaggression Experiences of Asians in USA: How can we Understand and Reduce their Adverse Impact on Psychological Wellbeing Sukanya Ray (Suffolk University) **Panel C3 –** ***Empire and Colonialism*** Chair: Sugata Bose (Harvard University) Dandelions, Airships, and the Long Way Around: Orientating Nakayama Miki’s Divine Parental Guidance Michaela Leah Prostak (Brown University) Sacred Maneuvers: Maulana Azad and the Career of Muslim Nationalism in British India Aneeq Ejaz (Dartmouth College) Sir Robert Hart and the territorialization of Qing rule in aboriginal Taiwan Georges Moraitis (Queen’s University Belfast) Industrial Whaling and the Expansion of the Japanese Maritime Empire, 1890- 1912 Fynn Holm (Harvard University) Discursive Empire: The Shifting Definitions of Japan’s Empire in Manchuria (1905–37) Yuting Dong (Harvard University) **Panel C4** **–** ***Military*** Chair: Michael Szonyi (Harvard University) American Trash, Japanese Treasure: Military Garbage in Occupied Japan Connor Mills (Dartmouth College) Soldering Across Space and Time: “Taiwanese” Servicemen Under the Japanese and U.S Empires (1930s – 1970s) Shang Yasuda (University of Pennsylvania) The Rhythms of Commodification: Mid-Qing Military Horse Provisioning Charles Argon (Princeton University) Neoliberalism and the Political Economy of Bangladesh Military Matt M. Husain (The University of British Columbia) **3:30 – 5:00 PM EST: Panel D1-D5** (The following 5 panels take place simultaneously) **Panel D1 –** ***More than the Sum of it Parts: Piecing together Chinese Fragment Histories in the Harvard Art Museums*** **Chair: Sarah Lauren (Harvard University)** Seeing through the Cracks: Kharakhoto Fragments in the HAM Collection Victoria Andrews (Harvard University) Putting Face to Place: Fragments from Warner’s “Elephant Chapel” Isabel McWilliams (Harvard University) From Henan to Harvard: Three Sixth-century Buddhist Heads in Context Michael Norton (Harvard University) Reframing Tianlongshan: Facing the Past and Looking Ahead Sarah Laursen (Harvard Art Museums) **Panel D2 –** ***Nation, Religion, and Society in Modern Korea: Examinations of Religious Freedom & Restriction, Modern Social Engagement, and (Inter)National Identity and Belonging*** Chair: Kyuhoon Cho (University of Regina) Rational Restriction on Religion? How North Korea Conceives of Religious Freedom John G. Grisafi (Yale University) Shifts in the Social Engagement of Modern Korean Buddhism Jusung Lee (Yale University) George May’s Lost Town: Remembering Yongsan Garrison through Seoul American High School, 1974-2019 Karis Ryu (Yale University) **Panel D3 –** ***International Relations and International Politics*** Chair: Mesrob Vartavarian (Harvard University) Making Sense of China’s Western Neighbourhood Diplomacy: A Neoclassical Realist Argument Giulia Sciorati (University of Trento) Wrestling with the Past: Sumō and the Restoration of Japan-China Relations in the 1970s Erik Esselstrom (University of Vermont) Before the Storm Comes: Diplomatic Exchanges between Mongols, Korea, and Japan Before 1274 Bun’ei Campaign Lina Nie (University of Southern California) Hegemony and Indirect Balancing in Mainland Southeast Asia Paul Un (University of Chicago) **Panel D4 –** ***Places and Cities*** Chair: Nicole Newendorp (Harvard University) Decoy of the Gods: Votive Artillery at Asuke Hanchimangū Shrine and Population Politics in a Shrinking Suburb of Japan’s Fourth Largest City Christopher S. Thompson (Ohio University) Collective Construction: Building “Community” and “Chumchon” in Bangkok Hayden Shelby (University of Cincinnati), Trude Renwick (Hong Kong University) The Timing of the largest flower market in Asia Rui Sun (Chinese University of Hong Kong, currently a visiting fellow at the Harvard-Yenching Institute) Seeing Time in Space: Temporality of Symbolic Landscape in Laos Anna Koshcheeva (Cornell University) **Panel D5 –** ***Performance*** Chair: Alex Zahlten (Harvard University) Secularizing Bollywood: Mother Images in Popular Hindi Cinema Liangdong Chen (Beijing Normal University, currently a visiting fellow at the Harvard-Yenching Institute) A Centennial Portrait: Ballets Performed in 2021 for 100th Year of the Chinese Communist Party’s Founding Eva Shan Chou (City University of New York) “Even if it Means our Battles to Date are Meaningless”: The Anime Gundam Wing and Postwar History, Memory, and Identity in Japan Genevieve R Peterson (University of Massachusetts Boston) Local Performing Arts and Recovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami: A Descriptive Qualitative Study Akiko Iizuka (Utsunomiya University) Musical Borrowing for Career Advancement: Daechwita in K-pop Sunhong Kim (University of Michigan) **Thank you for participating in the NE AAS 2021 Conference. We hope to see you in Honolulu, Hawai’i and online in March, 2022!** See also:- [ Special and Co-sponsored Events ](/eventtypelecture/special-and-co-sponsored-events) Share on:- [ Facebook ](#) - [ Twitter ](#) - [ Linkedin ](#) Save: [ Add to calendar calendar\_today ](https://korea.fas.harvard.edu/node/1617014/event-feed.ics) Copy link link