An International Webinar by the HSS department on 28 September 2021 at 6:00 pm
Posted: Sat Sep 25, 2021 12:25 pm
Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani (BITS Pilani) Pilani Campus, Rajasthan, India
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
International Academia and Research Committee (IARC) Webinar Series (Webinar No. 9)
Title: Unpacking the Nation in/as the State of Crisis: A Transnational Reflection on the Impact of the Pandemic in Taiwan
Speaker: Dr. Chih-ming Wang (Academia Sinica, Taiwan & Harvard Yenching Institute, USA)
Date: Tuesday, 28 September 2021
Time: 06:00 PM IST
Link for joining: http://meet.google.com/ndd-zwfj-iyn
Session moderator: Dr. Muhammed Afzal P (Assistant Professor, Dept. of Humanities and Social Sciences).
Profile of the Speaker: Dr. Chih-ming Wang is Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan. He is currently a Visiting Scholar at Harvard-Yenching Institute, Cambridge, MA, USA. He has a Ph.D. from Literature Department, University of California, Santa Cruz. He works in the intersected fields of transpacific American literature and inter-Asia cultural studies, especially on the questions of intellectual production and diasporic connections. He is the vice chair of Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Society which brings out the journal Inter-Asia Cultural Studies. He is the chief-editor of Router: A Journal of Cultural Studies (2017-2023) and the author of Transpacific Articulations: Student Migration and the Remaking of Asian America (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2013).
He has also coedited a number of projects, including (with Daniel Goh) Precarious Belongings: Affect and Nationalism in Asia (Rowman and Littlefield International, 2017) and (with Yu-Fang Cho) “The Chinese Factor: Reorienting Global Imaginaries in American Studies,” American Quarterly 69.3 (2007). His book (in Chinese) Re-Articulations: Hundred Years of Foreign Literature Studies in Taiwan is forthcoming from Linking Press in Taiwan.
Abstract of the talk:
Rather than defining the nation as a people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular territory and owning sovereignty over it, this talk aims to unpack the nation as an affective community built on/as a state of crisis. Nothing reveals this insight better than the time of the pandemic when borders become ever more stringent as the people's fear of contagion intensifies and when the racial/ethnic other is easily conjured as an enemy of the state and people. Whereas “Asians”--particularly Chinese--have become a target of racial violence in the West, “Chinese” (students, spouses, and even Taiwanese merchants in China) too have been identified as suspects, if not enemies, to be denied at the border.
In this talk, I will focus on the peculiar struggles of “Chinese” students in Taiwan and the West to unpack the meanings of the nation, and examine how nationalist affect over-determines, if not overrules, our concerns with the humanity, and how critical engagement with “racism” remains central to the project of liberation and modernity.
Detailed Profile of the Speaker: https://www.ea.sinica.edu.tw/people/Chih-Ming Wang.aspx?lang=e
Contact person: Dr. Muhammed Afzal P, muhammed.p@pilani.bits-pilani.ac.in
Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
International Academia and Research Committee (IARC) Webinar Series (Webinar No. 9)
Title: Unpacking the Nation in/as the State of Crisis: A Transnational Reflection on the Impact of the Pandemic in Taiwan
Speaker: Dr. Chih-ming Wang (Academia Sinica, Taiwan & Harvard Yenching Institute, USA)
Date: Tuesday, 28 September 2021
Time: 06:00 PM IST
Link for joining: http://meet.google.com/ndd-zwfj-iyn
Session moderator: Dr. Muhammed Afzal P (Assistant Professor, Dept. of Humanities and Social Sciences).
Profile of the Speaker: Dr. Chih-ming Wang is Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan. He is currently a Visiting Scholar at Harvard-Yenching Institute, Cambridge, MA, USA. He has a Ph.D. from Literature Department, University of California, Santa Cruz. He works in the intersected fields of transpacific American literature and inter-Asia cultural studies, especially on the questions of intellectual production and diasporic connections. He is the vice chair of Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Society which brings out the journal Inter-Asia Cultural Studies. He is the chief-editor of Router: A Journal of Cultural Studies (2017-2023) and the author of Transpacific Articulations: Student Migration and the Remaking of Asian America (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2013).
He has also coedited a number of projects, including (with Daniel Goh) Precarious Belongings: Affect and Nationalism in Asia (Rowman and Littlefield International, 2017) and (with Yu-Fang Cho) “The Chinese Factor: Reorienting Global Imaginaries in American Studies,” American Quarterly 69.3 (2007). His book (in Chinese) Re-Articulations: Hundred Years of Foreign Literature Studies in Taiwan is forthcoming from Linking Press in Taiwan.
Abstract of the talk:
Rather than defining the nation as a people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular territory and owning sovereignty over it, this talk aims to unpack the nation as an affective community built on/as a state of crisis. Nothing reveals this insight better than the time of the pandemic when borders become ever more stringent as the people's fear of contagion intensifies and when the racial/ethnic other is easily conjured as an enemy of the state and people. Whereas “Asians”--particularly Chinese--have become a target of racial violence in the West, “Chinese” (students, spouses, and even Taiwanese merchants in China) too have been identified as suspects, if not enemies, to be denied at the border.
In this talk, I will focus on the peculiar struggles of “Chinese” students in Taiwan and the West to unpack the meanings of the nation, and examine how nationalist affect over-determines, if not overrules, our concerns with the humanity, and how critical engagement with “racism” remains central to the project of liberation and modernity.
Detailed Profile of the Speaker: https://www.ea.sinica.edu.tw/people/Chih-Ming Wang.aspx?lang=e
Contact person: Dr. Muhammed Afzal P, muhammed.p@pilani.bits-pilani.ac.in