| 09:00-09:30 |
Registration |
| 09:30-09:40 | Opening
Remarks
Professor John Nieuwenhuysen AM
Director
Monash Institute for the Study of Global
Movements |
|
Session 1
Chair:
Marko Pavlyshyn |
| 09:40-10:40 |
Eurocentrism and Eurobashing: Is There a Way
between Scylla and Charybdis?
by Professor
Johann Arnason
School of Languages, Cultures &
Linguistics
Monash University A critique of
Eurocentrism is essential to present efforts to develop a more balanced
account of global history, and to a better grasp of civilizational
pluralism. But this critique is best understood as a long-term task
that needs extensive empirical and interpretive work, rather than
an a priori imposition of an alternative vision of history. It should
therefore be carefully distinguished from the flourishing Eurobashing
industry that presents itself as a part of the more general "postcolonial"
reorientation of the human sciences. |
| 10:40-11:00 | Break |
| Session
2
Chair: Warren Sun |
| 11:00-11:30 |
The Ambivalence of Modern European Civilization:
British and French Culture, Economic and Political Modernity
by Dr. Natalie Doyle
School of Languages,
Cultures and Linguistics
Monash University
The 18 P th P century saw the birth in Western Europe of a new type
of civilization that has come to be referred to as modernity. Far
from being homogenous, this civilization was from the start characterized
by a fundamental tension between what the French theorist Cornelius
Castoriadis defined as the revival of a project of social autonomy,
which underpinned the drive for democracy and the unlimited expansion
of rational mastery that fuelled the development of capitalism. As
Arnason, Wagner and others have argued, these two projects were from
the start linked by more than mere historical co-emergence and their
relationship is central to the understanding of the development of
capitalism, understood as the rise to dominance of an economic version
of modernity over its other manifestations, not least its political
one. This paper will explore the way this relationship was shaped
by the cultural divide between Britain and France , which in turn
fed into the creation of a common but ambivalent new form of civilization. |
| 11:30-12:00 |
and
: Doppelgnger as the Subject
of Modernity
by Mr. Dimitris Vardoulakis
School of English, Communications and Performance Studies
Monash University This paper will argue
that the Doppelgnger can be seen as a form of conjunction
which illustrates that loss of origin that characterizes modernity.
The point will be demonstrated with recourse to the work of Michel
Foucault, as well as a general philosophical problematic that characterizes
the Doppelgnger after its conception by Jean Paul.
Ultimately, the Doppelgnger will turn out to be not
a mere motif utilized in literary texts, but a motive power which
builds a bridge between literature and philosophy. |
| 12:00-12:30 |
Between Trauma and Melancholia
by Dr. Christiane Weller
School of Languages, Cultures
and Linguistics
Monash University The paper
will examine the rhetoric of trauma and melancholia as it presents
itself in recent literary productions and public debate on German
history. It almost appears as if German unification opened up a new
avenue to a somewhat different attempt on Vergangenheitsbewltigung
(coming to terms with the past). These writings about German history
are in many cases also a writing about topography. Here architecture
is burdened with the memory of the past and becomes the anchoring
point for the supposition of collective trauma. Berlin in particular,
revived as the German capital, offers itself as the perfect playing
field for an array of cultural productions which invest this centre
with new meaning and/or new myths. The city is read as reminder and
remainder of a history which carries the mark of massive violence.
The city therefore allows the observer/visitor a phantasmatic relation
to the positions of perpetrator and of victim, to guilt and to suffering.
Two authors the paper will be referring to when looking at the literary
representation of trauma and melancholia are W.G. Sebald and Cees
Nooteboom. |
| 12:30-13:30 |
Lunch |
| Session
3
Chair: Gloria Davies |
| 13:30-14:30 |
The Idea of 'Immanent Transcendence'
and the Chinese Interest in Dewey and Habermas
by Professor Shijun Tong
East China Normal University/Shanghai
Academy of Social Sciences It is almost a truism to say
that Chinese culture is characterized by the idea of "immanent
transcendence". Although scholars against this point oppose
it for different reasons, scholars for this interpretation advocate
it on quite similar grounds: the Chinese culture allows or encourages
having a type of hope, ideal or utopia that is based on this-worldly
conditions and efforts. From this perspective it is easier to understand
the strong Chinese interest in two great Western thinkers visiting
China almost one century apart. John Dewey, who visited China in
the early 20 P th P century, defended his naturalist interpretation
of "the religious" versus "religion"; Juergen
Habermas, who visited China at the beginning of the 21 P st P century,
based his "utopian of communication" versus "utopian
of labour" on his understanding of the idea of "immanent
transcendence" or "Transzendenz von innen". A close
comparison between the Chinese, the American and the German versions
of the idea of "immanent transcendence" would help us understand
better not only the Chinese interest in pragmatism and Critical Theory,
but also the relation between the traditional Chinese culture and
the modern Western culture in general. In this comparison, the relation
between the two modern Western schools of thought can also be better
understood from a third, non-Western, perspective. |
| 14:30-14:50 | Break
|
|
Session 4
Chair:
Dimitris Vardoulakis |
| 14:50-15:20 | What
Price Deconstruction? Reflections on a Certain Chinese Intellectual
Resistance to the Impossibility of Closure
by Dr. Gloria Davies
School of Languages, Cultures and
Linguistics
Monash University The term "deconstruction"
( jiegou ) makes a frequent appearance in intellectual
discourse in present-day mainland China, and it is frequently linked
to a presumed "system" of thinking referred to as jiegouzhuyi
(or "deconstructionism"). In this paper, I explore the
difficulties that Derrida's notion of deconstruction (broadly
speaking, as an undoing of the metaphysics of presence) poses for
Chinese critical inquiry. Since Chinese critical inquiry remains
largely concerned with distinguishing between appropriate and inappropriate
ways of engaging with the past, the present and the future, it has
tended to privilege a utilitarian and foundationalist approach to
theory that marks a distinct difference from the self-reflexive and
anti-foundationalist approaches characteristic of Euro-American theory.
As jiegou, "deconstruction" is often
effaced of its indeterminate effects to signify something more akin
to the "dismantling" of an existing truth-claim with the
anticipation of arriving at a better and more "rational"
alternative. Accordingly, this paper discusses a range of comments
that have appeared in Sinophone critical discourse in relation to
the notion of deconstruction, to clarify the difference between deconstruction
as a self-reflexive praxis and jiegou conceived
of as a somewhat mechanistic notion that anticipates a process that
is carried out in order to better reconstruct
, as it were, "what is to be done in China's best interest." |
| 15:20-15:50 |
Zhang Binglin and Modern Chinese Historiography
by Dr. Warren Sun
School of Languages,
Cultures and Linguistics
Monash University
The paper argues that the "historiographical revolution",
which took place during the first 2 decades of 20th century China
, was largely a synthetic process in which "Confucian Classical
Learning" collapsed and the Chinese mind opened to European
ideas. In the process, Zhang Binglin arguably played the most prominent
pioneering role in transforming traditional studies of Confucian
classics into a modern historical discipline. As for the Chinese
intellectual's attitude toward the West at the time, the phenomena
of cultural bridge and cultural border were both at work to provide
a tension-laden dynamic in generating the unique and yet typical
brand of "nationalistic historiography" that was to become
the hallmark of Zhang Binglin's historical discourse. |
| 15:50-16:10 | Break
|
|
Session 5
Chair:
Bruce Jacobs |
| 16:10-16:40 |
A Spectral Analysis of Contemporary
Chinese Thought
by Mr. Guanjun Wu
School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics
Monash
University By having triple intellectual legacies - (cultural-conservative)
Confucianism,(political-radical) Maoism, and (socio-economic) neoliberal-marketism,
contemporary Chinese thought is really a twisted complex. This paper,
by employing Lacanian psychoanalysis, provides an extimate map of
the post-Mao Chinese intellectual discourses which have been fantasmatically
formed with regard to the question of "Whither China?" |
| 16:40-17:20 |
'The Chen Dengke Phenomenon'
by Mr. Robert Irving
School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics
Monash
University Less than a decade after the 1934 speech of
Andrei Zhdanov at the first All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers
marked the beginning of a definition of 'socialist realism',
Mao Zedong gave his 1942 Yan'an 'Talks', which were to
become the basis for literary policy in the PRC and which generally
affirmed the Soviet model. Mao modified this model however, with
emphasis on the worker-peasant-soldier readership over the role of
the writer. A desire to establish the national character of SR led
to the encouragement of traditional Chinese forms and a fostering
of workers, peasants and soldiers as writers. Chen Dengke was a beneficiary
par excellence of this policy of affirmative
action. This paper will examine his literary development, set against
periods of political liberalisation (1956-1957 Hundred Flowers campaign)
and repression (1957-1958 Anti-Rightist Movement), as illustrative
of literary production in China in the 1950s. A discussion of his
relationship with his teacher and mentor, the famous writer Ding
Ling, and how he was forced to denounce her, holds wider relevance
for the plight of intellectuals in a Communist state. |
|
Session 1
Chair:
Natalie Doyle |
| 09:30-10:00 |
Between Geopolitics and Globalization, Empire
and Nationalism: Russia's Eurasian Questions
by Professor David Roberts
School of Languages, Cultures
and Linguistics
Monash University Nineteenth
and twentieth century Eurasianism sought to define Russia's civilizational
identity and imperial mission against Europe and Europeanism. Does
the collapse of the Soviet Union signify 'Eurasia's'
mutation into an anti-paradigm (Mark von Hagen) or the 'end of
Eurasia' (Dmitri Trenin), that is, the displacement of geopolitics
by globalization? N. S. Trubetzkoy's critique of Eurocentrism
in Europe and Mankind is essentially a critique of the rise of the
West as the 'triumph of nationalism.' Does the collapse of
the Soviet Union signify the crisis of the polyethnic norm of the
Eurasian ecumene (William McNeill)? |
| 10:00-10:30 | In-Betweeness:
Cultural Implications of the Term 'Euro-Asia' (A Ukrainian
Perspective)
by Professor Maria Zubrytska
Ivan Franko Lviv National University, Ukraine In
the course of centuries Ukraine served as a very important link and
strategic crossroute between East and West, falling under political
and cultural influence from both sides. Ukraine 's geographical
location between Europe and Asia meant that much of its early culture
was a synthesis of Eastern and Western influences. When a developed
culture emerged in the medieval, or Kyivan, period, the influence
of the Byzantine Empire was paramount. In early modern times, major
European currents such as the Renaissance reached Ukraine . A cultural
dichotomy today exists within Ukraine , with Western regions reflecting
European influence, while in the Eastern regions the impact of Russian
culture is evident. The future of Ukraine as a "land in between"
is to be a natural bridge, or better yet in the context of global
communication, a mediator between West and East. Being astride these
two cultures, Ukrainian culture could help both to understand one
another mutually, because the difficulties we face in the political
field are due above all to ignorance, and ignorance generates fear. |
| 10:30-11:00 |
Demarcations and (Dis)orientations: Cultural
Choices in the East of Europe
by Professor
Marko Pavlyshyn
School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics
Monash University Among the attributes of texts that
we can analyse for their rhetorical efficacy (i.e. for their capacity
to persuade audiences) are their "geographies": the ways
in which they invoke place or express orientation toward cultural
reference points associated with particular locations. The spatial
rhetorics of Ukrainian and Belarusian high culture after 1991 reflect
a number of different standpoints: the autarkic affirmation of unique
locality corresponding to a unique national and cultural space; the
rejection of the continuity of a "Eurasian" cultural and
geopolitical continuum; and the embrace of a "Europe" that
stands for the political and philosophical traditions associated
with the Enlightenment and the cultural traditions of European modernism. |
| 11:00-11:20 |
Break |
| Session
2
Chair: Christiane Weller |
| 11:20-11:50 |
Bridging Europe andAsia via the International
System: The EU-China Partnership and the EU Self
by Mr. Cristian Brasoveanu
School of Languages, Cultures
and Linguistics
Monash University What has
been called the constructivist or social turn in the field of International
Relations has placed a spotlight on the role of identity in the international
system. Alexander Wendt in particular has drawn special attention
to the significance of collective or social identities (self-representations
that merge the self and other into a single identity), deriving from
their causal power to induce international actors to define the welfare
of the other as part of that of the self. This paper analyses, from
a social identity perspective, the implications that the EU-China
partnership, a major element of EU foreign policy, holds for the
identity of the EU as an agent in the international system. The emergence
of an EU-China collective identity in the international system can
contribute indirectly to the construction of new cultural bridges
between Europe and China . |
| 11:50-12:20 |
Living with the Outgroup: Effects
of Media Exposure on Subjective Social Reality and Acculturation
Attitudes of Chinese Immigrants inAustralia
by Dr. Shuang Liu
School of Journalism and Communication
University of Queensland This study draws upon cultivation
theory, acculturation theory, and works on intergroup relations to
examine the effects of mass media exposure on subjective social reality
and acculturation attitudes of Chinese immigrants in Australia .
Data was gathered via a survey administered to 263 respondents with
Chinese origin. Results indicated that exposure to ethnic media appeared
to be a strong positive predictor of separation orientation but a
negative predictor of assimilation orientation. Exposure to mainstream
media, on the other hand, was positively related to assimilation.
The preference of integration orientation, however, was not directly
related to media exposure. The association between media exposure
and some indicators of subjective social reality and acculturation
attitudes tended to be moderated and/or mediated by the degree of
intergroup contact. These findings challenged the assumption of cultivation
theory, paved the ground for combining interpersonal communication
variables with mediated communication variables in acculturation
research, and suggested policy implications regarding interethnic
coexistence. |
| 12:20-12:50 |
Windows to Other Worlds: The Impact
of Western Education on the Lives of Indian Women
by Dr. Reshmi Lahiri-Roy
School of Culture, Literature
and Society
University of Canterbury, New Zealand
This paper explores the impact the introduction of British education
had on the lives of Indian women in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century. It goes on to analyse the current situation regarding
women's education in India from a cultural studies perspective.
A particular section of society that is the Indian middle and upper-middle
class are the focus of this paper. In the process of acquiring education,
these women often emerged as cultural outsiders within their own
social situations and yet the 'Westerner' always signified
the 'Other'. This dichotomy and its related conflicts originating
from this adherence to an English-focused education system is observed
in today's technologically powerful India as well. In this study,
autobiographical writings by women such as Sudha Mazumdar, Nayantara
Sahgal, Lalithambika Antharjanam and others are used illustratively.
Certain observations are also based on depictions of women in film
and literature and works by Western journalists and travel writers
on their observations of Indian women are also used in order to present
a different cultural perspective and a coherent rather than fragmented
view. |
| 12:50-13:50 |
Lunch |
| Session
3
Chair: Alison Tokita |
| 13:50-14:50 |
A History of Korean Consumer Culture: Formation
of Disciplined Modernism
by Professor
Myungkoo Kang
Department of Communication
Seoul National University The purpose of the study is to
examine a historical formation of disciplined modernism in the history
of consumer culture in South Korea. Two research questions were raised:
First, when did the consumer society start in South Korea? Second,
how have Korean consumers experienced the compressed modernization?
To answer the first question, this study examined statistical data
in relations to consumer goods and materials as well as changes of
consumer economy. The study found the mid-1970s was the critical
period that modern consumption phenomena became prevalent among ordinary
consumers. As for the second question, the study tried to look into
how Korean consumers lived through the rapidly growing consumer economy,
focusing on 1) formation of consumer desire, and 2) how the state
intervene the private sphere of consumption for the purpose of disciplining
'good' nations. The study claimed that the negotiation between
material desire and the top-down tutelage have formed "the disciplined
modernism" as a typical nature of Korean consumer culture. |
| 14:50-15:10 |
Break |
| Session
4
Chair: Hiroko Hashimoto |
| 15:10-15:40 |
Gendered Construction of the 'Audience
of Winter Sonata' and Its Possible Consequences between South
Koreaand Japan
by Professor Kaori Hayashi
Tokyo University Ien Ang posits that the word 'audience'
has at least two meanings: one as discursive construct in the use
such as 'television audience' and the other as the social
world of actual audiences. Since I started to explore the audiencehood
of the Korean drama 'Winter Sonata' in Japan, I have been
aware of a large discrepancy between these two meanings of 'audience':
one picture of reserved, disciplined and culturally conscious viewers
which I obtained through analyses of individually written letters
and the other which is constructed as a discourse from the institutional
standpoint. In this presentation, I will first show that Japan 's
popular news magazines published in 2004 tried to fix the image of
the audience of 'Winter Sonata' as groups of hysterical,
dumb, nymphomaniac middle-aged women. While we notice that there
are signs of the emergence of sensitized publics toward Asian issues
by means of the boom of 'Winter Sonata', we find dominant
social groups inside Japan who prefer highly sensational, gendered,
nationalistic and reactionary discourses and try to define the phenomenon
from their own perspective. Interestingly, this dominant national
discourse on the audience of the Winter Sonata in Japan shows a sharp
contrast to that in South Korea . Lee analyzed major national newspapers
published in the year 2004 and the first half of 2005 in South Korea
and found out that gender aspects are rarely mentioned in terms of
the popularity of Korean drama boom in Japan. Opinion leaders in
Korea are, according to Lee, mostly reluctant to mention that the
boom is driven by middle-aged women in Japan . These two extreme
stances in depicting the popularity of the Korean drama elucidates
that gender bias is immanent in the discourse of national media events.
In this sense, the 'Winter Sonata' boom has been already
highly politicized at multilayered levels both in Japan and Korea
. The boom is interwoven in the politics between Japan and Korea
, between men and women, between market and civil society, between
mass media and personal media. Each clique has been trying to make
use of 'Winter Sonata' for its own ideology and interests,
for 'Winter Sonata' is one of the first products from South
Korea with a potential to appeal and mobilize the popular opinion. |
| 15:40-16:10 |
The Korean Wave on JapaneseShores: Will Winter
Sonata Bring About a Thaw in Japan-Korea Relations?
by Professor Alison Tokita and Ms. Alexandra Hambleton
School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics
Monash
University Japan-Korea relations carry a heavy legacy from
Japan's colonial occupation of Korea from 1910 to 1945. Liberation
was followed by the destructive Korean War (1950-53), which ironically
was a major factor in Japan 's economic recovery. Japan's
collective amnesia combined with deep Korean mistrust of Japan have
kept relations bad to the present, despite diplomatic normalization
in 1965. Since the Seoul Olympics in 1988, hopeful signs of improvement
include the loosening of the ban on Japanese cultural products by
Kim Dae Jung in 1998, the co-hosting of the World Soccer Tournament
in 2002, and most recently the phenomenal popularity of the Korean
television drama Kyoul yonga (Fuyu no sonata, Winter sonata) in Japan.
This paper concentrates on the latter phenomenon. There have been
many popular explanations put forward by media, academic critics,
and just about everyone in the general public for the popularity
of this TV drama in Japan . These explanations include the appeal
of the lead male actor, the characters, locales, music, and fashions.
The story is one of so-called "pure" love, always proper,
whose fulfillment is indefinitely postponed, indeed prevented by
myriad plot twists, over 20 one-hour episodes. Most commentators
argue that Japanese female viewers are attracted by a nostalgia for
this pure type of love, which is no longer possible in Japan . This
is the kind of view often described as a feeling of "cultural
proximity", but "based on a refusal to accept that it [
Japan ] shares the same temporality as other Asian nations"
(Iwabuchi 2002: 159). This paper presents original data obtained
through extensive interviews of Japanese fans of the drama, which
will challenge many of the above claimed causes, most of which tend
to be dismissive of the fan experience in various ways. Analysis
of the data will throw new light on these questions: what was the
actual fan experience of the drama; will the boom last long enough
to have a positive effect on attitudes engendered towards Korea;
will the attitudes extend towards greater understanding of the long-term
Korean residents in Japan; and will the boom have any lasting effect
on Japan-Korea relations. |
| 16:10-16:40 |
Music in Fuyu no sonata: the Piano
as a Bridge to European Culture in Borderless Musical Modernity
by Professor Alison Tokita
School
of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics
Monash University
One of the frequently mentioned reasons for the popularity in Japan
of the Korean television serial drama Winter Sonata (Kyoul Yonga,
Fuyu no Sonata) was its soundtrack. This paper analyzes the music
in this twenty hour series, and from that will explore the role of
the piano as a symbol of musical modernity in East Asia . The pivotal
role of the piano in the drama, as both a plot device and as a pervasive
element of the sound track, is analyzed. The analysis will reveal
the phenomenon of the ubiquitous modernity of (western) musical culture,
which is represented in the drama as globally shared: it contributes
to the formation of a modern identity which is accessible to all
who aspire to it. Korea's significant cultural Other is no longer
China, but the West and Japan . However, in this drama, there is
no sense of the West as a visible Other: western music is thoroughly
localized and internalized; it has become an internal referent. Korea
/ the past / tradition is represented by memorial services and photos,
but never musically. Japan too is not represented as Other, but as
a seamless field of modernity, in which music functions as a cultural
bridge, with the piano as a common cultural denominator in a shared
modern high culture. Frequently dubbed "close yet distant"
neighbours, Korea and Japan in this drama share a common identity,
expressed in a common (western) musical culture. |
| 16:40-17:00 | Break
|
|
Session 5
Chair:
Robert Irving |
| 17:00-17:30 |
'National Presentation'
and Cultural Identity
by Dr. Hiroko Hashimoto
School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics
Monash
University This paper is a part of an empirical study examining
the impact of intensive multicultural experiences on young people's
views of their culture and identity. The participants of this study
took part in 'The 15 P th P Ship for World Youth Program',
a Japanese government project in 2002. 225 young people were invited
to the program from 13 different countries, and traveled on a cruise
ship for about 40 days. This intensive multicultural experience was
significant in enabling these young people to reflect on their culture
and their intercultural interactions, because they were separated
physically and technologically from their comfortable social networks
and were forced to interact with different cultures. I was on board
as an academic advisor and conducted participant observation and
semi-structured interviews with 35 young people from Australia, New
Zealand, Fiji, the USA, Canada, Venezuela, Spain and Japan . This
paper focuses on the most important official activity on board,'National
Presentation', in which the delegates from each country had to
introduce their own country. Interesting tensions between the idea
of representing a national culture and the participants' own
cultural backgrounds and their identity are examined with reference
to theories of globalisation, multiculturalism and cultural identity. |
| 17:30-18:00 |
Mirror's Edge and Distant Gamelan: Constructing
Bridges across the Rifts between the Bahasa Malaysian Population
and the Nanyang Chinese in Malaysia
by
Dr. Annette Van den Bosch
School of English, Communications
and Performance Studies, Faculty of Arts
Monash University
The artists Ahmad Zakii Anwar and Chong Siew Ying are both painters
of the human figure but there experience of life as Malaysians, and
as artists are different, and so are there audience. Ahmad Zakii
Anwar is an older artist, whose rapport with the culture of Bali
is represented in the paintings of masks and dancers exhibited as
'Distant Gamelan' in Kuala Lumpur. Chong Siew Ying is a young
Chinese woman artist who studied art in Paris and represents the
naked human figure, singly or as couples in ways that are ambiguous.
The figures convey a sense of displacement due to their lack of context.
Although Anwar's masked dances and female dances are located
securely in the rituals of Bali , the artist is repeating the journeys
made by Nanyang Chinese artists to Bali , in the 1950s, and the ways
that their art was influenced by the cross-cultural approach to art
by Indonesian artists. I will compare these artists' representations
of the human body and the ways in which they bridge the rifts in
Malaysian cultural identity. |