17/10/2020 CFP for ACLA seminar "Rethinking Modernity through Transculturality: Euro-Asia Comparison as Example" | H-Announce | H-Net

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CFP for ACLA seminar "Rethinking Modernity through

Transculturality: Euro-Asia Comparison as Example"

Announcement published by Shu-Mei Lin on Monday, October 5, 2020

Type: Call for Papers

New York,
Date: October 31, 2020
Subject Fields:
Asian History / Studies, Art, Art History & Visual Studies, Modern European History / Studies, Literature, Humanities

ACLA 2021 (April 8-11 ), fully virtual

Cfp for seminar entitled "Rethinking Modernity through Transculturality: Euro-Asia Comparison as Example"

Organizers: Fangdai Chen (fangdai_chen@g.harvard.edu)

Shu-mei Lin (sl2688@cornell.edu)

How was the idea of modernity or the modern conceptualized? According to Max Weber, it is originated from the
secularization of Christianity, while for philosophers such as Nietzsche, it pertains to the Enlightenment reason and
marks the rise of science and human rationality over theology and metaphysics. But more specifically, according to
Peter Osborne, the term modernity is first and foremost a historical indicator derived from the distinction of the past as
pre-modern. Contemporary scholars such as Fredric Jameson register the modern in the Marxist stages of revolution.
The modern or modernity in this sense always subscribes to the temporal register. With the rise of anti-colonial
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17/10/2020 CFP for ACLA seminar "Rethinking Modernity through Transculturality: Euro-Asia Comparison as Example" | H-Announce | H-Net

consciousness and the prominent postcolonial criticism, the idea of the modern can no longer be limited to the temporal
register. From the mid-twentieth century, a reflection over the conceptualization of the East-West has already been
purported by Japanese scholars such as Takeuchi Yoshimi. In recent years, various efforts have been made at
rethinking the issue of modernity and its relevant cultural and literary practices through border-crossing lenses, be it
transcultural, transnational, transcontinental, global/world, etc.

This panel investigates the possibility to transcend or rethink the existing dichotomy between the West and the Rest in
the case of modernism, a “dubious” by-product of modernization. Above all, avant-garde practices, often grouped under
the nomenclature of “modernism,” deviate from existing convention. In this case, would it be possible for the avant-
garde to confer the texts, the practitioner, or the artworks some autonomy to transcend the existent infrastructure or
even the clearly deployed world system? Other than the text, how does the circulation of idea embody or transcend the
respective geopolitical imaginary and power relations? How does the transcoding from idea to text/artwork fossilize or
debunk the binary myth in the border crossing movement of both idea and text? Along the same thread, we ask if any of
these attempts provides us with different angles to inspect modernist practices, and even reconfigure the idea of
modernity. For the border-crossing practices, are there other ways to imagine the world other than the dichotomy of the
west and the rest?

Continuing the dialogue, we welcome articles comparing modernist practices (literature, art and/or media) in different
regions as well as its border-crossing attempts. In addition, we look for papers that rethink the geopolitics as well as the
concept and theorization of modernity by investigating through the modernist works. We also look forward to research
concerning the translation of modernist ideas, works, and texts as well as their circulation.

Paper abstracts due October 31, 2020 on ACLA website.

Contact Info:

Organizers: Fangdai Chen (fangdai_chen@g.harvard.edu)

Shu-mei Lin (sl2688@cornell.edu)

Contact Email: sl2688@cornell.edu

H-Net: Humanities & Social Sciences Online

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