Call for Application

The 9th Next-Generation Global Workshop

Theme:Transcultural Dynamics of Asia and Europe: Mobility, Negotiation and Transformation

Date: September 26-27, 2016

Venue: Faculty of Letters Main Building, Kyoto University

I　The Purposes of the Next-Generation Global Workshop 

The Next-Generation Global Workshop (NGGW) has been held annually since 2008 to provide an opportunity for early-career scholars to present their research and to have feedback from an international audience. It has proved to be a pleasant and effective way for capacity building of early-career scholars through mentorship of professors from different universities in different areas of the world. The early-career scholars also have chances to learn from keynote speeches by the experts on the theme of the year. The NGGW has also provided invaluable opportunities for all participants to learn from other participants and to deepen the understanding of various social phenomena and perspectives encompassing social issues in respective parts of the world, particularly in Asia. Ultimately, the NGGW has served as a forum for scholars of different generations from various regions to build a common academic foundation by redefining Asia in the global context. 

*The NGGW was initiated by the Kyoto University Global COE on “Reconstruction of the Intimate and Public Spheres in 21st Century Asia” together with its international partners, and succeeded by Kyoto University Asian Studies Unit (KUASU) and its international partners, who established Kyoto International Consortium for Asian Studies (KICAS) in January, 2014.

*The participants in the NGGW in the previous years were from South Korea, China, Taiwan, The Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, India, Nepal, Malaysia, Qatar, Finland, Sweden, France, UK, Germany, The Netherlands, Hungary, Italy, USA, Canada, Australia and Japan.

* The 9th Next-Generation Global Workshop is co-organized by Kyoto University Asian Studies Unit (KUASU) and The Heidelberg Center for Transcultural Studies.

II　Theme: Transcultural Dynamics of Asia and Europe: Mobility, Negotiation and Transformation

The theme of this year''s workshop is "Transcultural Dynamics of Asia and Europe: Mobility, Negotiation and Transformation.” The concept of “transculture” is still a newcomer to the social sciences and humanities but increasingly debated. In some discourses, the term “transculture” is used to describe processes of transformation that unfold through extended contacts and relationships between cultures, various agents, institutions and concepts. Transculturality may cover spatial mobility, circulation or flows of persons/goods/information and seeks emancipation from the limited notion of culture defined as an ethnically closed, linguistically homogenous and territorially framed juxtaposition of power and agency. 

The concept of transculturality is similar or related and, at the same time, opposing to concepts such as assimilation, convergence, cosmopolitanism, entanglement, glocalisation, hybridity, power asymmetries, syncretism, or transfer. Transculturality yields new perspectives on the dynamic nature of power (Foucault, 1976)*, and the circulation of ideas, people, and commodities in a close manner to the approach of “entangled history.”

Transculturality is also a methodological perspective. It asks to unpack established concepts, questions the nation-state as a container for knowledge and social life, and is thus highly oriented towards empirical studies of cultural and institutional processes, dynamics, conflicts, and the agents involved. In other words, transculturality “aims to investigate the multiple ways in which difference is negotiated within contacts and encounters.”

The organizer welcomes contributions from various disciplines of the social sciences and the humanities. And this is another meaning of the trans- in transculturality: To create bridges across disciplinary boundaries, bring them at one table to study the concrete dynamics of cultural exchanges between and within regions in a way no single discipline could do on its own. 

Contributions in the following fields – but not limited to them – can be considered for an application to this workshop. 

Cultural Encounters and Translation: On a macro scale, studies of cultural encounters rely often on familiar stories of domination, subjugation, hegemony, and resistance, of which one prime example is the framework of the European expansion and how Europeans came to dictate their terms to the rest of the world. However, be it “the West” or “China” that is posited as hegemon, by paying close attention to the local particulars of translations (of concepts, texts or practices) in a global context and zooming in on the agency of actors, transcultural studies can help overcome simple dichotomies of the dominant and the margin, and show how both are entangled in various ways, historically or contemporarily. In this sense, transculturality analyses the mechanisms of power and asymmetries but does not set them as a-priori before an investigation begins.

Migration, Integration and Processes of Social Inclusion/Exclusion: The movement of people – be it voluntarily, in search for work, or forced, due to war or catastrophes – often becomes a moment of friction on many levels such as appearances, family life, religions, behaviors, language, or working styles between those cast as “locals” and the “newcomers.” These newcomers may originate from far away regions of the globe, such as Syrian refugees seeking asylum in the EU, Vietnamese marriage migrants in South Korea or Taiwan, or come from within a “nation-state,” for example, after a natural and technological disaster. Even though, the social integration of such migrants is again gaining significance on the political agendas of many countries, concrete experiences of hosts and migrants also make further processes of transculturation visible. For example, physicians and judges dealing with psychological and behavioral troubles of migrants’ children have to take into account the cultural background of the parents at the same time as being obliged to reconsider the cultural biases of the rules and systems of the host country. Further, “citizenship” matters but it can be questioned at the same time regarding the inclusion of migrants into education, occupation and welfare systems. 

Flows, Counter-Flows and their Barriers: The Mobility of Objects and Practices: Not only people continuously cross borders, be they national or cultural. Also various objects, ideas, practices, policies, and institutions flow across boundaries and make processes of transculturation visible. A prime example is the historical study of tobacco that posited the circular concept of “transculturation” against the hitherto dominant idea of “acculturation,” a one-way street: Native to the island we now call Cuba, tobacco was encountered by Europeans and either thrown away as worthless leaves or demonized as smoke originating from hell, only to travel across the Atlantic and change in Europe into a commodity of luxury. Commercial interest made tobacco into a valuable item and thus also changed Cuba: The complex arrangement of practices engendered by tobacco – ritual practices, medicinal use, pleasure, and gift exchange – was simplified into a commodity of mass production. Similarly, today Bollywood cinema or Japanese animations – often cast as counter-flows to Hollywood in discourses on “soft power” – engender not only new media practices elsewhere but bring also new practice back “home.” Transculturality offers a lens for such circular movements and processes of change brought forth by objects and ideas.

* M. Foucault, 1976, "Society Must Be Defended", Lectures at the Collège de France.

III  Provisional Program of the Workshop

DAY 1: September 26

9:00-15 Registration

9:15-30 Opening addresses

9:30-10:15 Keynote speech by Prof. Monica Juneja (Heidelberg University)

10:15-30 Tea break

10:30-12:00 Roundtable: "Spreading Transcultural Studies – Teaching Experiences in Heidelberg & Kyoto"

12:00-13:30 Lunch break

13:30-15:30 Session 1 (Presentations by students and early-career scholars with comments and discussions by professors and experts from various countries)

15:30-16:15 Tea break

16:15-18:15 Session 2 

18:30-20:00 Reception

DAY 2: September 27

9:00-10:00 Special lectures (By professors and experts from various universities)

10:00-15 Tea break

10:15-12:15 Session 3 

12:15-13:30 Lunch break

13:30-15:30 Session 4

15:30-16:00 Tea break

16:00-17:30 Wrap-up session

IV　Application Schedule of the Workshop 

Eligibility for application: Master’s students, Ph.D. students, Ph.D. candidates, post-doctoral fellows, and those who are in early-career and non-permanent positions.

Selection: The Organizing Committee will screen the applications based on candidates'' qualifications and abstracts. 

Fee for Registration: No registration fee is required

Application deadline: June 18, 2016 (Japan Standard Time)

Notification of screening result: June 24, 2016 (Provision of travel grant to be decided at this time)  Out of the 12-16 selected presenters, travel grant will be awarded to 4-5 presenters*. 

Deadline for submission of full paper (4,000-6,000 words): September 10, 2016. 

Workshop: September 26, 27. 

Proceedings: on the web around November.

Applicants should provide the following information in the application form: 

a) Name (please capitalize your family name) 

b) Position (Master’s student, Ph.D. student, etc.) 

c) Affiliation

d) Postal Address, Telephone Number, and Email Address

e) Whether travel grant from KUASU is needed. (Eligible applicants *only)

f) Paper Title with an abstract in English of 350-words maximum.  

*Eligibility for travel grant:  

Due to funding regulations, only regular students in master’s and Ph.D. courses at the following universities may apply for the travel award. The organizing committee will select candidates based on the quality of their abstract and the relevance to the workshop theme. 

National University of Singapore 

Chulalongkorn University 

University of the Philippines 

Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences 

Vietnam National University, Hanoi

University of Putra Malaysia 

University of Indonesia 

University of Hasanuddin

National Taiwan University 

Seoul National University 

Beijing University 

Beijing Normal University 

Beijing Foreign Studies University 

Fudan University 

Nanjing University 

University of Delhi 

Tribhuvan University 

Qatar University 

University of Hawaii at Manoa

Heidelberg University

Travel grant covers airfare and hotel accommodation for three nights according to the rules and regulations of the Kyoto University. Flights and hotels will be arranged by a travel agent for invited speakers and selected students.

The application should be sent in the application form to 

kuasu.nextgeneration★bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp(★→＠) 

☞In case the information cannot be input to the form, please send the necessary items as a PDF file.

Email Subject Line should say: “Application for NGGW 2016+your name” 

Contact:  

Organizing Committee of the 9th Next-Generation Global Workshop 

Wako Asato, Björn-Ole Kamm, Hiroshi Taroumaru, Stéphane Heim, Toshiko Tsujimoto, Shoji Hirata, Kimio Ito, Emiko Ochiai, Mitsuho Nishida, Ryoko Kosugi (Kyoto University) 

Harald Fuess (Heidelberg University)

Email: kuasu.nextgeneration★bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp(★→＠）

• 2015 KU-NCCU Graduate Workshop Agenda.docx

The 6th Next-Generation Global Workshop has been Held. (Jan., 11-13, 2014)