Apologies for cross-posting.


> From: tim gitzen <[log in to unmask]>
> 
> Greetings,
> 
> The deadline for the Association of Asian Studies conference in San Diego
> is quickly approaching and my colleague and I are trying to put together a
> panel.  We are looking for two or three more presenters and a discussant if
> possible.  Below you will find our general panel abstract, or at least our
> initial thoughts on the direction of the panel.  We have also included
> short abstracts of our own research/ paper that we hope to contribute to
> give everyone a better idea as to where we are going with this panel.
> Ideally, we are aiming to make this an East Asian panel and not a
> country-specific panel, and so we would really like the other participants
> to either focus on an East Asian country that is not South Korea (as both
> of us are Koreanists), or on East Asia in general.  In addition, as both my
> colleague and I are anthropologists and doctoral students, we would love to
> diversify both the rank and discipline of the other panelists to include a
> mixture of graduate students and professors; we would love to have
> participants that focus on literature, history, sociology, and cultural
> studies.
> 
> 
> As the deadline for the panel abstract is August 2, 2012, we are asking
> that potential panelists/ contributors send their abstract to us by July 17
> th by 6pm so we can make a decision and put together the panel (and revise
> the panel abstract).  Also include any relevant biographical information
> (or simply send your CV as well).  All inquires and submissions should be
> sent to Tim Gitzen [log in to unmask] by July 20th.
> 
> 
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> Tim Gitzen and Sandy Oh
> 
> * *
> 
> "Feeling" East Asia: Desire, Affect, and the Contours of Globality
> 
> 
> 
> As much of the North Atlantic world sinks deeper into economic crisis,
> in East Asia, global 'desires' continue to take on many contours.
> Whether it is parents who are seeking ways to send their family
> members abroad, youth imagining and shaping their subjectivities in
> accordance with cosmopolitan yearnings, the sexual diverse
> reconfiguring their positions vis-a-vis the burgeoning discourses of
> (non)normativity, or entrepreneurs fastidiously
> creating new global markets, the ways in which inhabitants of East Asia
> dream of globality can illuminate how local histories are processually
> woven together.  What might 'desire' then mean, both affectively and
> discursively to those undergoing the growing pains of 'development,'
> and for those living with its recent memory or in its shadow?  How
> might such experiences help us move forward new ways of
> conceptualizing how global 'desires' are rooted and juxtaposed to the
> ongoing financial crisis, as well as processes of (neo)liberalization
> in East Asia?  What new social spaces are emerging as a result of such
> cosmopolitan 'desires'?  What affective connections arise within and
> between these desires and bodies? In efforts to come to a deeper
> understanding of the dimensions of cosmopolitan 'desire,' we welcome
> panelists wanting to explore and discuss constructions of 'the global'
> as taken up across East Asia in any number of mediums, including
> popular culture, literature, historical texts, and ethnography.
> Clarifying locally specific practices will help us better clarify in
> which ways inhabitants of East Asia undergoing transformation
> continuously are linked and de-linked from the state, global and local
> economies, as well as affective networks of kin, lovers, and friends.
> 
> 
> 
> Mothers and Affect: Intimate Encounters with Gay Sons in South Korea
> 
> Timothy Gitzen
> 
> As discursive personhood in South Korea is predicated on shared blood with
> one?s parents and the ability to pass on one's blood to one's
> offspring-and mothers are intimately responsible for the well-being,
> success, and failure of her children--self-identified gay sons present
> a precarious scenario where sons risk being cast out of the family and
> nation as non-persons while mothers shoulder the blame for their sons'
> sexual deviancy.  A mother's best source of power in her family is her
> children, especially her sons; her surest source of authority in
> society she draws from a successful son.  Yet what happens when her
> son is gay and her power, even personhood, is threatened by the one
> she considers dearest?  In this paper I investigate the relationship
> between mothers and sons in Korea by elucidating the intimacy that
> transcends discourses of filial obligation and instead arises in the
> experiences between mothers and their sons.  I will navigate the
> stories my self-identified gay informants tell about the relationships
> they have with their mothers and the emotionality not captured in
> discursive formations of the family.  The tension between gay sons and
> their mothers is never quite resolved but the connection between them
> constructs a form of affective personhood that allows for both mothers
> and their gay sons to adhere to discourses of personhood while
> simultaneously interrogating very real questions in their every day lives:
> what makes a 'good' (and Korean) mother and what makes a 'good' (and
> Korean) son?  This paper is based on ethnographic research of gay college
> men in South Korea and their navigation through discourses of kinship,
> nation, and liberal gay identities.
> 
> 
> 
> Unemployment in the Era of Finance Capital:  Investor Mothers Fantasizing
> About Global Futures
> 
> Sandy Oh
> 
> 
> As the conditions of neoliberal capitalism continue to restructure labour
> markets around the globe, it becomes increasingly imperative to explore how
> populations in places like Seoul, South Korea, mitigate ongoing
> transformations, in light of withstanding the past forty years of
> compressed 'development.'  In particular, it is necessary to better
> conceptualize the gendered and classed dynamics of how labouring
> subjectivities are forged, in milieus plagued by high rates of
> unemployment, yet awash with finance capital. My paper explores the labour
> of 'investor mothers,' or those who benefit from making savvy investment
> strategies to expand household wealth, despite being institutionally barred
> from formal lines of employment.  By historicizing their subjectivities, I
> wish to clarify how the arrival of KOSDAQ, or the South Korean stock
> exchange market in 1996, in tandem with experiences of two financial crisis
> loop into fantasies of the future.  Although the labour of investor mothers
> is unwaged, their activities do not escape the ebbs and flows of economic
> cycles.  What can be made of their highly precarious labour, held at the
> mercy of global market volatility?  Guided by the promise of a more hopeful
> future for their families, what can be said regarding ideations of social
> belonging as linked to entering the ranks of global citizenship?
> 
> Especially when much of their investments are ignited by desires to provide
> their children with top-tier educations?  In a context where work is highly
> precarious, I aim to better understand what investor mothers aspire towards
> in their efforts to raise global citizens and how the proliferation of
> finance capital either facilitates or hinders such processes.
> 
> Timothy  Gitzen
> University of Minnesota
> ******************************************************************
> 
> -- 
> Astrid Nordin
> 
> Postgraduate Research Student,
> British Inter-University China Centre
> and
> Politics, School of Social Sciences,
> The University of Manchester,
> Oxford Road, M13 9PL Manchester
> 
> http://sites.google.com/site/astridhmnordin/