Category: Workshop

InterAsian Connections VI: Hanoi

(December 4–7, 2018)

Hosted by the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences

Organizers: Social Science Research Council InterAsia Program, Duke University Global Asia Initiative, Göttingen University Global and Transregional Studies Platform, the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Hong Kong, Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore, Seoul National University Asia Center, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, and Yale University.

Applications due October 31, 2017

InterAsian Connections VI: Hanoi is the sixth in a series of conferences showcasing innovative research from across the social sciences and related disciplines that explores themes that transform conventional understandings of Asia. Crossing traditional area studies boundaries and creating international and interdisciplinary networks of scholars working to theorize the intersection of the “global” and the “regional” in a variety of contexts, the conference reconceptualizes Asia as a dynamic and interconnected historical, geographical, and cultural formation stretching from West Asia through Eurasia, South Asia and Southeast Asia, to East Asia.

The 2018 Hanoi conference will be structured to enable intensive working group interactions on specific research themes as well as broader interactions/discussions on topics of shared interest and concern. Each workshop will have two directors with different institutional affiliations, preferably representing different disciplines.

Joint proposals are invited from scholars from any world region who are interested in co-organizing and codirecting a thematic workshop that addresses one of the following broadly conceived themes. All workshop directors must hold a PhD degree and have significant experience in conducting independent research, holding research workshops, and evaluating and commenting on a variety of research proposals and papers.

1. Sites of InterAsian Interaction
2. Territorial Sovereignties and Historical Identities
3. Transregional Religious Networks
4. Environmental Humanities in Asia
5. Rethinking Conceptual Frameworks for the Rise of Asian Cities
6. Infrastructures and Networks

We encourage creative proposals that explore innovative connections, convergences, and comparisons across InterAsia.

Selected directors will be expected to:

• help recruit and choose ten to twelve international workshop participants (senior and junior scholars, graduate students, and other researchers) competitively from across relevant disciplines in the social sciences, humanities, and related fields;
• provide feedback and comments to all selected participants in advance of the conference; and
• run all workshop discussions over the course of the three-and-a-half-day event.

The conference organizers will cover all directors’ costs of participation, including economy-class airfare and accommodations. Workshop directors will each receive a $1,000 honorarium.

Workshop proposals must be submitted electronically and are due October 31, 2017.

The full text of the request for workshop proposals, including detailed descriptions of the workshop themes, information on the application process, the application form, and eligibility guidelines, can be reviewed on the conference web page.

Details of the previous conferences in the series—held in Dubai (2008), Singapore (2010), Hong Kong (2012), Istanbul (2013), and Seoul (2016)—including workshop descriptions, conference programs, and presentation videos, can be found through the InterAsian Connections Conference Series page.

For additional inquiries, please contact us at interasia@ssrc.org

Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG), Berlin,
Germany – 21–22 June 2018

Convenors: Wilko Graf von Hardenberg (MPIWG, Germany), Thomas Lekan,
(University of South Carolina, USA), Sebastian Ureta, (Universidad
Alberto Hurtado, Chile)

The creation and mobilization of baselines is at the very center of a wide array of environmental protection and remediation efforts such as wildlife restoration, climate change mitigation, pollution cleanup, or sustainable development. Despite this ubiquitous character, the study of how baselines are produced and mobilized has occupied only a marginal space in the environmental social sciences and humanities so far. This workshop moves the study of baselines to the center of analysis by using the tools of environmental history, science and technology studies, and the environmental humanities to explore the emergence and mobilization of different kinds of environmental baselines in the Anthropocene.

We are interested in analyzing baseline setting as a complex set of practices, mediations, and devices, always populated by a heterogeneous multitude of entities (regulatory agencies, scientific standards, material samples, beliefs and ethical commitments, etc.), and whose ultimate consequences can be rarely predicted from the onset. The workshop aims to understand baseline setting as an uneven process shaped by cultural representation and imagination, radical historicity, connections between power and knowledge, and the distributed agency of a variety of human and non-human actors operating at multiple geographic and temporal scales. By doing so we aim at calling into question the restorationist narratives favored by most current baseline setting processes and explore alternative interpretations of desired environmental futures and emergent ecologies. For a detailed description see the attached CFP and/or the workshop website http://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/en/content/shifting-baselines.

Proposals should consist of an abstract (ca. 300 words) and a brief biographical note on the author/s (ca. 100 words). Please submit proposals to whardenberg@mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de by 30 September 2017 with the subject "Shifting Baselines." Accepted papers will be notified by 15 October 2017. Papers will be due to the organizers by 15 April 2018 so that they can be circulated well ahead of the conference. Participation in the workshop is free of cost and, up to a generous maximum, travel and accommodation will be covered by the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science.