Diasporas, Diplomacy, and Dreams of Modernity in Turn-of-the-Century East Asia – CALL FOR PAPERS

Date / time: 1 September, 11:59 pm

Diasporas, Diplomacy, and Dreams of Modernity in Turn-of-the-Century East Asia - CALL FOR PAPERS

 


Conference | University of Cambridge | 8-9 December 2024

Diasporas, Diplomacy and Dreams of Modernity: Cultural Encounters in turn-of-the-century East Asia

Call for Papers, deadline – 1 September 2024


The end of the nineteenth century was a pivotal period in the emergence of a globalised international system. Nowhere was this more consequential than East Asia, where expansionist Great Powers sought to extend their own conceptions of rights and international law, and encountered contestation by East Asian states, which advanced distinct visions of modernity, sovereignty, and universalism. At the nexus of these interactions were often individuals with cross-cultural sensitivities, positioned between Europe and Asia: sojourners, civil professionals, or diplomats from small countries, like the Irishmen John McLeavy Brown, Robert Hart, John Jordan and Nicholas O’Conor, or the Korean Kim Ok-gyun, Shin Chae-ho, Yun Kil-chun, and Lee Wan-young.

This symposium will consider the far-reaching implications of the emergence of international norms during the critical years at the turn of the twentieth century. We invite scholars from a broad range of disciplines and specialisations to contribute new insights about the experience of diasporas and professional sojourners at the nexus of changing ideas about modernity, nationhood, sovereignty, security, empire, commerce, rights, and citizenship. In particular, we invite perspectives on small states in Asia or Europe – especially Ireland and Korea – which had a disproportionate impact on the development of universalist conceptions of international law.

Call for Papers

Paper proposals are invited from historians of Ireland, Korea, or comparative studies broadly related to East Asia and/or the British Empire in the period 1850-1950, and may cover questions of cultural encounter, empire and diplomacy, the history of international relations, nationality and modernity. Prospective topics may cover, but are not limited to:

  • Histories of cultural and artistic cross-currents between East Asia and Europe
  • Expressions of modernity and identity in East Asian visual culture
  • Tensions, crisis points, and debates at the intersection of nation, empire, and modernity
  • Geographical networks of consuls, customs officers, and other professional or occupational migrants
  • New approaches to Korean modernization and debates over modernity in the Korean context
  • Asian cultural influences in the development of Irish nationalism
  • Histories of international law, diplomacy, and rights in East Asia in the era of the Great Powers
  • The role of cultural production, scientific research, and/or legal scholarship in shaping East-West relations at the turn of the twentieth century
  • Experiences of encounter of Koreans abroad and/or Irish in East Asia

Deadline for abstracts: 1 September 2024
Submit to: lsweeney@yonsei.ac.kr

 


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