About the Symposium

Aiming to advance our understanding of cultural, ethnic, and national identities in Eastern Asia, the Department of East Asian Studies of the University of Vienna hosts an international symposium in July 2024, featuring contributions that analyse examples of identity construction in Taiwan, Ryūkyū / Okinawa, and the Korean peninsula. Presentations will examine both historical and contemporary cases of identity construction from a diverse array of disciplinary angles, such as history, cultural history, anthropology, education, politics, tourism as well as literary and media studies. Reflecting ongoing research foci of the department, the symposium will draw attention to examples of identity construction from areas and communities existing (either traditionally or presently) between or at the margins of the more dominant powers of the region (i.e. China, Japan, European colonial powers, the Soviet Union, and the USA). The contributors will investigate processes of identity formation, (self-) conception, and (self-) representation pertaining to - either historically or presently - culturally, ethnically, and politically contested polities, societies, and minority populations.

Approaching these issues comparatively, the symposium aims to highlight commonalities and shared experiences but also to delineate the individual evolution and conditions of each area. In an interdisciplinary setting, patterns of identity construction in East Asia will be analysed both cross-culturally and diachronically, thus identifying broader transcultural and geopolitical processes in the region.

We are looking forward to meeting you in Vienna!

Liliane Höppe and David Emminger

Dates: 

• July 8th, 2024, 13:30-16:00 (CEST)
• July 9th, 2024, 09:00-16:00 (CEST)
• July 10th, 2024, 09:00-13:15 (CEST)

Place:

•  Japanese Studies Seminar Room 1, Spitalgasse 2, Hof 2, Tür 2.4 (Campus), 1090 Vienna

Programme:

Day 1 – Monday, 8 July, 13:30-16:00 (CEST)

• 13:30-14:00: Registration
• 14:00: Symposium opening (Liliane Höppe and David Emminger)
• 14:15: Welcoming remarks (Christian Göbel, U. of Vienna)
• 14:30-15:30: Keynote Speech: Handcuffed to Empires: Reflections on the Sublation of the Chinese Tributary System (Viren Murthy, U. of Wisconsin-Madison) 
• 15:30-16:00: Coffee and networking 

Day 2 - Tuesday, 9 July, 9:00-16:00 (CEST)

9:00-10:30: Panel 1: Identity as Political Agenda

• Chair: Jens Damm (Albert-Ludwigs-U. Freiburg im Breisgau)
• Memory, Identity Politics, and Nationalism in Democratized Taiwan: Resistance and Collaboration under the Nationalist Martial Law (Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang, U. of Missouri)
• Chosŏn Korea as a Periphery: Geopolitical Intrigues in Action? (Sangpil Jin, U. of Copenhagen)
• Tourism and Identity Construction in Taiwan (Ian Rowen, National Taiwan Normal U.)

10:30-11:00: Coffee break

11:00-12:30: Panel 2: Writing Identity as History

• Chair: Gregory Smits (Pennsylvania State U.)
• Negotiated Origins: Historiography, Genealogy, and Identity in the Kingdom of Ryukyu and Late Joseon Korea (David Emminger, U. of Vienna)
• Caught between Two Fires: Korean Chinese Academics' Views on the History Controversies between China and Korea (Aihua Li, Leiden U.)
• From the History of Struggle to Potential History: Arasaki Moriteru and Writing Okinawan Contemporary History between Post-Imperial Japan and Post-Colonial Asia (Shin Takahashi, Victoria U. of Wellington)

12:30-14:30: Lunch break

14:30-16:00: Panel 3: Reflections of Identity in Literature and Media

• Chair: Liza Wing Man Kam (U. of Vienna)
• Writing the Southern Islands: Identity Construction in Shimao Toshio's Discourse about Amami and Okinawa (Liliane Höppe, U. of Vienna)
• Branding Taiwan through Media: Identity Construction through Media, Language and Cultural Representation (Crystal Chia-Sui Sun, National Dong Hwa U.)
• Comics, Networks and Identity: Graphic Narratives on Taiwanese-Language Cinema (Adina Zemanek, U. of Central Lancashire)

Day 3 - Wednesday, 10 July, 9:00-13:15 (CEST)

9:00-10:30: Panel 4: Education Policies and Identity Making

• Chair: Yasuko Hassall-Kobayashi (Musashi U.)
• The Role of Ethnic Classes in the Identity Construction of Zainichi Koreans (Jan Schindler, U. of Vienna)
• Problematizing a Japanization Discourse in Textbooks Constructing Japanese Identity in Contemporary Okinawa: Toward Correction of Inequality and Injustice in Ethnic Identification (Kazufumi Taira, U. of the Ryukyus)
• Informal Debates Surrounding the 2020 Curriculum Reforms among the Korean-Chinese Minority (Jerôme de Wit, U. of Vienna)

10:30-11:00: Coffee break

11:00-12:00: Panel 5: Indigenous and Minority Perspectives on Collective Identity

• Chair: Isabelle Prochaska-Meyer (U. of Vienna)
• Identity Construction in Colonial Taiwan: Postcolonial Reflections on the Indigenous Voice (Ann Heylen, National Taiwan Normal U.)
• Fragments of Identity within Coastal Areas of the East China Sea: Ryukyu as the In-Between (Arne Røkkum, U. of Oslo)

12:15-12:45: Final discussion

12:45-13:15: Closing speech: Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik (U. of Vienna)

13:15: Wrap up (Liliane Höppe and David Emminger)

For detailed information and for registering please visit here.

Sponsored by:

• The Japan Foundation 国際交流基金
• Vienna Center of Taiwan Studies
• Akademischer Arbeitskreis Japan
• Doctoral School of Philological and Cultural Studies