IACSS GRADUATE CONFERENCE 2021
The Inter-Asia Cultural Studies Society conference will host its Graduate Conference (26 July 2021) before the Main Conference (28-30 July 2021). Our objective is to provide a favourable learning environment for graduate students to present their work-in-progress. While graduate students may submit their abstracts to the Main Conference, we encourage graduate students to submit to the Graduate Conference for better networking opportunities and productive faculty feedback. A professional development session will be hosted by cultural studies graduates who will share their career paths within and beyond academia.
Invited Speakers
- Associate Prof Daniel P S Goh (National University of Singapore)
- Dr Annisa R Beta (The University of Melbourne)
- Dr Roberto Castillo (Lingnan University)
- Dr Jaime Koh (Co-founder, The History Workroom, Singapore)
- Dr Nitya Vasudevan (Azim Premji University)
The C-19 pandemic has upended all aspects of everyday work, life and play. From emergency lockdowns that required everyone to shelter at home to the gradual lifting of restrictions where working from home and remote learning continue to remain the norm, no one and no mode of human interaction have been left untouched by the virus. It is a cascading disaster involving health, economic and social challenges. Its measures designed to mitigate the virus have changed patterns of consumption and production. Its viral war metaphors have unleashed hostility between people, groups and nation-states. As a catastrophic event, it has precipitated ecological changes to unsettle and defamiliarise our traditional sensemaking of the world. While exacerbating structural inequalities and racial injustices, it has also reminded us there are things we should value, such as care and community. In such times of crisis, we ask: what are the new conditions and conjunctions of culture (cf. Hall, Grossberg)? What are the alternative strategies to think and act critically in ways that do not merely reproduce conventional and confrontational modes of resistance—how can we negotiate the pandemic and its contradictions so we are not just passive conduits of the virus? How can we refuse to be its vector of transmission (cf. Hage)? With the theme of “Culture in the Pandemic Age,” this Conference calls for critical investigation of the various responses to the C-19 with a focus on the specificities of local cultural contexts and practices. We welcome all submissions relating to Inter-Asia Cultural Studies