CALL FOR PAPERS
The 6th International Symposium on Literature and Environment in East Asia
War and Peace: Militarism, Biopolitics and the Environment in East Asia
October 20-21, 2018
National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
The Association for the Study of Literature and Environment in Taiwan (ASLE-Taiwan), in conjunction with the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, National Taiwan University, invites proposals for the 6th International Symposium on Literature and Environment in East Asia (ISLE-EA) to be held during October 20-21, 2018 at National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan. The major theme of the 2018 symposium concerns the entanglement of militarism, biopolitics and the environment in East Asia. As 2018 marks the 70th anniversary of the divided Korea, it reminds us of the Pacific War, the Cold War, the war on terror, etc. that have assaulted East Asia. In The Birth of Biopolitics (2008; lectures given 1978-1979), Michel Foucault relates biopolitics to war: He states, “the principle underlying the technics of battle—that one has to become capable of killing in order to go on living—has become the principle that defines the state” (qtd. in Dillon and Neal, 2008, 10). This is a principle that weds eating/living to killing, peace to war. In the globalized war state, while we yearn for peace, we also live in the huge shadow of war, an everlasting presence. After World War II, after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, after the Korean War, after the shelling of Kinmen and Matsu, East Asia is now again a flash point that threatens to trigger a nuclear holocaust. We would like to ask, do war and peace define each other? Are they indeed twins? What are the environmental consequences, psychological as well as material, in East Asia, the region of our focus? In this context, we would like to invite proposals that explore the question of war and peace and the environment in East Asia, and beyond. Topics may include but are not limited to the following—
- –Militarization and the environment in East Asia
- –Militarized Islands in East Asia
- –Military tourism in East Asia
- –Nuclear bombing in East Asia
- –Nature parks in East Asia
- –Cold War ecocriticism
- –Cold War landscapes and seascapes
- –Cold War eco cinema
- –Eco-tourism in DMZ
- –Environmental politics
- –War and nature
- –Others
Proposals of 300 words should be sent in the enclosed “Submission Form” to [email protected] by February 26, 2018. The membership in ASLE-Japan, ASLE-Korea, ASLE-Taiwan, or another ASLE affiliation is required to present a paper at the symposium. A US$100 registration fee is also required for presentation. The notification of acceptance will be sent by April 30, 2018.
