Paper presentation: “Neoliberal Technocracy in 1980s’ Japan” – Yize Hu (History of Science and Technology) 

Gilman 300

Yize Hu will be presenting “Neoliberal Technocracy in 1980s’ Japan'' in which he will discuss how conservative intellectuals and systems engineers used the systems approach as the epistemological tool to envision a neo-liberal society in Japan and created a new technocracy in the 1980s. Different from the old technocracy characterized by a strong belief in […]

The Experimental Complex: Agricultural Practices of a Chinese Special Economic Zone in Uzbekistan – Yida Jiao

Gilman 308

Papers will be circulated one week in advance, if you would like to attend but have not received the paper,please email one of the organizers. Feel free to contact us: [email protected] (Yushuang Zheng, History),[email protected] (Wesley Sampias, History), or [email protected] (Minah Kang, Political Science)**Every other week when there is no presentation, we will have an informal […]

Was Hong Kong 2019 a “Revolution of Our Times”? – Ching Kwan Lee (University of California, Los Angeles)

Mergenthaler 526

What was “revolutionary” about Hong Kong’s anti-extradition movement in 2019? This talk assesses the breakthroughs and limits of the historic uprising, against an entrenched colonial hegemony co-produced by British and Chinese rules. Specifically, we shall review four salient elements of this hegemony that have long defined the boundaries of the “political” in Hong Kong. To […]

Teaching Workshop

Gilman 308

This workshop will be conducted by Allon Brann, Teacher Support Specialist (Graduate Students) in the Milton S. Eisenhower Library Center for Teaching Excellence and Innovation.

Narratives of Civic Duty: How National Stories Shape Democracy in Asia – Aram Hur (University of Missouri)

Mergenthaler 266

Widespread civic duty has emerged as a last bastion against democratic backsliding. Why do some citizens feel a duty to vote, take up arms, and otherwise sacrifice for their democracies? Hur shows that the sense of obligation to be a good citizen is rooted in a force long thought to be detrimental to democracy's potential, […]

The Technological Foundation of Neoliberalism in Japan – Yize Hu

Gilman 308

Papers will be circulated one week in advance, if you would like to attend but have not received the paper,please email one of the organizers. Feel free to contact us: [email protected] (Yushuang Zheng, History),[email protected] (Wesley Sampias, History), or [email protected] (Minah Kang, Political Science)**Every other week when there is no presentation, we will have an informal […]

The “Mixed Blood” Problem in Cold War South Korea – Laura Ha Reizman (Johns Hopkins University)

Mergenthaler 266

The post Korean War era observed the presence of numerous US military bases. Mixed race Korean children of these decades were often stigmatized as the children of military sex workers and straddled the legal and social borders of citizenship between an ethnic nationalist Korea and a rising superpower that was America. This talk explores mixed […]

The Depths of the State: Energy and Power in Modern East Asia – Victor Seow (Harvard University)

Gilman 300

What is the relationship between energy and power in the industrial age?In this talk, historian Victor Seow explores this question through his recently published book, Carbon Technocracy: Energy Regimes in Modern East Asia (Chicago, 2021). This book uses the history of China’s onetime coal capital, Fushun, to examine how the Chinese and Japanese states that […]