Book Talk: Disorienting Politics mines 21st-century media artifacts to make visible the economic, cultural, political, and ecological entanglements of China and the United States. These “Chimerican media,” originating in America but circulating beyond national boundaries, co-create the figure of rising China and demonstrate the ways in which race is embedded in geopolitics evenwhen the subject […]

Book Talk – Affective Spaces as Method: The Cultural Politics of Emotion in China East Asia is saturated with complex emotions. Although emotions play an essential role in the sociopolitical formations of the region, their implications are poorly understood. Affective Spaces: The Cultural Politics of Emotion in China (forthcoming, Edinburgh University Press) explains why and how emotions create […]

Perhaps the greatest challenge in preparing Singapore for independence was defining and assigning citizenship to its highly heterogeneous populations, a challenge magnified by the entrepot’s majority of ethnic Chinese residents and its uncertain political relationship to Malaya. Affixing citizenship rights would determine balances of power in these future, presumably democratic, multiracial states and required the […]

A recent reproductive crisis has brought renewed interest in the century-old “family problem” (家庭问题) and “women’s problem” (妇女问题). Related issues have not only been debated in the discursive field, but also informed cross-border fields such as social policymaking and the law. Intrigued by questions such as why the state calls for increasing reproductivity have met […]

Gender-based violence and harassment at work (workplace GBVH) is a global, complex and intractable issue that impacts millions of workers’ lives. In Cambodia, unions – both local and international – have also attempted to influence policy, promote law reform and strengthen law enforcement, and raise awareness about the need to combat GBVH. Michele Ford from the University […]

Yoonkyung Lee, Department of Sociology & Center for the Study of Korea, University of Toronto, will discuss the question of changing protest methods of labor contention in neoliberal Korea, and asks what explains the emergence of extreme repertoires in labor movements in times of institutionalized democracy and capitalist affluence. Her study suggests a move beyond […]

To obtain a trio of legendary monsters in Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire (2002), players can embark on an elaborate side quest where they must decode two-dimensional representations of Braille. Removed from its original context as a tactile language, this visual “Pokémon Braille” is at once an inclusive and exclusionary gesture. Frank Mondelli, Japanese Studies, Department of […]

Through comparisons of anti-discrimination and accessibility reforms in South Korea and Japan, this talk analyzes the rise of legalistic governance. More formal rules and participation in policymaking and enforcement, including through the courts, mark a change. Celeste Arrington, Department of Political Science & GW Institute for Korean Studies at George Washington University, traces how activitists and […]

Burak Gürel is an Associate Professor of Sociology and Co-director of the Center for Asian Studies at Koç University in Istanbul, Turkey. China, once a hub for foreign manufacturing investment, has become a major investor in overseas factories and mines. Disputes at Chinese-owned businesses are now notably influencing labor unrest globally. This study shows that between […]