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OFFICE/DEPARTMENT
ASDP 29TH NATIONAL CONFERENCE
Asia and the Anthropocene: Visions of Being Human in a More-than-Human World
3-5 March 2022
Hilton San Diego Gaslamp Quarter
CONFERENCE THEME
The challenges posed by the Anthropocene make harmoniously situating human environments within a larger than human world more urgent than at any other historical moment. Varying notions of natural and built, wild and human have been constructed across cultures and historical periods. Understanding the environmental impacts of these constructions and the distinctive resources they may offer for realizing more sustainable futures is a global moral imperative that will require new and deeper collaborations across the human and natural sciences.
Our conference theme of Asia and the Anthropocene: Visions of Being Human in a More-than-Human World invites reflections on the different ways human environments have been placed within larger-than-human worlds in the philosophies, literatures, arts and sciences of Asia, and explorations of how this cultural diversity can inform and inspire new visions of the biological, biocultural and biophysical connections among plants, animals, humans, and other less materially living presences.
CONFERENCE LOCATION
The conference will be held in Sunny San Diego's Hilton San Diego Gaslamp Quarter
Hilton San Diego Gaslamp Quarter
401 K St
San Diego, CA 92101
Learn more about San Diego here:
CONFERENCE SCHEDULE
Please find the conference schedule here.
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Dr. Sunyoung Park
Presentation Title: Peoples of the Anthropocene: Posthuman Beings and the Environment in South Korean Science Fiction
Abstract:
Faced with the consequences of anthropogenic desertification, environmental pollution, and climate change, a new generation of South Korean writers and artists today populate their visions of the Anthropocene with a bewildering variety of posthuman and non-human beings. Following the early precedent of Shin Kihwal’s post-apocalyptic nuclear bugs, tropes such as Djuna’s alien broccoli sheep, Bo-Young Kim’s carbon-breathing robots, and Changgyu Kim’s disembodied virtualized humans interrogate our evolutionary futures and, in the process, they disturb conventionally accepted boundaries among humans, animals, plants, and machines. What, however, is the environmental significance of these imaginations? What really differentiates today’s narratives of the Anthropocene from previous apocalyptic stories of nuclear destruction? And what bridges can we build, as cultural critics and teachers, between the theoretical continents of posthumanism, social critique, and the environmental humanities?
Sunyoung Park is associate professor in the departments of East Asian Languages and Cultures and of Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Southern California. She is the author of The Proletarian Wave: Literature and Leftist Culture in Colonial Korea, 1910-1945 (Harvard University Asia Center, 2015) and the editor of Revisiting Minjung: New Perspectives on the Cultural History of 1980s South Korea (University of Michigan Press, 2019). In synergy with her research, Park is also active as an editor and translator of Korean fiction into English, which has resulted, among others, in the publication of three collections of short stories: On the Eve of the Uprising and Other Stories from Colonial Korea (Cornell East Asian Series, 2010); Readymade Bodhisattva: The Kaya Anthology of Science Fiction from South Korea (Kaya Press, 2019); and On the Origin of Species and Other Stories by Bo-Young Kim (Kaya Press, 2021). She is currently working on a monograph entitled Amazing Stories: Science Fiction and the Politics of Modernization in South Korea, 1960-2010.
CONFERENCE FIELD TRIP
Thursday, March 3, Guided Tour of Japanese Friendship Garden, Balboa Park, San Diego
There are two guided tours for ASDP conference attendees, one at at 1 PM and another at 2 PM that accommodate 10 people each at a cost of $12 per person. Advance registration and payment on the ASDP Conference website is required. Participants will arrange for their own transportation to and from the garden.
The Japanese Friendship Garden San Diego celebrates ties to sister city Yokohama. The garden is based on the landscape principles of a traditional Japanese garden while incorporating features of the San Diego climate and environment. The garden was expanded and updated in 2015. For more information visit https://www.niwa.org/.
Thursday, March 3 through Saturday, March 5 reduced admission fee to San Diego Museum of Art, Balboa Park, for ASDP conference attendees
Show your conference name tag/badge at the entrance to the San Diego Museum of Art and receive $3 off of the usual admission fee; for adults the reduced fee is $17. The San Diego Museum of Art is located in beautiful Balboa Park and has extensive art collections including East Asian, South Asian, and Southeast Asian art as well as arts of Iran. For more information visit https://www.sdmart.org/.
There will also be a presentation by art historian Stanley Murashige in the San Diego Art Museum on Thursday afternoon. Space is limited and registration will be done at the hotel.
Workshop by Matt Marone on Friday, March 4
On Friday afternoon, Matt Marone will be conducting a workshops exploring connections between contemporary science and the Daoist alchemical world view. Registration for this will be at the conference as well and there will be space for 20 participants working in pairs.
CALL FOR PAPERS AND PROPOSAL GUIDELINES
The ASDP program committee is now accepting proposals for its 2022 National Meeting program to be held in person in San Diego, CA. Proposals can be for individual papers, panels, poster sessions, or round-table sessions and should not exceed 250 words. Proposals addressing some aspect of this year’s theme, Asia and the Anthropocene: Visions of Being Human in a More-than-Human World, are encouraged, but we welcome any that touch on issues in Asian Studies broadly construed. Early submissions greatly facilitate putting together meaningful panels and sessions and all proposals should be submitted by February 14, 2022 (final deadline extension).
CLOSED
- Individual Proposal Form Complete and submit proposals to: [email protected]
- Panel Proposal Form Complete and submit proposals to: [email protected]
CONFERENCE REGISTRATION
All presenters and attendees must register for the program.
Registration fees:
Early Registration: $275 (through December 15, 2021)
Registration: $300 (Past December 16, 2021)
Registration is closed
For payment by check click here to download and print the registration form.
Make your check payable to East-West Center with the notation ASDP National Conference. Mail your payment and form to:
East-West Center
Asian Studies Development Program
Attn: Daralyn Yee
1601 East-West Road
Honolulu, Hawai'i 96848-1601
Note: Mail-in registrations take approximately two to three weeks to arrive. Please take this information into consideration and send mail-in registrations at your earliest convenience. Thank you for your cooperation.
HOTEL
Hilton San Diego Gaslamp Quarter
401 K St
San Diego, CA 92101
Conference rates are from $179/night
COVID-19 PROTOCOLS
The ASDP National Conference is still being planned as an in-person event. We know that many of you will have legitimate concerns about travel in March, especially given the new variant(s) of the virus and the likely rise in Covid-19 cases through the holidays. We are taking every precaution to ensure that the hotel venue and our sessions are as safe as possible. The COVID policies we will have in place for the conference can be reviewed below, and we are encouraged by the fact that, although travel to tourist destinations like Hawaii is nearing at pre-pandemic levels, these destinations are not experiencing marked increases in caseloads compared with other parts of the country. Right now California has the lowest rate of positive COVID tests in the nation.
Although travel always involves risks, we feel that the pandemic-related risks of travel will remain relatively low. At much higher risk, we believe, is our sense of shared community and our readiness to "build back better" together shoulder-to-shoulder as we move toward the end of the second year of the pandemic. Our sincere hope is that gathering together in academic and human fellowship will be a source of increased strength for all who attend.
We will, of course, be very closely monitoring changes in the dynamics of the pandemic and will consider alternatives to an in-person meeting should that become necessary. We hope that will not be the case and that we will be able to enjoy the conference together, marking a clear return to full "relational bandwidth" collegiality.
The ASDP and the ASDP Alumni Chapter are looking forward to meeting or reuniting with you at our upcoming annual conference. While we are excited about the opportunity to meet in person once again, we also working very hard to make sure we will have a safe conference environment. We will be diligent in following all local, state, and federal (CDC) guidelines for pandemic precautions. In addition, the Gaslamp Hilton has their own precautions and procedures to ensure everyone’s safety. These can be reviewed here.
Here are some specific safety policies we will have in place at the conference:
- Participants are strongly encouraged to be fully vaccinated prior to the conference. If you are not, please make sure you have had a negative valid COVID-19 test 72 hours prior to the conference.
- We are asking that masks will be worn indoors during presentations and sessions. Speakers will be permitted to remove masks during their presentations.
- Conference breakout rooms will be arranged to allow 3 feet of social distancing to the extent possible.
- The welcome reception will be arranged to allow social distancing. Tables for the two lunches and plenary opening/closing will be spaced to enable social distancing.
- The field trip at Balboa Park will be outdoors in a group of no more than 10 people, and we will not be using a bus. The San Diego Museum of Art will be implementing its own Covid-19 protocols.
ASDP 29TH NATIONAL CONFERENCE
Asia and the Anthropocene: Visions of Being Human in a More-than-Human World
3-5 March 2022
Hilton San Diego Gaslamp Quarter
CONFERENCE THEME
The challenges posed by the Anthropocene make harmoniously situating human environments within a larger than human world more urgent than at any other historical moment. Varying notions of natural and built, wild and human have been constructed across cultures and historical periods. Understanding the environmental impacts of these constructions and the distinctive resources they may offer for realizing more sustainable futures is a global moral imperative that will require new and deeper collaborations across the human and natural sciences.
Our conference theme of Asia and the Anthropocene: Visions of Being Human in a More-than-Human World invites reflections on the different ways human environments have been placed within larger-than-human worlds in the philosophies, literatures, arts and sciences of Asia, and explorations of how this cultural diversity can inform and inspire new visions of the biological, biocultural and biophysical connections among plants, animals, humans, and other less materially living presences.
CONFERENCE LOCATION
The conference will be held in Sunny San Diego's Hilton San Diego Gaslamp Quarter
Hilton San Diego Gaslamp Quarter
401 K St
San Diego, CA 92101
Learn more about San Diego here:
CONFERENCE SCHEDULE
Please find the conference schedule here.
KEYNOTE SPEAKER
Dr. Sunyoung Park
Presentation Title: Peoples of the Anthropocene: Posthuman Beings and the Environment in South Korean Science Fiction
Abstract:
Faced with the consequences of anthropogenic desertification, environmental pollution, and climate change, a new generation of South Korean writers and artists today populate their visions of the Anthropocene with a bewildering variety of posthuman and non-human beings. Following the early precedent of Shin Kihwal’s post-apocalyptic nuclear bugs, tropes such as Djuna’s alien broccoli sheep, Bo-Young Kim’s carbon-breathing robots, and Changgyu Kim’s disembodied virtualized humans interrogate our evolutionary futures and, in the process, they disturb conventionally accepted boundaries among humans, animals, plants, and machines. What, however, is the environmental significance of these imaginations? What really differentiates today’s narratives of the Anthropocene from previous apocalyptic stories of nuclear destruction? And what bridges can we build, as cultural critics and teachers, between the theoretical continents of posthumanism, social critique, and the environmental humanities?
Sunyoung Park is associate professor in the departments of East Asian Languages and Cultures and of Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Southern California. She is the author of The Proletarian Wave: Literature and Leftist Culture in Colonial Korea, 1910-1945 (Harvard University Asia Center, 2015) and the editor of Revisiting Minjung: New Perspectives on the Cultural History of 1980s South Korea (University of Michigan Press, 2019). In synergy with her research, Park is also active as an editor and translator of Korean fiction into English, which has resulted, among others, in the publication of three collections of short stories: On the Eve of the Uprising and Other Stories from Colonial Korea (Cornell East Asian Series, 2010); Readymade Bodhisattva: The Kaya Anthology of Science Fiction from South Korea (Kaya Press, 2019); and On the Origin of Species and Other Stories by Bo-Young Kim (Kaya Press, 2021). She is currently working on a monograph entitled Amazing Stories: Science Fiction and the Politics of Modernization in South Korea, 1960-2010.
CONFERENCE FIELD TRIP
Thursday, March 3, Guided Tour of Japanese Friendship Garden, Balboa Park, San Diego
There are two guided tours for ASDP conference attendees, one at at 1 PM and another at 2 PM that accommodate 10 people each at a cost of $12 per person. Advance registration and payment on the ASDP Conference website is required. Participants will arrange for their own transportation to and from the garden.
The Japanese Friendship Garden San Diego celebrates ties to sister city Yokohama. The garden is based on the landscape principles of a traditional Japanese garden while incorporating features of the San Diego climate and environment. The garden was expanded and updated in 2015. For more information visit https://www.niwa.org/.
Thursday, March 3 through Saturday, March 5 reduced admission fee to San Diego Museum of Art, Balboa Park, for ASDP conference attendees
Show your conference name tag/badge at the entrance to the San Diego Museum of Art and receive $3 off of the usual admission fee; for adults the reduced fee is $17. The San Diego Museum of Art is located in beautiful Balboa Park and has extensive art collections including East Asian, South Asian, and Southeast Asian art as well as arts of Iran. For more information visit https://www.sdmart.org/.
There will also be a presentation by art historian Stanley Murashige in the San Diego Art Museum on Thursday afternoon. Space is limited and registration will be done at the hotel.
Workshop by Matt Marone on Friday, March 4
On Friday afternoon, Matt Marone will be conducting a workshops exploring connections between contemporary science and the Daoist alchemical world view. Registration for this will be at the conference as well and there will be space for 20 participants working in pairs.
CALL FOR PAPERS AND PROPOSAL GUIDELINES
The ASDP program committee is now accepting proposals for its 2022 National Meeting program to be held in person in San Diego, CA. Proposals can be for individual papers, panels, poster sessions, or round-table sessions and should not exceed 250 words. Proposals addressing some aspect of this year’s theme, Asia and the Anthropocene: Visions of Being Human in a More-than-Human World, are encouraged, but we welcome any that touch on issues in Asian Studies broadly construed. Early submissions greatly facilitate putting together meaningful panels and sessions and all proposals should be submitted by February 14, 2022 (final deadline extension).
CLOSED
- Individual Proposal Form Complete and submit proposals to: [email protected]
- Panel Proposal Form Complete and submit proposals to: [email protected]
CONFERENCE REGISTRATION
All presenters and attendees must register for the program.
Registration fees:
Early Registration: $275 (through December 15, 2021)
Registration: $300 (Past December 16, 2021)
Registration is closed
For payment by check click here to download and print the registration form.
Make your check payable to East-West Center with the notation ASDP National Conference. Mail your payment and form to:
East-West Center
Asian Studies Development Program
Attn: Daralyn Yee
1601 East-West Road
Honolulu, Hawai'i 96848-1601
Note: Mail-in registrations take approximately two to three weeks to arrive. Please take this information into consideration and send mail-in registrations at your earliest convenience. Thank you for your cooperation.
HOTEL
Hilton San Diego Gaslamp Quarter
401 K St
San Diego, CA 92101
Conference rates are from $179/night
COVID-19 PROTOCOLS
The ASDP National Conference is still being planned as an in-person event. We know that many of you will have legitimate concerns about travel in March, especially given the new variant(s) of the virus and the likely rise in Covid-19 cases through the holidays. We are taking every precaution to ensure that the hotel venue and our sessions are as safe as possible. The COVID policies we will have in place for the conference can be reviewed below, and we are encouraged by the fact that, although travel to tourist destinations like Hawaii is nearing at pre-pandemic levels, these destinations are not experiencing marked increases in caseloads compared with other parts of the country. Right now California has the lowest rate of positive COVID tests in the nation.
Although travel always involves risks, we feel that the pandemic-related risks of travel will remain relatively low. At much higher risk, we believe, is our sense of shared community and our readiness to "build back better" together shoulder-to-shoulder as we move toward the end of the second year of the pandemic. Our sincere hope is that gathering together in academic and human fellowship will be a source of increased strength for all who attend.
We will, of course, be very closely monitoring changes in the dynamics of the pandemic and will consider alternatives to an in-person meeting should that become necessary. We hope that will not be the case and that we will be able to enjoy the conference together, marking a clear return to full "relational bandwidth" collegiality.
The ASDP and the ASDP Alumni Chapter are looking forward to meeting or reuniting with you at our upcoming annual conference. While we are excited about the opportunity to meet in person once again, we also working very hard to make sure we will have a safe conference environment. We will be diligent in following all local, state, and federal (CDC) guidelines for pandemic precautions. In addition, the Gaslamp Hilton has their own precautions and procedures to ensure everyone’s safety. These can be reviewed here.
Here are some specific safety policies we will have in place at the conference:
- Participants are strongly encouraged to be fully vaccinated prior to the conference. If you are not, please make sure you have had a negative valid COVID-19 test 72 hours prior to the conference.
- We are asking that masks will be worn indoors during presentations and sessions. Speakers will be permitted to remove masks during their presentations.
- Conference breakout rooms will be arranged to allow 3 feet of social distancing to the extent possible.
- The welcome reception will be arranged to allow social distancing. Tables for the two lunches and plenary opening/closing will be spaced to enable social distancing.
- The field trip at Balboa Park will be outdoors in a group of no more than 10 people, and we will not be using a bus. The San Diego Museum of Art will be implementing its own Covid-19 protocols.
