Scholarship

The AAACC presents…

CALL FOR PAPERS

“Orientalisms”

Organized by Arum Park (U of Arizona) and Stephanie Wong (Brown U)

2022 Society of Classical Studies Annual Meeting

January 5-8 2022

San Francisco, CA

“Orientalism is a form of paranoia.”1

For our third panel at the annual meeting of the Society for Classical Studies (SCS) in San Francisco, CA (January 5-8, 2022), the Asian and Asian American Classical Caucus invites abstracts for presentations that broadly explore the concept of “orientalism” as applicable to the study of the ancient Mediterranean. As Edward Said articulated, “Orientalism was ultimately a political vision of reality whose structure promoted the difference between the familiar (Europe, the West, ‘us’) and the strange (the Orient, the East, ‘them’).”2 Possible topics include but are not limited to: ancient Mediterranean constructions of difference, Asian and AAPI receptions of Western antiquity, the intellectual history of Classics, Orientalism in pedagogy, or non-Western conceptions of Classical antiquity.

We welcome proposals for diverse forms of interpretation; scholarly papers are always welcome but other proposed formats might include visual or literary art, performance, or discussions of political activism. In an effort to pluralize the definition of orientalism and explore its myriad uses in all geographic antiquities (Eastern, Western, or otherwise) as well as in the present day, we encourage abstract submissions that subvert imperial hegemonies, trouble heteronormative conventions, and question eurocentric ideologies. Who constitutes “us” and “them,” and why must these categories constantly be redefined?

Abstracts of no more than 400 words should be submitted as a pdf email attachment to AAACCabstracts@gmail.com by Friday, March 5, 2021. The subject line of your email should be “SCS 2022: Orientalisms abstract.” The text of your abstract should follow the guidelines available on the SCS website and should not mention the name of the author. Abstracts will be evaluated anonymously by the panel organizers. The AAACC is committed to fostering a collaborative and supportive environment for the sharing of innovative ideas; as such, we welcome submissions from students, educators, artists, and activists of all stages and disciplines.

Should you have any questions, please contact Arum Park (arumpark@arizona.edu) and Stephanie Wong (stephaniewong@brown.edu).

1 Edward Said, Orientalism, 71.

2 Said 42.

For our second workshop at the annual meeting of the Society for Classical Studies (SCS) , this panel explores, broadly, how Classics has moved through Asia. Following Claudia Moatti, we understand movement to be a “structural component of human experience and the human mind…[that] influences ways of thinking, relations of [people] to space, time, tradition, and the organization of societies…like an anamorphosis, movement modifies the perception of things and of human relations” (2006: 110). Building on this theoretical framework, we encourage papers that trace material, communication, and epistemological networks through transgeographical and/or transhistorical lenses. How have people, things, and ideas from Greco-Roman antiquity moved in and out of Asia? What are the effects on the lived experiences of those in the past as well as those in the present? How have texts, performances, and art (classical and contemporary) engaged with and imagined these movements and encounters?  

Stuart McManus, Chinese University of Hong Kong

• “Understanding Ângela: Gender and Ancient Mediterranean Slavery in Early Modern China”

Patricia Kim, New York University

• “Race, Gender, Antiquity: Reflecting on Asian Femininity in Yayoi Kusama's Narcissus Garden”

Helen Wong, University of Pennsylvania

• “Classical Architecture and the Kaiping diaolou: Diasporic identity in Late Qing and early Republican Guangdong, China”

Dora Gao, University of Michigan

• “Homer at Home: Classics, the Cultural Revolution, and the Construction of Identity”

Arti Mehta, Howard University

• “Παρθένος or Ἀπάρθενος? Girls' Piety and Sex in Greek New Comedy and South Asian Popular Cinema”

Jackie Murray, University of Kentucky

• Response

Our INAUGURAL PAPER SESSION

“Classical Reception in Contemporary Asian and Asian American Culture”

Organized by Christopher Waldo (AAACC President) and Elizabeth Wueste (AAACC Vice President)

Society of Classical Studies Annual Meeting in Washington, DC

Saturday, January 4, 2020

Christopher Waldo (AAACC President)

• Tulane University

• Introduction

Stephanie Wong (AAACC Outreach Coordinator)

• Brown University

• “Princess Turandot, an Occidental Oriental”

Kelly Nguyen (AAACC Membership Coordinator)

• Brown University

• “No One Knows His Own Stock: Ocean Vuong's Reception of Telemachus and Odysseus”

Kristina Chew

• University of California, Santa Cruz

• “Translating the Voices of Tragedy's "Other" Women: Theresa Has Kyung Cha's Dictee and Seneca's Phaedra”

Priya Kothari

• University of California, Berkeley

• “A Palimpsest of Performance: The Construction of Classicism in the Vallabha Tradition”

Melissa Mueller

• University of Massachusetts Amhert

• Response

Our Eidolon.pub Series

Scattered Across: Conversations with Asian and Asian American Writers from The Diaspora

Discussions of race and the Western humanities often stall in white-facing environments, especially in the study of a traditionally imperial subject. Unlike the case of the Western canon, however, time, geography, and language do not limit the reach of diasporic works. Our goal for this project is to increase minority access to cultural products from their own communities while still addressing the reach of Classics in the modern day. These conversations will hopefully move beyond classical reception in a classroom setting to intellectual activism in everyday life.

Undeniably, the discipline of Classics is a tool of Western empire. Part of the struggle of racialized bodies in an intellectual context requires wrestling with the painful history of Western classical hegemony, an experience that often dovetails with questions of identity. As members of the diaspora ourselves, we regularly confront the monolithic definition of Asia: one that erases diasporic populations in its delineation.

Our decision to organize this interview series was rooted in our desire to advance discussions of race and Classics in a productive, continual way. Studying Classics necessitates grappling with a complex past associated with violence and erasure that, in some places, continues into the present. What many serious students of Classics do not often realize is that receptions of Classics are also receptions of geopolitical trauma. Because it is easier to relate our own backgrounds to the erasure rather than the edification of the field, Scattered Across is part of a constant process of fostering a community: a living, breathing, creating, educating, questioning, and laboring one.

Tarfia Faizullah with STEPHANIE WONG

• September 24, 2019

• Bangladeshi American poet Tarfia Faizullah

Sally Wen Mao with Christopher Waldo

• October 21, 2019

• Chinese American poet Sally Wen Mao

Paper Prize

for Undergraduate Research Excellence

Coming soon!