Fusion Cultures:
'Memory, Migration, [Re]mediation, Mobility'

A One-Day Multi-Disciplinary Conference
9th December 2006

Inaugural Conference of ASRG
The Asian Research Group at Buckinghamshire Chilterns
University College in Collaboration with the Greenwich
University, London

'Rather than a manufactured clash of civilizations, we
need to concentrate on the slow working together of cultures
that overlap, borrow from each other, and live together in
far more interesting ways that any abridged or inauthentic
mode of understanding can allow.' (Edward Said, 2004)

Keynote Speaker:

Sue Clayton (Royal Holloway],
'In Dialogue with Shangri La: Working with Bhutanese Film
Makers'

This aim of this conference is to examine the complex nature
of the relationships and encounters between the imaginary
and the real 'East' and 'West', in the present and recent
past. We invite papers that utilise the term 'fusion'
as a place from which to explore the concept of interactions
and exchanges beyond traditional theoretical mappings such
as post colonialism and post-modernism. Our focus is
primarily upon the interactions between 'East Asia' and 'the
West' over the last 25 years with the development of new
media - eg, computer games and the development of a global
matrix of 'fusions' which move beyond the art world to
the everyday. We also welcome papers which seek to
re-examine past encounters with an awareness of cultural
fluidity.

Suggested topics, include, but are not limited to the
following:

1] Travel, Diasporas and mobile communities/identities
· Community, migration and national identities
· Memory, and identity: between here [new home spaces] and
there [place of origin] - and back again.
· The relationship between 'imagined' and 'real'
pasts in the construction of diasporic communities
· Autobiographies: Hybridity, post modernity and fusion
subjectivities
· Literatures of encounter. - e.g. Angela Carter, Peter
Carey, Natsume Soseki

2] Orientalism, Occidentalism.
· Performance and Techno-Orientalism
· Fashion, design and architectures of style and home
· Cyberpunk, fantastic and future fictions
· Intertextuality and the influence of Asian cinema on
Hollywood
· Theatre & Performance from East to West: Noh, Kabuiki,
Butoh, Brecht
· Theatre and Performance from West to East - Shakespeare
& Co
· Games. Sony Play Stations & beyond.
· The aesthetics of Manga and Anime
· Web sites and fandom

3] Imaginary Homelands/ Imaginary Others
· Histories, films and stories of the Orient: the
transmission and translation of East to West including
travel writing, postcolonial literature and cinematic
co-productions
· Revisionist histories
· Theorising encounters between East and West, and back
· Geographies, philosophies and mental cartographies
· Eastern landscapes and their aestheticization
· Eastern Gardens and design.
· Food and transformation - the foreign as the everyday
· Fantasy Fictions. -e.g. Neil Stephenson, David Mitchell

4] Literature: Globalisation, Urbanisation and Memory
· Nostalgic cities. - esp Murakami
· Connecting through the avant-garde - esp Kobo Abe
· Literatures of trauma and memoralisation of trauma

5] Language and philosophy : between the translatable and
the untranslatable.
· We especially welcome contributions which consider
'continental philosophy' with their influence of Eastern
philophy - and back
· We are interested too in papers which address the
blindness and insight of 'continental' philosophy of the
last century - eg Kristeva -On Chinese Women, Derrida,
Barthes, Deleuze.

6] Seas, Islands and Peninsulas
· We are thinking here of Conrad and his legacy- but
doubtless there are more imaginative 'takes' on this.

Submissions are invited from scholars and students of film,
media, gender and cultural studies, architecture, design and
fashion, history and art history, music, history,
literature, sociology and cultural geography.

Creative submissions including short stories [no more than
2,000 words], poems, and short videos [not over 10 minutes]
are also sought; these should address the theme of
'fusion' within the context of this conference and will
be judged by a panel of experts. The winning submissions
will be invited onto a special panel[s] at the conference,
and will be exhibited at the conference, and on the
designated web-site.

This conference is envisaged as the beginning of a
continuing dialogue into the relationship between the East
and the West, and selected papers will be published in the
launch issue of the Asian Studies Research Group e-journal.

Please submit a 250-word abstract and a brief bio by 31st of
March, 2006, to the joint organisers; Dr Colette Balmain:
Colette.balmain_at_bcuc.ac.uk and Dr Carolyn Brown:
C.M.H.Brown_at_greenwich.ac.uk

Creative submissions and a short biographical note and email
[contact] address should be sent to:

Dr Colette Balmain
Senior Lecturer in Film Studies
Department of Arts and Media
Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College
Queen Alexandra Road
High Wycombe
Bucks HP11 2JZ

Please note that it will not be possible to return creative
submissions.

Registration Fee: Standard £40 (includes tea/coffee and
lunch)
Student/Unwaged £15

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Received on Tue Feb 07 2006 - 13:17:30 EST