Call for Papers:

Asia and the Pacific in German Culture

Friday, February 14 - Saturday, February 15, 2014

University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa

 

Keynote Speakers:

Doug McGetchin, Professor of History, Florida State University

Author of Indomania, Orientalism:  Ancient India's Rebirth in Modern Germany (2009)

 

James Bade, Professor of German, University of Auckland, New Zealand

Editor of Karl Hanssen’s Samoan War Diaries August 1914-May 1915:

A German Perspective on New Zealand’s Military Occupation of German Samoa (2011)

 

The University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa’s German Program and Department of Indo-Pacific Languages and Literatures invite submissions for a conference that will explore the imagings of Asia and the Pacific in German culture. Inversely, papers may also focus on imagings of German culture in Asia-Pacific regions. We welcome paper proposals from a variety of disciplines: literature, cultural studies, philosophy, religion, linguistics, history, political science or personal narratives. We welcome submissions from academics, independent scholars, filmmakers, curators, artists, activists, and storytellers.

Possible topics:

·       Captains’ logs on perceptions at first contact 

·       Logs of perceptions of colonizers at first contact

·       Gender ideologies

·       Germany’s loss of its colonies at the end of World War I

·       Linguistics studies of, connections w/ and influences on Asia-Pacific

·       Perceptions of Eastern religions in 19^th-century Germany

·       Trade and commerce between Germany and Asia-Pacific

·       History of trade in German cultural texts

·       German and Asia-Pacific commerce and labor movements of the 19th and 20^th centuries

·       Exclusion of German history and of colonization in education in the former colonies 

·       Defining the self vis--vis the “other”

·       Military vs. commercial administration in German colonies

·       Germany’s purchase of the Northern Pacific from Spain and WWI losses

·       German missionary involvement in Asia-Pacific

·       Contemporary relations between Germany and Asia-Pacific

·       Local perceptions in Asia and the Pacific of Germans

·       German descendants in Asia and the Pacific

·       Asia-Pacific migrants in both Germanies

·       Intellectual underpinnings of German colonialism in Asia and the Pacific

Please submit abstract (300 words max) and curriculum vitae (5 pp. max) 

by Fri. Aug. 16, 2013 

to: [log in to unmask]

Conversations are underway to publish select papers as part of a special volume or journal issue.

Conference Co-organizers: Professor Sai Bhatawadekar (IPLL/Hindi), Professor Christina Gerhardt (LLEA/German) and Professor Fata Simanu-Klutz (IPLL/Samoan).