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The 2021 Association of Asian Studies New England Regional Conference is hosted by Harvard University’s Asia-related centers, including: Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University Asia Center, Harvard-Yenching Institute, Korea Institute, Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute, Program on U.S.-Japan Relations, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies

While there is no registration fee, we suggest that attendees donate to the Association for Asian Studies at a level that is comfortable for them.

8:30 – 8:45 AM EST Welcome and Introduction
8:45 – 10:15 AM EST
 Panel A1-A5
10:30 – 11:45 AM EST Panel B1-B5
12:00 – 1:15 PM EST
 Keynote
1:45 – 3:15 PM EST
 Panel C1-C5
3:30 – 5:00 PM EST
 Panel D1-D5
5:00 – 5:10 PM EST
 Conclusion

Panel A1
Liquid State: The Politics of Dam Construction

Hydrosociality and Power in the Struggle over the Ishiki Dam
Charlotte 
Ciavarella and Joshua Linkous (Harvard University)

Hydropower Dams and Politics of River Development in Vietnam
Nga
 Dao (York University)

Dam Politics in South Vietnam during the Cold War: The Case of the Da Nhim Dam
Chu 
Duy Ly (National University of Singapore)

Learning from the Tennessee Valley Authority: Hydropower Cooperation between China and the United States in the 1940s
Xiangli
 Ding (Rhode Island School of Design)

Urbanization and Rural Politics in the Ch’ungju Flood Zone
Will Sack (Harvard University)

Panel A2
Margin(s) and Center(s) of Empire and Literature:
 Wang Wei and Meng Haoran

Meng Haoran and Wang Wei in the Eyes of Their Contemporaries
Paul W. Kroll (University of Colorado)

‘I’m at leisure ( haen) in the mountains ( sraen), but I have to turn back ( hwaen) now and close ( kwaen) my gate’: Rhyme-Words and Poetic Argument
Stephen Owen (Harvard University)

Plowing at a Distance: Perspectives on Agricultural Labor in the Poems of Wang Wei
Christopher M. B. 
Nugent (Williams College)

Wang Wei as a Case study for Classical Chinese Poetry in Translation
Cathy Shen (Harvard University)

Panel A3
Knowledge, Books, and Text

Making Different: Reproducing the Histories of Koryŏ in the Twentieth Century
Graeme R. Reynolds (Yale University)

Making Dungan Literary History: Formation of the Sinophone Muslim Literary Tradition of Central Asia
Kenneth J. Yin (City University of New York)

Choi Namsŏn in the Transnational Publication World
Jeonghun
 Choi (Harvard University)

The Construction of Knowledge Archive in Early Modern South Asia
Sushmita
 Banerjee (University of Delhi, Indi)

Flowing with Wind and Stream: The Affect of Fengliu 風流 in the Hongzhi Edition of The Story of the Western Wing 西廂記
Xiaoyue
 Luo (University of Colorado, Boulder)

Panel A4
Gender and Sexuality

Subfertility as an Active Planning for Pregnancy in Neoliberal South Korea
Jean Young Kim (University of Texas at Austin)

The Saigon Sisters: Privileged Women in the Resistance
Patricia D. 
Norland (Independent writer)

Protest with a party: The Semiotic Landscaping of Metro Manila Pride March as Southern Praxis
Christian Go (National University of Singapore)

Japan’s Gay Seoul: Behind the Scenes at a Korean ‘Snack Bar’ in Tokyo
Albert Graves (
Doshisha University)

Attraction as a Mode of Power: Matchmaking, Romantic Fetish, and the State in Contemporary China
Shanni
 Zhao (Harvard University)

Panel A5
Chinese State and Governance

Numbers, Fiscal Capacity, and Capacity-Building in China, 1500-1800
Liu 
Ziang, London School of Economics and Political Science

Local Deliberations and Market Development during the Mao Era
Kristine Li (Brown University)

Echoes of Revolution and Civil War: Party Building in Chinese Counties, 1949- 2005.
Zheng Zhang (Chinese University of Hong Kong

When Clans Meet Power: Elite Competition and Rural Governance in China
Meina
 Cai (University of Connecticut)

Panel B1
Revisiting East Asia through Mission 
Collections in New England

Digital Frontiers: The China Historical Christian Database
Alex Mayfield (Boston University)

The Archival Collections on East Asia at the Yale Divinity Library
Christopher Anderson (Yale University)

Harvard-Yenching Missionary Collection
Sharon 
Li-shiuan Yang (Harvard-Yenching Library)

The Ricci Institute: A Global Resource for the Interdisciplinary Study of Christianity in East Asia
Mark Mir and M. Antoni 
Ucerler (Boston College)

Missionary Research Library: More than Theology
Leah Edelman (Columbia University Libraries)

Panel B2
Knowledge Production in State-building during the Early PRC

Woven Together: Cotton Trade and the Making of Trade Practices in Cold War Asia, 1950-1959
Bohao
 Wu (Harvard University)

Learning through Hosting: Cameroonian Delegations to the PRC and Chinese Knowledge Production on Africa, 1956-1965
Caitlin Barker (Michigan State University)

History Education in Shanghai’s Secondary Schools in the 1950s
Guanhua
 Tan (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

Quantifying Rural China: Wartime Land Reform, Statistics, and State Fiscal Capacity in North China (1946-1949)
Xiaoyu
 Gao (University of Chicago)

Panel B3
Constitutions and Citizenship

The Use of Programmatic Beliefs in EU-China Trade Disputes in the WTO DSM
Salvatore FP 
Barillà (University of Edinburgh)

Myanmar Citizenship Laws: Making Rohingya Muslims Stateless
Ronan Lee (Queen Mary University of London)

Obstructive Constitutionalism: Democratic Transitions and Pre-Emptive Authoritarian Constitution-Making in Southeast Asia
John 
Chua (Harvard University)

Panel B4
Folklore, Ghosts, Monsters, and the Fantastical

Encountering ghosts: haunting and intercommunal relations in Phang Nga
Chantal 
Croteau (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor)

Tender Warriors Against the Pandemic in Japan: KumamonQuaran & Amabie
Michael L. Maynard 
(Temple University)

Viral Monsters for a Viral Era: Japan’s Folkloric Response to COVID-19
Isabel Bush (Inter-University Center for Japanese Language Studies)

A Space of the Subordinate: On the Development of “The Three-body Problem” Fandom
Shuwen
 Yang (UCLA)

Panel B5
Identity

Power and Identity of the Manchu and Mongol Bannermen in Qing: A Study of Household Economies by Means of Confiscation Inventory Lists
Yitong
 Qiu (London School of Economics and Political Science)

Vietnamese International Students in the Asian American Movement (1968-1975)
Cai
 Barias (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

“In-between” Asian Americans: Falling through the intersectional cracks of Liminality
Kristin Kim (Korea University

Documentary Betrayal: Migrant Worker, the Aesthetics of Cruelty, and Fabulating Otherwise
Yufan
 Chen (Harvard University)

Migration, Race and Nation: Chinese Views in Comparative and Global Context, 1900s-1940s
Lisong
 Liu (Massachusetts College of Art and Design)

History, Identity and Hong Kong: A Constructivist Approach to the Decolonisation of British Hong Kong
Matthew Hurst (The University of Oxford)

Panel C1
Assessing China’s Belt and Road Initiative: Strategic Evolution and the European Case

From Ambiguity to Articulation: Belt and Road Initiative’s Dynamic Process in China
Min Ye (Boston University)

Burning (Atlantic) Bridges? China’s Rise in Europe and its Implications for U.S. Grand Strategy
Thomas 
Cavanna (Tufts University)

From Maritime Silk Road to Health Silk Road: Belt and Road Initiative’s Dynamic Process in Europe
Grant Rhode (Boston University)

Panel C2
Thinking through the Asian Diaspora, Racial Oppression, and Intersectional Identity

Labor’s Advocacy for Whiteness and Chinese Exclusion in Defense of the “American Standard of Living”
Pat Reeve (Suffolk University)

Wang Hao, the Chinese Diaspora, and Philosophy
Montgomery Link (Suffolk University)

Evangelical Christianity, Sex and the Massacre of Asian American Women in Atlanta on March 16, 2021
Amy Fisher (Suffolk University)

A Feminist Critique of Anti-Asian Violence in the Context of U.S.-China Relation
Micky Lee (Suffolk University)

The Invisibility and Microaggression Experiences of Asians in USA: How can we Understand and Reduce their Adverse Impact on Psychological Wellbeing
Sukanya
 Ray (Suffolk University)

Panel C3
Empire and Colonialism


Dandelions, Airships, and the Long Way Around: Orientating 
Nakayama Miki’s Divine Parental Guidance

Michaela Leah 
Prostak (Brown University)

Sacred Maneuvers: Maulana Azad and the Career of Muslim Nationalism in British India
Aneeq
 Ejaz (Dartmouth College)

Sir Robert Hart and the territorialization of Qing rule in aboriginal Taiwan
Georges 
Moraitis (Queen’s University Belfast)

Industrial Whaling and the Expansion of the Japanese Maritime Empire, 1890- 1912
Fynn
 Holm (Harvard University)

Discursive Empire: The Shifting Definitions of Japan’s Empire in Manchuria (1905– 37)
Yuting
 Dong (Harvard University)

Panel C4
Narrative and Translation

Scholars, Translators, Liberals in Thailand’s Interregnum
Malavika
 Reddy (Harvard University)

Transcultural Dialogues: Eileen Chang’s Autobiographical Fiction
Jessica 
Tsui-yan Li (York University)

War, World Literature, and the “Real”: Futabatei Shimei and the Problem of Literary Translation in the Post-Russo–Japanese War Period in Japan
Yuki Ishida (Columbia University)

Precarious Aging in Taiwanese Literature: A Study of Wang Zhenhe’s Cancer Writing
Keren
 He (Dickinson College)

Visual and Poetic Imagination in The Four Seasons: An Early Ming Handscroll in the Met Collection
Mo Zhang (University of Pennsylvania)

Forgetting as Knowing: Zhi in Zhuangzi’s Stories from Inner Chapters
Shangtong
 Cui (Harvard University)

Panel C5
Military

American Trash, Japanese Treasure: Military Garbage in Occupied Japan
Connor Mills (Dartmouth College)

Soldering Across Space and Time: “Taiwanese” Servicemen Under the Japanese and U.S Empires (1930s – 1970s)
Shang 
Yasuda (University of Pennsylvania)

The Rhythms of Commodification: Mid-Qing Military Horse Provisioning
Charles Argon (Princeton University)

Neoliberalism and the Political Economy of Bangladesh Military
Matt M. Husain (The University of British Columbia)

Panel D1
More than the Sum of 
its Parts: Piecing together Chinese Fragment Histories in the Harvard Art Museums

Seeing through the Cracks: Kharakhoto Fragments in the HAM Collection
Victoria Andrews (Harvard University)

Putting Face to Place: Fragments from Warner’s “Elephant Chapel”
Isabel McWilliams (Harvard University)

From Henan to Harvard: Three Sixth-century Buddhist Heads in Context
Michael Norton (Harvard University)

Reframing Tianlongshan: Facing the Past and Looking Ahead
Sarah 
Laursen (Harvard Art Museums)

Panel D2
Nation, Religion, and Society in Modern Korea: Examinations of Religious Freedom & Restriction, Modern Social Engagement, and (Inter)National Identity and Belonging

Rational Restriction on Religion? How North Korea Conceives of Religious Freedom
John G. 
Grisafi (Yale University)

Shifts in the Social Engagement of Modern Korean Buddhism
Jusung
 Lee (Yale University)

George May’s Lost Town: Remembering Yongsan Garrison through Seoul American High School, 1974-2019
Karis 
Ryu (Yale University)

Panel D3
International Relations and International Politics

Making Sense of China’s Western Neighbourhood Diplomacy: A Neoclassical Realist Argument
Giulia 
Sciorati (University of Trento)

Wrestling with the Past: Sumō and the Restoration of Japan-China Relations in the 1970s
Erik 
Esselstrom (The University of Vermont)

Before the Storm Comes: Diplomatic Exchanges between Mongols, Korea, and Japan Before 1274 Bun’ei Campaign
Lina 
Nie (University of Southern California)

Hegemony and Indirect Balancing in Mainland Southeast Asia
Paul Un (University of Chicago)

Panel D4
Places and Cities

Decoy of the Gods: Votive Artillery at Asuke Hanchimangū Shrine and Population Politics in a Shrinking Suburb of Japan’s Fourth Largest City
Christopher S. Thompson (Ohio University)

Collective Construction: Building “Community” and “Chumchon” in Bangkok
Hayden Shelby (University of Cincinnati), 
Trude Renwick (Hong Kong University)

The Timing of the largest flower market in Asia
Rui Sun (Chinese University of Hong Kong)

Seeing Time in Space: Temporality of Symbolic Landscape in Laos
Anna 
Koshcheeva (Cornell University)

Panel D5
Performance

Secularizing Bollywood: Mother Images in Popular Hindi Cinema
Liangdong
 Chen (Beijing Normal University)

A Centennial Portrait: Ballets Performed in 2021 for 100th Year of the Chinese Communist Party’s Founding
Eva Shan Chou (City University of New York)

“Even if it Means our Battles to Date are Meaningless”: The Anime Gundam Wing and Postwar History, Memory, and Identity in Japan
Genevieve R Peterson (University of Massachusetts Boston)

Local Performing Arts and Recovery from the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami: A Descriptive Qualitative Study
Akiko
 Iizuka (Utsunomiya University)

Musical Borrowing for Artistic Career: Taech’wit’a in K-pop
Sunhong
 Kim (University of Michigan)