time zone will be applied.
Report this post?
Call for Papers
Asian Cinemas Encounter the Cold War
Friday, March 28, 2025 – Saturday, March 29, 2025
FedEx Global Education Center, UNC-Chapel Hill
The Cold War is more than a historical period following the end of the second World War and the collapse of the Soviet Union (1947 – 1991) in which cultural production and related activities occurred. Marking the ideological and political divides between the U.S. and Western Europe and the Soviet and communist worlds, the Cold War created a space in which ideas and structures of feeling were embedded in cultural products as well as in activities that have lasted for decades across the globe. While the interconnections between the Cold War and cinema have long been the concern of European and American scholarship, for example Tony Shaw’s Hollywood Cold War (2007) and Rebecca Prime’s Hollywood Exiles in Europe: The Blacklist and Cold War Film Culture (2014), only recently has scholarship centering on Asian cinema and the Cold War emerged. In an effort to decenter scholarly focus on the Cold War and cinema from the West, scholars have presented complex accounts of the multiple interactions between Asian cinemas and the Cold War. Recent scholarship on the subject includes monographs, such as Sangjoon Lee’s Cinema and the Cultural Cold War: US Diplomacy and the Origins of the Asian Cinema Network (2020) and Masha Salazkina’s World Socialist Cinema: Alliances, Affinities, and Solidarities in the Global Cold War (2023), as well as edited collections, including Poshek Fu and Yip Man-Fung’s The Cold War and Asian Cinemas (2021) and Sangjoon Lee and Darlene Espena’s Remapping the Cold War in Asian Cinemas (2024). This scholarship not only broadens and deepens insights into the long-lasting impacts of the Cold War on Asian cinemas but also recognizes the cinematic activities that emerged from, related to, and responded to the Cold War from a variety of lesser-known and marginalized cinemas of the region.
In a similar vein, this conference departs from the normative approach to Cold War perspectives centering on Europe and America. While echoing the efforts of redirecting attention to voices from Asian cinemas, we aim further to investigate the intersection and coexistence of Asian cinemas during and after the Cold War. In what ways can engaging with the Cold War and its aftermaths productively deepen our understanding of Asian cinemas beyond geopolitical borders? Can Asian cinemas be redefined in respect to their involvement with the geopolitics of the Cold War? How could cinema archive everyday life and at the same time be used as a political apparatus? How have Asian cinemas continued to be haunted by the Cold War? Can rethinking the Cold War help Asian cinemas make sense of their national culture and identity, or reconcile with war-related trauma and conflict given regional aspirations to join the global economy and leave the past behind? We welcome discussions and interventions addressing these questions across Asia, including East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and West Asia. Possible topics in relation to Asian film, media, and (Cold) War may include, but are not limited to:
Please submit an abstract (~300 words), a short biography, and a list of up to five primary or secondary sources by Monday, December 2, 2024. Conference presentations will be 15-20 minutes. Applicants must submit their materials via the following Google form
Questions? Please contact asiancinemas.unc@gmail.com
Asian Cinemas Encounter the Cold War is sponsored by the Carolina Asia Center, the University of North Carolina’s flagship organization for Asia. The mission of the Center is to positively transform our understanding of and relationship with Asia, and to equip students and others with the knowledge of Asia to assume leadership roles. The Center works with the College of Arts and Sciences, professional schools, and various departments, centers, and student organizations at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and collaborates with other regional and international institutions to develop and implement educational programs on Asia. The Center seeks to increase resources for the study and research of Asia and opportunities to engage with Asia through seminars, language study, outreach, cultural competency, study abroad, and visiting scholar programs.
Conference committee:
