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Date: 18 Sep 2025 - 19 Sep 2025
Venue: AS8, Level 4, Seminar Room 04-04
10 Kent Ridge Crescent, Singapore 119260
National University of Singapore @ KRC
CALL FOR PAPERS DEADLINE: 23 MAY 2025
This workshop is organized with the Cultural Studies in Asia Programme in Department of Communications and New Media, and Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore, in collaboration with the William Lim Siew Wai Fellowship Fund.
At the time of the publication of Chua Beng Huat’s “Conceptualising an East Asian popular culture” in 2004, Japan was considered the centre of East Asian content production and export that “sets the industry quality standard”. It had immensely influenced the production of trendy dramas in South Korea that formed part of the early Korean Wave. Hong Kong and Taiwan were crucial roles in Chinese-language productions for the region with substantial diasporic ethnic Chinese population. China’s contribution as a production centre was marginal at the time, even though its consumer market was increasingly important.
In the 30 years since, while urban dramas featuring beautiful and fashionable casts remain popular among audiences in the region, much has also changed with the transnational flows of East Asian popular culture. YouTube and social media have been instrumental in the proliferation of K-pop beyond Asia. Netflix brought South Korean and other East Asian content to a global audience, as it changes local production practices. China is no longer merely a lucrative consumer market, as iQiyi is positioned as “the OTT platform” for Chinese content in its international expansion. While many have commented on the decline of Hong Kong cinema, two films in 2024 surpassed US$12.9 million in the Hong Kong box office, although overall box office revenue continues to drop. Taiwan is moving away from the production of “idol content” as it moves to build and attract international audiences via Netflix by developing content that discusses social issues. Meanwhile, Japan continue to have impact in animation, and it remains the region’s centre of fashion and technology, but Japanese media content struggle to globalize in a media climate where streaming platforms and social media dominate over legacy media. Genres such as Boys Love (BL) has transcended its origins in Japanese manga to live action dramas, and Thailand has emerged at the forefront of this genre. These changes have redefined East Asia’s cultural landscape as production and consumption centres shift and change.
This workshop invites papers that critically examine the evolution of East Asian pop culture over the past three decades, highlighting its intersections with political, economic, social, and cultural transformations within and beyond the region. It challenges the tendency to frame East Asian pop culture through Western-centric perspectives, emphasizing instead its dynamic transnational and inter-regional developments as a distinct site of cultural and geopolitical significance.
We invite papers examining the inter-Asian flows and development of East Asian pop culture that has impact the region in the last 30 years.
SUBMISSION OF PROPOSALS
Paper proposals should include a title, an abstract (500-800 words), and a brief personal biography (about 200 words) for submission by 23 May 2025. Please also include a statement confirming that your paper has not been published or committed elsewhere, and that you are willing to revise your paper for potential inclusion in an edited volume of essays. Please submit your proposal using the provided form (see attached) to Mr Jiarong Fan at jiarong.fan@u.nus.edu.
Authors of selected proposals will be notified in end June 2025. Presenters will have to submit a draft of their papers (about 4,000-6,000 words) by 18 August 2025. These drafts will be circulated to fellow presenters and discussants in advance.
The workshop will be conducted in person. The organizers may offer overseas participants financial assistance, which could include up to three nights of accommodation. If you require funding support, please indicate this on the proposal form.
