Organizer: Joan E. Judge, University of Utah
Chair: Carol Gluck, Columbia University
Discussants: Joan E. Judge, University of Utah; Carol Gluck, Columbia
University; Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Indiana University; Hue-Tam Ho Tai, Harvard
University; Takashi Fujitani, University of California, San Diego; George M.
Wilson, Indiana University; Anand A. Yang, University of Utah
This roundtable will explore the relevance for the study of Asia of "the new cultural history"-an evolving set of interpretive strategies associated mainly with innovative historians of Europe such as Roger Chartier and Lynn Hunt. Paying particular attention to China, Japan, India, and Vietnam, our goals are: to make an interim assessment of some of the problems and possibilities in the following "cultural turn" in historical studies; to discuss how we can develop strategies to effectively make use of new cultural methodologies without being impenetrable or derivative; and to enter into debates within the interdisciplinary field of cultural studies (in which some Asianists have been key players).
The participants in this roundtable share an interest in the intersections between fields such as literary analysis, ethnography, and history, and a concern that research that crosses the boundaries between these areas be presented in accessible language. At the same time, they come from varied backgrounds, have worked on dissimilar topics, and have differing understandings of what is most promising and most troubling about recent trends in Asian studies. Opening up lines of communication across national, disciplinary, and subdisciplinary boundaries, this roundtable will be a forum for their views on either the state of cultural history in a particular area (such as 20th century Japan), or on one of the themes that have begun to emerge in the new Asian cultural history (such as war and commemoration). It will also be an opportunity to engage the audience in a debate on this important methodological issue.