From: "Frank Conlon" <conlon@U.WASHINGTON.EDU>
To: <H-ASIA@H-NET.MSU.EDU>
Sent: Monday, March 21, 2011 8:28 PM
Subject: H-ASIA: Joint AAS panel session on death and the dead in modern
China, March 31, 2011
> H-ASIA
> March 21, 2011
>
> AAS Annual Meeting: Joint AAS panel session on death and the dead in
> Modern China, March 31, 2011
>
> (x-post H-Death)
> ***********************************************************************
> Ed. note: This notice which I am cross-posting from H-Death (a very
> interesting new member of the H-Net family of lists) is here because of
> its obvious interest to China-wallahs. BUT NOTE the date in the original
> post is given as March 30, whereas Thursday is March 31. FFC
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> From:Rebecca Nedostup <rebecca.nedostup.1@bc.edu>
>
>
> Joint AAS panel session on death and the dead in modern China,
> March 30, 2011
> AAS Annual Meeting March 30 [MARCH 31, ed.]
>
> Dear members,
>
> I write to invite all of you who are attending the upcoming annual
> meeting of the Association of Asian Studies in Honolulu to a joint
> session on the first day of the conference, Thursday, March 30 [31]. Both
> panels take place in Room 323A of the Convention Center: Session 78: The
> Social Life of Dead Bodies: Cases from late Qing through Cold War China
> and Taiwan, from 10:15 to 12:15, immediately followed by Session 122:
> Death and Its Histories in Late Imperial and Early Republican China,
> from 12:30 to 2:30. Panel abstracts follow.
>
> "Session 78: The Social Life of Dead Bodies: Cases from late Qing
> through Cold War China and Taiwan"
>
> Much like the living, corpses--as individuals and as groups--must be
> physically and epistemologically managed to fit into structures of
> social meaning. What happens to dead bodies as meanings evolve, are
> intentionally manipulated, or in extraordinary circumstances? This panel
> looks at the treatment of dead bodies, particularly the war dead, and
> uncovers corpses as social signifiers and social actors during extended
> periods of community upheaval. We examine how the conditions of
> disruption changed modes of performance involving the dead, engendering
> ingenuity in technology and the manipulation of ritual forms. We focus
> on the mid-19th century onward, when the broadening scale and nature of
> warfare, the expansion of the state and the rise of nationalism, and the
> intersection of new, international philanthropies with older forms of
> charity and ritual pacification affected the treatment and conception of
> war dead. By emphasizing the context of public performance, the panel
> seeks to treat corpses as meaningful participants in the greater polity.
> Chang-hui Chi addresses the Cult of Patriotic Generals and public
> discourse on ghosts in Cold War Jinmen; Rebecca Nedostup offers a social
> geography of graves in Zijinshan; Caroline Reeves analyzes the Chinese
> Red Cross Burial Corps and changing perceptions of imperatives to bury
> the dead; and Chuck Wooldridge investigates the ritual treatment of
> corpses in post-Taiping Nanjing. Discussion will draw from the audience,
> focusing on members of the panel "Death and its histories in late
> imperial and early Republican China"
>
> "Session 122: "Death and Its Histories in Late Imperial and Early
> Republican China - Sponsored by the Society for Qing Studies"
>
> While death is universal to the human condition, it is also rooted in
> particular social and cultural histories and known through specific
> bodies of knowledge and modes of representation. This panel seeks a
> deeper understanding of the multiple sites and media through which the
> living encountered the dead in late imperial and early Republican China
> and their diverse engagements with and constructions of social order and
> disorder. Michelle King's paper explores the ways that diverging
> treatments of infanticide in Chinese morality tales and the writings of
> Western missionaries negotiated questions of victimhood and agency.
> Quinn Javers uses cases drawn from the rich sources of the Baxian
> archive to explore the gender, economic, and social contexts which
> informed non-elites' paths to suicide. Daniel Asen examines the politics
> of knowledge underlying the ways that local officials, yamen personnel,
> and literati authors of forensic treatises encountered the dead body as
> forensic evidence. Pierre Fuller focuses on the diverse responses to the
> specter of mass starvation in north China in 1920-21 to explore
> conceptions of victimhood and the legacy of late Qing humanitarian
> action. These papers explore the diverse ways that elites and non-elites
> in the late Qing and early Republican social landscape encountered,
> responded to, and mobilized the dead.
>
> Rebecca Nedostup
> Associate Professor
> Department of History
> Boston College
>
> ************************************************************************
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