Critical Connections: Forum on Cultural Studies in Asia and Beyond
16 March 2012, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand

"Critical Connections: Forum on Cultural Studies in Asia and Beyond" is a special one-day conference on Asian cultural studies hosted by Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Arts and cosponsored by Chulalongkorn University’s Asia Research Center, Chula Global Network and Master of Arts in Cultural Management Program.

Asian cultural studies has been an important growth area of academic inquiry and scholarship over the past decade. It is a dynamic, interdisciplinary field that draws from a range of critical theories and approaches to examine cultural formations and productions within the context of contemporary, transnational Asia. In particular, it seeks to expose and understand the multiple intersections between culture, politics, history, technology and economics and how these inform evolving notions of identity and community at local, national and transnational levels.

The "Critical Connections" conference seeks to provide both a brief snapshot of cultural studies scholarship in the region, as well as an international forum of dialogue for researchers with a common interest in Asian cultural studies in all its multiple forms. Key issues to be explored in the conference include:

• culture and creative industries in Asia
• Asian popular cultures and media
• national cultures in globalizing Asia
• Asian languages and globalization
• Asian cultural histories and politics
• creative industries innovation, policy and regional development
• internationalization and Asian cultural studies
• contemporary Asian literatures and transnational literary cultures
• cultural management (museum, gallery, performing arts)
• quotidian cultures and symbolic practices
• material and non-material cultural heritage
• Asian gender and sexual cultures
• cultural geography and cultural spaces

The Conference Keynote Scholar is Professor CHUA Beng Huat, Director of the Asia Research Centre and Professor of Sociology at the National University of Singapore. A pioneering figure in the field of Asian cultural studies and the founding co-editor of the influential journal, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Professor Chua has published widely on urban planning and public housing, comparative politics in Southeast Asia and the emerging consumerism across Asia. His publications include:

Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore (London and New York: Routledge, 1995); Political Legitimacy and Housing: Stakeholding in Singapore (London and New York: Routledge, 1997); Consumption in Asia: Lifestyles and Identities (London and New York: Routledge, 2000); Life is Not Complete withoutShopping: Consumption Culture in Singapore (Singapore: Singapore University Press, 2003); Elections as Popular Culture in Asia (London and New York: Routledge, 2007); and, with Koichi Iwabuchi, East Asian Pop Culture: Analysing TheKorean Wave in Asian Pop Culture (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2008).

Proudly hosted by Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Arts with co-sponsorship from Chulalongkorn University’s Asia Research Center, Chula Global Network and Master of Arts in Cultural Management Program

Faculty of Arts