Society for Cultural Interaction in East Asia The 9th. General Assembly and The 9th. Annual Meeting 2017
“A Global Perspective on the Past and Knowledge Transitions in East Asia”

[Date] 　 May 13 (Saturday), May 14 (Sunday), 2017
[place] 　Beijing Foreign Studies University（No.2 North Xisanhuan Road, Beijing, P.R. China 100089)
[Proceeding Submission] Please see details here
[Accommodation] Please see details here
[Annual Meeting PDF]　 available in (simplified) Chinese　Japanese　English　Korean

A global perspective on the past is a new perspective and methodology in historiography and historical writings based on systemic and related outlooks comprised of macroscopic and microscopic perspectives of world history or the transcending of ethnic and national perspectives regarding transnational historical phenomena.
The American global historian Jerry H. Bentley (1949-2012) believed that systemic global development is embodied in a true universality that has three major social processes: population growth, advances in and dissemination of technology, and increasing interaction between unlike societies. In the East Asian nexus, there is constant knowledge transfer as well as various new technologies and interaction of new concepts and beliefs. Different societies are all ceaselessly seeking new means and schemes—conquering or being conquered, symbiotic integration, and immigration—for social cooperation. Through interaction with outsiders, these hidden issues will be brought to the forefront, and in the global era, East Asia will again become cognizant of its own cultural values and offer a new perspective for reexamination.
Wu Yujin (1913-1993), a Chinese scholar of twentieth-century world history, once proposed that the morphology of human society from the lower to the upper stages and lateral development in each region of the world, from mutual seclusion to gradual opening, from mutual separation to a gradually close horizontal development, together constitute the issues of world history. In terms of the aspect of methodologies for the consideration and depiction of the horizontal development of East Asia, global history can also offer instructive examples. We can use the global perspective of history to examine interactions among the different cultures of East Asia, to explain the form and content of mutual influences among different cultures, and to emphasize construction of mutually related processes, thereby revealing mechanisms of change. Understanding knowledge transitions and interaction in East Asia from the perspective of global history is a brand-new method of constructing history; it is only through interaction that we can truly understand the changing world of East Asia and its concomitant knowledge transitions.
The 2017 annual meeting of the Society will be hosted by Beijing Foreign Studies University. The Society will use the perspective of global history in research to review the subjects of cultural interaction studies, methods, interdisciplinary studies, and means of digitalization to emphasize new advances with which to construct an inclusive history of each country in East Asia by using a perspective that transcends individual national histories through mutual understanding of East Asian cultural interaction in a changing world.
The significance of the conference mainly lies in implementation of the following three aspects of discourse methodologies. First, trans-cultural perspectives: truly breaking down borders of nation-states by traversing national, regional, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic historical phenomena that constitute the subjects of research. Second, interactive viewpoints: emphasizing research on related histories within interactive social networks, from mutual understanding of the histories of East Asia and all nations in the world—people in different regions, ethnic groups, and cultures—through contact economically, politically, culturally, as well as achievement of interaction in other multiple fields. Third, integrated implementation of interdisciplinary research methodologies: using anthropology, sociology, economics, geography, and methodologies in various types of natural sciences to study East Asian cultural interaction.
The Institute for Global History at Beijing Foreign Studies University will host the 2017 annual meeting of the Society for Cultural Interaction in East Asia. The conference will use a “global perspective on the past” for the themes in each panel session, aiming to transmit the scholarship of researchers of East Asian history and culture to create a global historiographical perspective. We look forward to everyone’s participation in the effort to make new contributions to the field of East Asian cultural interaction studies.
We sincerely hope that all Society members will participate in this year’s conference!

Conference Theme this Year:

A Global Perspective on the Past and Knowledge Transitions in East Asia

Panel Themes:

1. Global perspectives on the past and East Asian cultural interaction studies
2. East Asian and Western concepts of transitions
3. Research on the history of individual East Asian countries under the rubric of a global perspective on the past
4. Formation and development of perspectives on East Asian early modern history
5. East Asian early modern publications and knowledge circulation
6. Dissemination of new knowledge in early modern East Asia and the legacy of traditional lifestyles
7. Big data and research on early modern East Asia
8. Literature, history, philosophy, and translation in the process of knowledge transmission
9. Research on new cultural history, life histories, and memory
10. Miscellaneous topics in research on the history of East Asian knowledge

Meeting Schedule

Arrival: May 12, 2017 (Friday)
Annual Meeting: May 13-14, 2017 (Saturday and Sunday)
Departure: May 15, 2017 (Monday)

Application Schedule

The conference will be divided into four categories: keynote speeches, panel sessions, individual presentations, and papers presented by PhD candidates.
We encourage each Society member to refer to the above titles for the composition of each panel. Panels will be allotted two hours and will be comprised of four to five presenters, one moderator, and one or two discussants. Presenters can also serve as moderators or discussants. Please submit your application and abstract (about 400 characters) to the Organizing Committee by the deadline if you wish to participate.
The deadline for application submission is January 16, 2017. After the Organizing Committee reviews your application and abstract, we will send you a formal letter of invitation around the middle of February.

Application form Word (docx)　（Chinese, Japanese, English, Korean）

Conference Expenses

With the exception of specially invited presenters, all participants are responsible for their own roundtrip transportation and lodging expenses. In addition, in accordance with the decision made at the last SCIEA conference, the 2017 conference fees will be 400 yuan for full members and 200 yuan for PhD students. Fees include a welcome banquet, lunches for both days at the conference, and the cost of the published conference proceedings. Please submit payment in cash (Chinese yuan) on site. (Credit cards and foreign currency will not be accepted.)

To apply for participation, contact:

The Organizing Committee: sciea2017@outlook.com

Members of the Organizing Committee for the Ninth Annual Meeting of the Society for Cultural Interaction in East Asia:
Head organizer: Li Xuetao, Vice-President (Professor, Beijing Foreign Studies University)
Auxiliary organizers:
Uchida Keiichi, President (Professor, Faculty of Foreign Languages, Kansai University)
Cheng Pei-kai, Councilor (Professor, City University of Hong Kong)
Fujita Takao, Councilor (Professor, Faculty of Literature, Kansai University)
Tao De-min, Councilor (Professor, Faculty of Literature, Kansai University)
Nakatani Nobuo (Professor, Faculty of Literature, Kansai University)
Azuma Jūji (Professor, Faculty of Literature, Kansai University)
Secretary:
Shen Guowei, Secretary General (Professor, Faculty of Foreign Languages, Kansai University)
Ma Chunling (The Office of The Institute for Global History, Beijing Foreign Studies University)

Society for Cultural Interaction in East Asia The 9th. General Assembly and The 9th. Annual Meeting 2017 “A Global Perspective on the Past and Knowledge Transitions in East Asia”