Abstract
Deadline: 1/20/2003
Event:
The
Center for Chinese Studies of UC Berkeley Annual Symposium
in Chinese Studies
Event
Date & Location:
3/7-3/8/2003; University of California at Berkeley
Website:
http://ieas.berkeley.edu/ccs/symposiums.html
Information:
The Center for Chinese Studies of the University of
California at Berkeley will hold a two-day conference on
the question of violence in China, a question that has intrigued
and puzzled many scholars working on that vast social space.
As some scholars have earlier argued, there seems to exist
a contradiction in Chinese society, that which awards prestige
to literary figures and seeks harmony over all other values
on the one hand and, on the other, displays a wide range
of violence or violent behaviors. How can one understand
such a phenomenon as a way of understanding the relationship
of violence to society and vice versa? What is the meaning
of violence, collective or individual, historical or contemporary,
real or imagined, in the formation of social relations and
institutions? Why does the image of violence, textual or
visual, ideological or practical, material or metaphorical,
persist in everyday imagination and representation as a
significant source for social action? It is to these questions
that the Symposium hopes to form a conversation among concerned
scholars.
More
specifically, three sets of questions are to be raised:
First, the inquiry of violence requires us to look into
the context, economic or political, that gives rise to violent
action or reaction, which might include a wide range of
behaviors, such as revenge, suicide, domestic violence,
mass demonstration, popular resistance, political or other
forms of punishment, and so on. Secondly, it is not an exaggeration
to say that the 20th century is a century of violence, only
to mention the special kind of collective violence legitimized
during the radical years of the Maoist revolution. Therefore,
we hope to raise the question of the extent to which violence
must be considered as and in historical terms. Violence
is not only the result of a certain historical formation
but plays an active role in it, only to think about recurrent
famines, struggles for power, repressive or selective representations
of the past, and so on. Thirdly, a number of associated
images of conflict or antagonism will arise when the idea
of violence is brought up. What are the motivations for
those to settle their conflicts by force? If emotions are
socially constructed, as some would have argued, how can
we understand the reasoning behind violent actions or interactions
by different social groups or individuals?
Submission
Guidelines / Information:
Proposals are invited from all fields and both panels
and papers from all disciplines are encouraged.
Those
interested in participating in the conference should send
a two-page abstract and curriculum vitae postmarked by January
20. Email submissions welcome.
Contact:
Center for Chinese Studies
Attn: Annual Symposium
2223 Fulton St., Room 503
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720-2328
Telephone: (510) 643-6321
Fax: (510) 643-7062
E-mail: chinactr@socrates.berkeley.edu
