Spring Break
Symposium spreads awareness about domestic issues in Asian countries
by Quinn Lockwood
News | 11/13/07
Posted online at 9:16 PM EST on 11/12/07
/ Last updated at 4:53 AM EST on 11/12/07
The Asian nation's state's new interest in managing domestic life, particularly sexuality, was examined in a three-panel symposium sponsored by the Asian Diaspora Working Group called "Sexuality and the National Body in Asia" last Tuesday. The event began in the Rose Art Museum and continued in the Women's Studies Research Center.
The Working Group on Asian and Asian Diaspora Studies, formed last year, is a group of students and faculty who are interested in both Asian and Diaspora studies. The group emphasizes study involving different parts of Asia, such as India and Japan, in conjunction with one another. "We look at the links and connections between the various fields," Prof. Sarah Lamb (ANTH) said.
"The three of us [Profs. Ellen Schattschneider (ANTH), Harleen Singh (WGS) Lamb] have been involved in the Asian Diaspora reading group, a loose association of faculty and students meeting from time to time to read material of mutual interest. We are trying to bridge the more conventional divides of, oh that's East Asia, that's Japan. It's so easy for academic work like this to get pigeonholed, but [the symposium] was really an open forum for discussion between different groups," Schattschneider said in an interview after the symposium.
The symposium portion was divided into three panels: Figuring the National Body in South Asia, Sexuality, Power and Literature in Japan and Reports from the Field: Transnational Asian Sexualities.
Schattschneider talked about some of the overarching themes of the conference. "In relation to the nation state and the nation state's interest in the national body, there's this interesting transformation in the Asian context between the state's lack of interest in mediating sexuality in the private sphere prior to the late 1860s, and then suddenly the nation state's interests become allied with managing the domestic sphere," she said.
During the first panel, presenter Jyoti Puri of Simmons College addressed sodomy law in India. "The discourses of sexuality permeate the state," Puri said. "The state is now a sexual domain, it is saturated with biopolitics."
The Working Group on Asian and Asian Diaspora Studies, formed last year, is a group of students and faculty who are interested in both Asian and Diaspora studies. The group emphasizes study involving different parts of Asia, such as India and Japan, in conjunction with one another. "We look at the links and connections between the various fields," Prof. Sarah Lamb (ANTH) said.
"The three of us [Profs. Ellen Schattschneider (ANTH), Harleen Singh (WGS) Lamb] have been involved in the Asian Diaspora reading group, a loose association of faculty and students meeting from time to time to read material of mutual interest. We are trying to bridge the more conventional divides of, oh that's East Asia, that's Japan. It's so easy for academic work like this to get pigeonholed, but [the symposium] was really an open forum for discussion between different groups," Schattschneider said in an interview after the symposium.
The symposium portion was divided into three panels: Figuring the National Body in South Asia, Sexuality, Power and Literature in Japan and Reports from the Field: Transnational Asian Sexualities.
Schattschneider talked about some of the overarching themes of the conference. "In relation to the nation state and the nation state's interest in the national body, there's this interesting transformation in the Asian context between the state's lack of interest in mediating sexuality in the private sphere prior to the late 1860s, and then suddenly the nation state's interests become allied with managing the domestic sphere," she said.
During the first panel, presenter Jyoti Puri of Simmons College addressed sodomy law in India. "The discourses of sexuality permeate the state," Puri said. "The state is now a sexual domain, it is saturated with biopolitics."
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