Sixth Annual Conference on the History and Culture of Taiwan
Mapping a New Cultural Geography: Taipei, Hong Kong, and Shanghai as Global Cities?
Washington University in St. Louis, The Research Group of Taiwanese History and Culture (RGTHC),in cooperation with the Asian and
Near Eastern Languages and LiteraturesDepartment and East Asian Studies Program at Washington University, and theGraduate Institute
of Cultural Studies and Research Center for Emergent CulturalStudies at National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan, propose the followingtheme
for the sixth annual conference on the History and Culture of Taiwan:"Mapping a New Cultural Geography: Taipei, Hong Kong, and Shanghai asGlobal Cities."
The conference isto be held on May 3-4, 2002 in the campus of Washington University in St.Louis, Missouri.
The figure of ?global village? is emblematic of the intensecritical interest which has recently been directed to rethinking differenttheoretical
conceptualizations and methodological approaches to theincreasingly transnational terrain of modern urban topographies. Focusing on the
different dimensions ofurban social, spatial, and cultural reality, these studies have converged onthe topic of the global city. In 1991, Saskia Sassen
proposed that a hierarchy of global cities has emerged. These global cities should be seen as constituting a systemrather than competing with each
other. Instead of looking at the world as composed of a body of nations,Sassen's examination suggests that a new kind of global spatial/geographicalorder
has been formed and a different inter- and cross-cultural map can bedrawn. Taking Sassen?s proposal onestep further, Paul L. Knox argues that the
economic link of these cities hascreated a global urban culture that is integrated in the cultures within thesecities and allows them to have more in
common with each other than with thecultures of the state where the city exists.
Using the above statement as its theoretical framework, theconference proposes to investigate the common urban experiences shared byTaipei, Hong
Kong, and Shanghai -- three of the most cosmopolitan and globalChinese cities -- and asks what stake it would involve if a new culturalgeography is to
be conceived.
We seek panels and discussions that address the following andrelated issues:
* What perspectives can we deploy to investigate thedifferent and yet similar cosmopolitan cultures of Taipei, Hong Kong, and Shanghai?
* How do cultures of these three cities work in practice andhow are they embedded in everyday-life situations as locatable phenomena?
* What approaches can we use to explore the experience ofplace and space, the dynamics between local and global, culture and economy,
and the dilemmas of knowledge?
* How do states, empires and nations, corporations, shops andgoods, literature, music, film, etc. figure in our examination of the culturesof
consumption and production?
*How do places develop meanings for people? What are thestruggles over defining who belongs in a place?
* What role does travel, information technology, or othermeans of communication play in shaping a global city network among these three cities
and beyond?
Please send or email proposals forpanels or abstracts (not to exceed 250 words) by March 1, 2002 to the following address:
Prof. Lingchei Letty Chen
Campus Box 1111
One Brookings Drive
Washington University
St. Louis, MO63130-4899
email: llchen@artsci.wustl.edu