Encounters and Entanglements in Eurasia and Beyond

Encounters between East Asian and Eurasian regions have taken many forms. Diplomatic and religious missions and scientific explorations have intertwined with intellectual influences, trade agreements, and cultural exchanges. Whether deliberate or accidental, each encounter has left a lasting impact on the regions, shaping them into a space of dynamic interactions and entanglements today. In times of ideological, regional, ethnic, and racial conflicts, how do fiction and history narrate encounters between people in East Asia and Eurasia? How do artistic, cinematic, and fictional representations of these encounters engage with issues of power and allow us to imagine individual agency?

We invite young scholars to explore contemporary or historical encounters within or between these regions and participate in an in-person conference at Macalester College (Saint Paul, MN) on Saturday, April 26, 2025. Submissions are welcome from any discipline as long as the geographical focus of the project is on regions in East Asia and/or Eurasia.

Conference topics may explore (but are not limited to):

• Geopolitical imagination of encounters in arts, film, and literature

• Arts, film, and literature as social engagement

• Entanglement of individuals with the state in negotiating agency

• Encounters through travel, trade, diplomacy, cultural exchange, etc.

• Confrontations and collisions

• Entanglement of ideas, technologies, expertise

• Human-nature encounters in Eurasian and East Asian environments

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Jinyi Chu (Yale University)- Zoom talk at 12 pm on Saturday.

In addition to traditional papers, we invite participants to submit digital projects, musical pieces, visual artwork, and literary creations. Each panelist will present a 10-minute overview of their project at the conference. 

Limited funding is available to help defray travel expenses for accepted participants located outside the Twin Cities.

Please submit your proposal (250 words or less) by March 1, 2025, to Julia Chadaga (chadaga@macalester.edu). Contact Xin Yang (xyang@macalester.edu) if you have any questions.