News & events > Call for Conference Papers | Asia-Europe Encounters: Intellectual and Cultural Exchanges, 1900-1950
14 Apr 2012

Call for Conference Papers | Asia-Europe Encounters: Intellectual and Cultural Exchanges, 1900-1950

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Expressions of interest are currently invited from those who would like to present a paper at the international conference, Asia-Europe Encounters: Intellectual and Cultural Exchanges, 1900-1950 to be held at the Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore from 7-8 December 2012. Young scholars from Asia and Europe are especially encouraged to apply.


The 2-day conference, being co-organised by the Asia-Europe Foundation along with the International Institute of Asian Studies (Leiden), the Nalanda-Sriwijaya Centre of the Institute of South East Asian Studies (Singapore) and the Asian Civilisations Museum (Singapore), will explore the intellectual and cultural flows between Asia and Europe which occurred during, and in part were formative of, the political and social changes over the first half of the 20th century.

The first half of the 20th century saw some of the most intense political and social changes experienced thus far in world history. Shiraishi Takashi’s coinage of the 1910s and 1920s as an “age in motion” in Southeast Asia might be extended as a reference to Asia-Europe relations during the half century. It was an age in which high imperialism began to unravel and where global political power shifted, bringing profound changes in the relations between Asia and Europe. By 1950, the colonial empires had essentially disappeared and former Asian possessions, as well as other parts of Asia, began completely new trajectories. The same newness might also be claimed of Europe. The period around 1950 thus marked the end of one age of Asia-Europe interactions and the beginning of another.

The conference will be an exploration of the intellectual and cultural currents of this age and an investigation into how the two ends of Eurasia interacted in these spheres through (new) cosmopolitanism and other novel ideologies which affected both European and Asian societies. The aspects to be explored include the forms, venues, mediums, and actors of such encounters, which took place among others in the spheres of politics, culture, education, arts and religion.

For more information on the conference and the Call for Papers, visit: http://asef.org/index.php/projects/themes/arts-culture/2536-cultural-and-intellectual-encounters-between-asia-and-europe

Deadline for paper abstracts is 20 May 2012.

This conference is part of ASEF’s 15th anniversary celebrations being organised throughout 2012.