End Date : March 3, 10:00 pm
Columbia University Faculty House
Film and Media Studies, School of the Arts; The Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities; Weatherhead East Asian Institute; Dragon Summit Fund, C.V. Starr East Asian Library, Donald Keene Center for Japanese Studies; Center for Korean Research; Academy of Korean Studies; Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought; Center for Chinese Literature and Culture; Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures; Institute for Comparative Literature & Society; Division of Humanities in Arts and Sciences Columbia University; Center for Comparative Media; School of the Arts Dean’s Global Programs; Sites of Cinema Faculty Seminar; Permanent Seminar on Histories of Film Theories; Columbia University Press; Executive Vice President of Arts & Sciences Columbia University; Columbia Global Center l Beijing
How have Leftist traditions inspired film and media theories across the world, and what can we learn from these traditions today as we explore new methodologies in film and media studies and new political possibilities in the contemporary world?
Marxist theory has been considered a major influence on film and media theories in Europe and North America, from the critical theory of the Frankfurt School, the theories of Althusser, to the Birmingham School of Cultural Studies. Moving away from these more familiar stories in Europe and North America, this conference takes East Asia as a focal point to investigate “Leftism” as changing, plural and contested positions in theory and politics that have tied emerging mass media forms to revolutionary upheavals and anti-imperial struggles in the region and beyond.
At the conference, we use “media” in the broadest sense of the term, including print, photography, film, animation, contemporary digital new media and more. We problematize “film and media theory” and its locations, excavating theory within the specific contexts of practice and criticism in East Asia. Situating East Asia within broader transnational circuits of travel, translation and transformation, we ask how Leftist ideas have entered into other discourses such as anti-imperialism, nationalism, populism, statism, and developmentalism, and how such imbrications have impacted aesthetic theories as well as political, economic and social formations in the region.
Schedule to date
Conference is free and open to the public
Registration is required for public evening events March 1 & 2
Thurs. February 28 – Columbia University Faculty House
7:30 pm – 9:30 pm – Conference Round Table – Faculty House
Welcome: Haruo Shirane, Shincho Professor of Japanese Literature
Chair, East Asian Languages and Cultures Department, Columbia University
“Criticism on the Left Today: Agenda for the Next Generation”
John Rajchman Adjunct Professor, Art History & Archaeology, Columbia University
Jaeho Kang Associate Professor of Communication, Seoul National University
Nico Baumbach Associate Professor of Film, Columbia University
Friday, March 1- Lenfest Center for the Arts, Katharina Otto-Bernstein Screening Room
8:30 am – Registration – Lenfest Lobby
9:00 am – Welcome – Sarah Cole, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Dean of Humanities, Columbia University
Panel 1: 9:15 am – 10:30 am: China and Leftist Theory: Then and Now
Chair: Lydia Liu Director, Institute for Comparative Literature and Society;
Wun Tsun Tam Professor in the Humanities, Columbia University
Yomi Braester Professor of Comparative Literature, Cinema and Media, Univ. of Washington:
“Leftism is an Issue of Traveling: On the Gaps between Theory, Criticism, and Activism”
Jason McGrath Associate Professor of Asian Languages and Literatures, Univ. of Minnesota:
“Prescriptive Realism: Theorizing Chinese Cinema from Communism to Capitalism”
Respondent: Laurence Coderre Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies, New York University
Coffee Break – 10:30 am – 10:55 am – The Lantern – 8th floor
Panel 2: 11:00 am – 12:15 pm: Feminist Theory & Critical Theory in Korea
Chair: Steven Chung Associate Professor of East Asian Studies, Princeton University
Jaeho Kang Associate Professor of Communication, Seoul National University:
“Beyond Left-Wing Melancholy: Legacies of Critical Theory in Media Studies in South Korea”
Soyoung Kim Professor of Cinema Studies, Korea National University of Arts:
“Inside/Outside (內外): Postcolonial Women’s Sphere of Media and Maechae (媒體)”
Respondent: Rob King Associate Professor of Film, Columbia University
12: 15 pm – 1:30 pm – Lunch Break
Panel 3: 1:30 pm – 3:15 pm: Praxis
Chair: Tomi Suzuki Professor of Japanese Literature, Columbia University
Anastasia Fedorova Associate Professor of Institute for Oriental and Classical Studies, Moscow Higher School of Economics:
“Echoes of ‘Socialist Realism’ in Japanese Film Theory and Practice”
Diane Wei Lewis Assistant Professor of Film & Media Studies, Washington University-St. Louis:
“Prokino’s Praxis: The Theory behind Mobile Film Units and Mobilization Networks during Its Bolshevization Period (1930-1932)”
Jane Gaines Professor of Film, Columbia University
“The 1930s Workers International Photo Leagues and the Comintern”
Respondent: Tatiana Linkhoeva Assistant Professor of Japanese, New York University
Coffee Break: 3:15 – 3:40 pm – Lenfest – The Lantern – 8th floor
Panel 4: 3:45 pm– 5:30 pm: Theories of Subjectivity, Coordination & Movement
Chair: Wei Shang Du Family Professor of Chinese Culture, EALAC, Columbia University
Ying Qian Assistant Professor of Chinese Cinema and Media, EALAC, Columbia University:
“Creative Labor in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction and Colonial War: Zheng Junli’s Theory of Acting beyond Stanislavski in China”
Weihong Bao Associate Professor of Film and Media, East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of California, Berkeley:
“The Art of Coordination: Design Thinking and Media Politics in Wartime China.”
Laikwan Pang, Professor, Chinese University of Hong Kong:
“Maoism and Development: China’s Great Leap Forward versus India’s Naxalite Movement”
Respondent: Debashree Mukherjee Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies, Columbia University
5:45 pm – 7:15 pm Dinner Break
Evening Screening: Reserve Your Seat
Treasures from the Archives – Japan and the U.S.
7:30 pm – 10:30 pm Lenfest Center for the Arts – Katharina Otto-Bernstein Screening Room
Introduction: Carol Gluck, George Sansom Professor of History; Chair, Committee on Global Thought, Columbia University
“Akira Iwasaki and Erik Barnouw: Prokino and Columbia University”
Abé Markus Nornes, Professor of Asian Cinema, University of Michigan
Screening: digital scan of select reels:
Effects of the Atomic Bomb (Ikira Iwasaki, Japan, 1945/1964)
Saturday. March 2 – Lenfest Center for the Arts – Katharina Otto-Bernstein Screening Room
8:30 am – Registration – Lenfest Lobby
Welcome: 9:00 am Francesco Cassetti, Thomas E. Donnelley Professor of Humanities and Professor of Film, Yale University, Permanent Seminar on Histories of Film Theories
Panel 5: 9:15 am – 10:30 am:
Chair: Noam Elcott Associate Professor and Chair of Art Humanities, Columbia University
Alexander Zahlten Associate Professor of EALAC, Harvard University:
“From Media Environment to Media Ecology: Leftist Media Theory and the 1970s Occult Boom in Japan”
Franz Prichard Assistant Professor of East Asian Studies, Princeton University:
“Naked-Eye Reflex: Materiality and Mediation in Nakahira Takuma’s Photographic Praxis”
Respondent: Nick Kapur Assistant Professor of History, Rutgers-Camden
Coffee Break – 10:30 am – 10:55 am – The Lantern – 8th floor
Panel 6: 11:00 am – 12:15 pm: Power & Precarity
Chair: Eugenia Lean Associate Professor, East Asian Languages & Cultures; Director, Weatherhead East Asian Institute, Columbia University
Victor Fan Senior Lecturer of Film Studies, King’s College London:
“Hong Kong 1967: Cinemas of Political Precarity––Then and Now”
Lingzhen Wang Associate Professor of East Asian Studies, Brown University:
“Socialist Feminism and Chinese Women’s Mainstream Experimental Cinema”
Respondent: Liang Luo Associate Professor of Chinese Literature and Culture, University of Kentucky
12:15 pm – 1:45 pm – Lunch Break
Panel 7: 1:45 pm – 3:00 pm: Colonial/Post-Colonial
Chair: Claudia Breger Villard Professor of German and Comparative Literature, Columbia University
Travis Workman Associate Professor of Asian Languages & Literatures, Univ. of Minnesota:
“The Problem of Repetition in Colonial and Postcolonial Korean Film and Film Theory”
Moonim Baek Professor of Korean Language and Literature, Yonsei University:
“Leftist Invention of Tradition: Colonial Korean Case”
Respondent: Theodore Hughes Korea Foundation Professor of Korean Studies, East Asian Literature and Culture, Columbia University
Coffee Break: 3:00 pm – 3:25 pm – Lenfest, The Lantern, 8th floor
Panel 8: 3:30 – 4:45 pm: Technique, Technology and Visuality
Chair: Paul Anderer Mack Professor of Humanities & Professor of Japanese Literature, Columbia University
Aaron Gerow Professor of Film Studies and East Asian Languages and Literatures, Yale University:
“Miura Tsutomu’s Anti-Montage Dialectics”
Takuya Tsunoda Assistant Professor of Japanese Cinema and Media, East Asian Languages and Cultures, Columbia University:
“Method of Science Film: Tsuchimoto Noriaki and some Notes on Film Techniques”
Respondent: Nate Shockey Assistant Professor of Japanese, Bard College
5:00 pm – 7:00 pm – Dinner Break
Traditional Chinese prelude music – Katharina Otto-Bernstein Screening Room
Evening Screening – Reserve Your Seat
Treasures from Asian Film Archives – China
7:30 pm – 10:30 pm – Lenfest Center for the Arts – Katharina Otto-Bernstein Screening Room
Introduction: Jim Cheng, Director, C.V. Starr East Asian Library, Columbia University
Introduction to film: Li DaoXin, Professor, School of Arts, Peking University
Translation: Wentao Ma, Columbia University
Under the Heel (Dir & sc: Wang Yuanlong, Da Zhonghua-Baihe Film Co., 1929) rt. 60 min.
Silent piano accompaniment: Makia Matsumura
Free and Open to the Public.
Not at Lenfest, No Registration Required
Click here for more information.
Sunday, March 3, 2019 7:00 pm
203 Butler Library, Columbia University
“Archiving Disappearing Worlds and World Views:
Chinese Independent Documentary at Columbia”
Screening and talk:
Chi Wang, documentary film historian; former faculty, Communication University of China; and editor, Documenting & Methods and Contemporary Documentary Practice; guest editor: World Cinema (Beijing) and Contemporary Cinema (Beijing); Co-author with Brian Winston and Gail Vanstone, The Act of Documentary
Screening:
Tianamen (Shi Jian, China, 1991)
River Elegy (Xia Jun, China, 1988)
Sponsors:
Weatherhead East Asian Institute
Film and Media Studies, School of the Arts
C.V. Starr East Asian Library
Columbia Global Center l Beijing
Producer: Ron Gregg, Film and Media Studies, Columbia University
Organizers: Jane Gaines, Ying Qian, and Takuya Tsunoda
Registration:Friday screening: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/screening-talk-treasures-from-the-archives-japan-the-us-tickets-55350018395Saturday screening: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/screening-treasures-from-asian-film-archives-china-tickets-55351052488
Co-sponsors : The Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities; Weatherhead East Asian Institute; Dragon Summit Fund, C.V. Starr East Asian Library, Donald Keene Center for Japanese Studies; Center for Korean Research; Academy of Korean Studies; Film and Media Studies, School of the Arts; Columbia Center for Contemporary Critical Thought; The Program in Chinese Literature and Culture; Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures; Institute for Comparative Literature & Society; Division of Humanities in Arts and Sciences Columbia University; Center for Comparative Media; School of the Arts Dean’s Global Programs; The Columbia University Faculty Seminar on “Sites of Cinema”; Permanent Seminar on Histories of Film Theories; Columbia University Press; The Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Office of the Executive Vice President and Dean of Arts & Sciences Columbia University; Columbia Global Center l Beijing
