Transposed Memory: Visual Sites of National Recollection in Twentieth and Twenty-first Century East Asia

Edited by Alison J. Miller and Eunyoung Park

We are seeking chapter proposals for an edited volume titled "Transposed Memory: Visual Sites of National Recollection in Twentieth and Twenty-first Century East Asia," originating from a 2021 College Art Association annual conference session of the same name.

In twentieth and twenty-first century East Asia the establishment of modern nations and the shared experiences of wars, political conflicts, the colonial period, and Cold War tensions, among other historical events, contributed to sites and images of memory as widely produced, reproduced, and circulated. These sites and images, commissioned and produced by diverse agents, played a central role in constructing national narratives and collective identities, controlling or mediating domestic and international politics, crystallizing and visualizing forgetting and loss into material forms, and sustaining, intervening in, and resisting collective memories.

In "Transposed Memory" we seek to foster cross-cultural dialogues on memory and to illuminate geographical and cultural dynamics in East Asia by inviting chapter contributions on the range of site markers and visual signs of memory produced in modern and contemporary East Asia, from the traditional forms of monument, memorial, and museum to more recent forms such as participatory memorials, counter-monuments, and contemporary artists’ critical responses to collective memories. We welcome work from a variety of approaches, looking at a wide geographic and temporal spread, and considering diverse mediums, visual forms, and topics of memory construction.

Potential chapter topics may include, but are not limited to, the following examples: How do monuments and memorials shape, institutionalize, and reconstruct collective memories and national identities? How do sites and images of memory undergo transformation and gain new social contexts with periodical and political changes? How do visual forms and materiality shape collective remembering and forgetting? What is the viewer’s engagement with and lived experiences of sites and images of memory? What role does memory have in visual culture and politics in East Asia? How does collective memory forge East Asian relations, represented by the recent “memory war”?

Proposals should be 250-300 words, accompanied by a CV. Chapters will be in the 6,000-8,000 word range. Please email proposals to ajmillersewanee.edu and eunyoung.park2case.edu. The deadline for proposal submissions is June 1, 2021.

Alison J. Miller is Assistant Professor of Art History at the University of the South (Sewanee). She specializes in modern and contemporary Japanese art, images of the Japanese empress, and gender in visual culture.

Eunyoung Park is Assistant Professor of Art History at Case Western Reserve University. She specializes in contemporary Korean art, with a research focus on issues of identity, globalization, and contemporaneity.