29 Aug Sounding Transpacific Asia Research Focus Group
Sound is movement and, by nature, a transitory event: a release of vibrational energy that travels through complex, non-linear pathways. To study sound, then, is to attune to processes of transit, movement, and migration across media and across material, geographical, or social borders. While this movement has been largely confined to the cartographic and cultural ambit of Europe and North America, recently scholars have begun listening beyond these borders to account for the rich diversity of global sonic experience.
Sounding Transpacific Asia aims to advance this momentum by creating a forum for scholars working at the under-studied yet fertile intersection of sound and trans-border Asian studies. We ask: How might attuning to Asia in a transpacific context prompt new interventions in sound studies and, conversely, how can the study of sound compel innovative approaches to the study of Asia and border-crossing Asian cultural production? In what ways can examining sound as object, event, and process move us beyond compartmentalization of disciplinary knowledge and into fuller dialogue with literature, media, and cultural studies? And, by considering how migratory performers, artists, and social actors in and beyond Asia articulate themselves through the transits of voice and sound, what new formations of subjectivity and coalitional possibility can be traced beyond prior alignments of race, class, nationality, and language? Addressing these questions, our group will explore how modes of sonic movement across transpacific Asia—whether taken in the context of performance, media circulation, or political action—can unsettle prevailing categories of national, diasporic, and (im)migrant subjectivity and gesture toward new modes of identity and relation.
Conveners:
Clara Chin, English
cchin@ucsb.edu
Susan Hwang, East Asian Languages & Cultural Studies
shwang@ucsb.edu
Alexander Murphy, East Asian Languages & Cultural Studies
almurphy@ucsb.edu
David Novak, Music
dnovak09@ucsb.edu
Tiffany Ta, Music
tiffanybta@ucsb.edu
Diandian Zeng, Music
diandian_zeng@ucsb.edu