Images:
What images do outsiders have of Asia and Asians? What images
do different Asian peoples have of one another? What images do
Asians present to themselves and to others? How does image relate
to reality and fantasy? What are the key images that communicate
(national, ethnic, class, gender) identity and desires? What is
the relationship between the visual and the visceral, the spectacular
and the subliminal, the monumental and the intimate, the beautiful
and the monstrous, the public and the private? How do images incite
emotions and actions? What images define a particular historical
period, a nation, or a people? How are images produced, borrowed,
interpreted, contested, subverted, or reproduced? How do images
articulate with texts, sounds, and spaces? How do images travel
across space and time? How have we used images to teach about
Asia? What is the importance of 'literacy' of Asian images compared
to that of Asian languages, narratives and, ideas?
Imaging:
What are the technologies that render Asia and Asians into images
(e.g. maps, graphs, pictures, artifacts, monuments, etc.)? Where
are the sites of image production, dissemination, and consumption?
How do imaging technologies (printing press, movie projector,
TV, VCR, DVDs, websites, museums, GIS, etc.) affect cultural and
social life in Asia? Who are doing the imaging, for whom, with
what purpose in mind? What role does the State play in imaging
productions? How do we compare popular and commercial imagings
(e.g. National Geographic, Asian tabloids, news reportage) and
scholarly ones (e.g. ethnographic videos, art history, film studies,
museum exhibitions, etc.)? What impact do documentaries and feature
films have on the teaching of Asian Studies?
Imagination:
How do different Asian peoples imagine? What populate their imaginative
worlds? What are the different traditions of imagination in Asia
(historical, literary, poetic, pictorial, artistic, architectural,
philosophical, religious, political, geographic, etc.)? How have
Asia's Others imagined Asia? What role do images play in imaginations?
How are different imaginations informed by, and in turn transform,
the varying topographies and landscapes of Asia? Who imagine?
How are imaginations framed, presented, and translated? How do
imaginations of different sources cohere or clash? How do gender,
class, race, ethnicity, native place, caste inform the content
and contour of imagination? How are different imaginations accorded
varying values, and why? How are imagined communities formed and
challenged? How are imaginations grounded in everyday practice?
How do imaginations travel across space and time? How does one
teach about "Asia and Imagination"?
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