CfP: International Symposium "East Asian Perspectives on Aging and the Seasons of Life "
The Timothy Light Center for Chinese Studies at Western Michigan University invites paper proposals for the 2026 Asian Forum on “East Asian Perspectives on Aging and the Seasons of Life” (May 1-3, 2026). We welcome submissions from all disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, focusing on pre-modern, modern, or contemporary periods. Papers addressing the following themes are especially encouraged:
• Ideas, concepts, and discourses surrounding the meaning of aging
• Art and material culture associated with aging
• Practices, rites, and rituals related to aging and elder care
• Political and economic dimensions of aging
• Portrayal of aging in contemporary film and literature
• Comparative perspectives on aging across East Asia
Advanced graduate students and post-doctoral scholars are particularly encouraged to submit proposals. Full panel proposals will also be considered. The conference will be conducted in English, and we anticipate the publication of selected papers following the event.
The symposium will begin on the evening of Friday, May 1st, 2026, with a keynote address, followed by panels on Saturday, and an invited speech and an invited panel on contemporary issues on Sunday morning. Hotels and meals will be covered by the Light Center. Limited travel support will be available for advanced graduate students and post-doctoral scholars.
Please submit a 180-200 word abstract describing your proposed presentation along with your paper title, and a one to two page c.v. to hige-asia@wmich.edu by August 31, 2025.
Hybrid international conference on Japanese Studies in Bucharest & online
The Center for Japanese Studies at the Bucharest University of Economic Studies (Romania) is pleased to announce a call for papers for the 12th international conference Japan: Pre-modern, Modern and Contemporary, a hybrid event to be held in Bucharest and online, on September 8-10, 2025.
Submission deadline is May 31, 2025. Please find the submission details here: https://japanconference.rei.ase.ro/cfp-japan-pre-modern-modern-and-contemporary-2025/.
We look forward to receiving your proposals.
Call for Chapters | Asian Temporalities: Chronologies, Seasons, Tenses
Publication series: Olomouc Asian Studies (OLAS), Vol. 5
Publisher: Palacký University Olomouc
Type of publication: Open Access (with DOI given to each chapter), Print on Demand
Language of publication: English
Fields: Humanities, Social Sciences, Asian Studies
Expected publication date: Summer 2026 (no publication fees)
Time and its perceptions shape our lives in profound ways. In this volume, we encourage contributors to engage with time from diverse perspectives. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, periodization and epochal divisions, generational shifts, and the politics of temporality. We also invite discussions on narrative time, conceptions of progress and regress, and the interplay between linear and cyclical understandings of time, as well as similar topics related to the main theme.
We invite contributions from various fields of the humanities and social sciences, including interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary investigations. The aim of this volume is to bring together chapters that explore the multifaceted concept of time as it relates to the cultures, societies, languages, and histories of Asia, including their diasporic expressions. The provisional title of the volume is an intentionally broad one to encourage a broad range of approaches and topics.
The volume follows up on the 18th Annual Conference on Asian Studies (http://acas.upol.cz) organized by the Department of Asian Studies at Palacký University Olomouc, but is open to any thematically relevant submission. We are interested in any original work of research that has not been previously published elsewhere.
In order to collect chapters for this volume, we first invite extended abstracts in English. The abstracts should be emailed to olas@upol.cz as a PDF file. The file should include the title of the paper, full name, affiliation, e-mail address, five keywords, and an extended abstract, which must be 700–1,000 words long. The abstract submission deadline is May 31, 2025. Decisions on the abstracts will be sent by July 15, 2025.
The submission deadline for full papers based on the accepted abstracts is September 20, 2025. The required length of the full papers is approximately 10–11,000 words (including references, tables, etc. in the word count). The papers will subsequently undergo a rigorous double-blind peer-review process by at least two reviewers. We estimate to be able to send out the decisions on all papers in late fall 2025. The expected publication date is summer 2026.
Any questions can be addressed to olas@upol.cz.
We are looking forward to your submissions!
