In today’s globalized world, new questions arise concerning area studies, as borders blur and regions overlap. Caught between questions of the geo-political and epistemological totalities of global capitalism and neoliberal colonialism on the one hand, and burgeoning right-wing politics and an increase in nationalist rhetoric on the other, the notion of the “area”–whether defined in geographic, cultural, social, or political terms–ceases to hold as a structural marker of the field. Meanwhile, Asian and Middle Eastern humanities have delineated transient
experiences, discursive scaffolds, and affective infrastructures that situate us in an increasingly porous world. Porosity is “a hinge through which we are of and in the world.”

Looking at the porosity of matter, media, texts, bodies, borders and time, this conference participates in the ongoing reconceptualization of Asian and Middle Eastern studies as a trans-disciplinary and intra-regional field concerning languages, literature, film and media, history, philosophy, gender and sexuality studies, digital humanities, and environmental humanities. How does porosity help to navigate the conceptual constraints in area studies and redefine our understanding of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies as a field? What social, cultural, political, and ec logical formations are set in motion when we think through the paradigm of porous futurities? How do these new formations renegotiate the past and the present?

Film screening, Coffman Memorial, 25th October, 6:30-8:30pm

Conference- 25th-26th October, all day