CFP: "Documenting Asia Pacific"

Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies
Vol. 39 No. 1 | March 2013
Special Issue Call for Papers
“Documenting Asia Pacific”

Guest Editors: Kuei-fen Chiu & Chi-hui Yang

Deadline for Submissions: August 15, 2012

Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies is a peer-reviewed journal published two times per year by the Department of English, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan. The journal is devoted to offering innovative perspectives on literary and cultural issues and advancing the transcultural exchange of ideas.While committed to bringing Asian-based scholarship to the world academic community, Concentric welcomes original contributions from diverse national and cultural backgrounds.

The March 2013 issue of Concentric is dedicated to exploring new directions in documentary and non-fiction media-making practices in the Asia Pacific region. Dynamic political and economic conditions, innovations in production and distribution technologies, increased access to international finances and the migration of moving images from theatres to galleries to online spaces have made more relevant and critical the practice of documentary filmmaking in Asia Pacific.

The task of representing new social realities has generated significant movements—both political and aesthetic—in documentary filmmaking from Beijing to Manila, from Jakarta to Sydney. Engaged verite, documentary/fiction hybrids, personal essays and experimental collage are being used to explore the consequences of globalization and neo-liberalism, fraught family histories, religious conflict, and the role of the state in everyday lives. What kind of formal and aesthetic approaches are being developed to document the contemporary culture and politics of Asia Pacific? How is the documentary itself being tested and reshaped by these efforts? What might be revealed from a study of localized movements, and what might comparative studies across national or cultural boundaries yield?

Concentric invites examinations of all aspect of contemporary documentary and non-fiction media-making in the Asia Pacific region.

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Kuei-fen Chiu is Distinguished Professor of Taiwan Literature and Transnational Cultural Studies at National Chung Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan specializing in Taiwan literature and documentary film. In addition to several books in Chinese, she has published with international journals including The Journal of Asian Studies, The China Quarterly, and Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies. She is a multi-time recipient of the prestigious national award for excellence in research in Taiwan and was Honorary Fellow at the Center for Humanities Research at Lingnan University, Hong Kong for the period 2008-2011. Several of her articles have been translated into Japanese.

Chi-hui Yang is a film programmer, lecturer and writer based in New York. His curated programs have been presented at MoMA Documentary Fortnight, the Robert Flaherty Film Seminar, UnionDocs, Washington DC International Film Festival, and Seattle International Film Festival. From 2000 to 2010 he was the Director and Programmer of the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, the largest showcase of its kind in the US. He is currently a visiting scholar at NYU’s Asian/Pacific/American Institute.

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Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies
Manuscript Submission Guidelines
1. Manuscripts should be submitted in English. Please send the manuscript, an abstract of no more than 250 words with 5-8 keywords, and a brief curriculum vitae as Word attachments to [no e-mail address given]. Please also attach a cover letter stating that the manuscript is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere. Concentric will acknowledge receipt of the submission but will not return it after review.
2. Submissions made to the journal should generally be at least 6,000 words but should not exceed 10,000 words, notes included; the bibliography is not counted. Manuscripts should be prepared according to the latest edition of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. Except for footnotes, which should be single-spaced, manuscripts must be double-spaced throughout and typeset in 12-point Times New Roman. For further instructions on documentation, consult our style guide.
3. To facilitate the journal’s anonymous refereeing process, there must be no indication of personal identity or institutional affiliation in the manuscript proper. The author may cite his/her previous works, but only in the third person.
4. If the paper has been published or submitted elsewhere in a language other than English, please also submit a copy of the non-English version. Concentric may not consider submissions already available in other languages.
5. If the author wishes to include copyrighted images in the essay, the author is solely responsible for obtaining permission for the images.
6. Two copies of the journal and a PDF version of the published essay will be provided to the author(s) upon publication.
7. It is the journal’s policy to require all authors to sign an assignment of copyright.

For submissions or general inquiries, please contact us as follows:

Editor, Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies
Department of English
National Taiwan Normal University
162 Heping East Road, Section 1
Taipei 106, Taiwan
Phone: +886 (0)2 77341803
Fax: +886 (0)2 23634793
E-mail: concentric.lit@deps.ntnu.edu.tw

For other information about the journal, please visit our website