Introduction to Art and Culture in the Global Age

SPECIAL LECTURE by Leo Ching:

The New “Great Game”?
Anti-Japanism in the Era of China’s Rise


“Introduction to Art and Culture in the Global Age” is a series of special lectures organized by the Graduate school of Global Arts. In this course we invite specialist from around the world to give lectures. This time we invite Prof. Leo Ching.
Please fill out the form below if you’d like to attend the lecture. (The attendance of this lecture is limited to students of Geidai.) → *Registration has been closed due to capacity.

Date and Time: December 10 (Fri), 2021, 10:00-11:30am 　
Venue: Online（Zoom）
Guest Lecturer: Leo Ching

＊Registration Form:
https://forms.gle/DbYypDKhqEbcavMU6
(Only students of Geidai will be accepted/ Deadline: 10:00am, December 9)

＊The lecture will be given in English.


Abstract:
The “new” Great Game suggests that, like the imperial competition of the past, we are witnessing a trans-imperial moment whereby Japan and China are vying for hegemony in East Asia. This is a new moment because East Asia, unlike Europe, has never had two co-existing superpowers. The prospect of a new imperial competition is complicated by the still-present American military power and the non-statist arena, especially in popular culture, where the imperial games are played out. Using two popular anti-Japan video games, Glorious Mission Online (2013) and The Invisible Guardian (2019) as case studies, I argue these games are symptomatic of the relations between warfare and game in general. I then outline the trend in game development that subverts conventional war games. Finally, I speculate on alternative game design over the disputed territories in the Southern China Sea that prioritize ecology over human conflict and development.

Leo Ching

　Leo T.S. Ching teaches Japanese and East Asian Cultural Studies at Duke University, USA. He is the author of Becoming Japanese: Colonial Taiwan and the Politics of Identity and Anti-Japan: The Politics of Sentiment in Postcolonial East Asia. He has published in boundary 2, positions: East Asian critique, Public Culture, Cultural Studies, and Inter-Asia Cultural Studies. His current research focuses on the archipelagic as alternative modes of knowing and being to the heretofore hegemonic knowledge production from mainlands and the continent.

Enquiries:
Faculty Room, Graduate School of Global Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts
info-ga(at)ml.geidai.ac.jp