Transnational Asia/Pacific Section Guide to AFS 2021 Annual Meeting

By Yuanhao Zhao (Section Co-Convener)
The theme of this year’s annual meeting is Natural States: Environment, Politics, and Tradition. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, this year the meeting will be held both in virtual sessions (October 18—20) and in-person (October 21–23 at the Hilton Harrisburg in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania). The conveners of the Transnational Asia/Pacific Section have put together the following guide highlighting panels, papers, and other events that might be of interest to section members or anyone interested in the folklore of Asia and the Pacific.
Our reason for presenting this guide is not to restrict the scope of our research to the region and/or the idea of “Asia,” but to provide a glimpse of topics and tools that may inform research in or on Asia.
TAP-Sponsored Sessions
All times below are EDT; the program is subject to change.
18-01 Forum: Asians and the Global Pandemic: Race, Invisibility, and the Urgency of Asian American Folklore Studies
Monday, 8:45 pm–10:15 pm
26-01 Interrupting Fairy Tales across Media
Tuesday, 5:15 pm–6:45 pm
26-02 “Folk” Culture in Eastern Asia: Transition, Survivance, and Attendance
Tuesday, 5:15 pm–6:45 pm
Other Sessions of Interest
11-01 Dynamics of Belief and Practice in the Ritual Context: Five Cases from Contemporary Iran
Monday, 9:30 am–11:00 am
24-03 Searching for Healing in South Korea: In Loving Memory of Roger L. Janelli
Tuesday, 2:15 pm–3:45 pm
26-05 Race, Ethnicity, and Nation in the History of Folklore and Folklife Studies
Tuesday, 5:15 pm–6:45 pm
28-01 Field Studies on Traditions and Politics in Rural China
Tuesday, 8:45 pm–10:15 pm
28-02 Folkloristic Work on Myth: Trends, Developments, and Tricksters
Tuesday, 8:45 pm–10:15 pm
32-02 Multi-Species Relationships from the Margins: Case Studies from North and Northeast India
Wednesday, 11:15 am–12:45 pm
34-05 Politics, Ethnicity, and Nation in Religious Ritual and Storytelling
Wednesday, 2:15 pm–3:45 pm
Individual Papers of Interest
Saturday
62-02 Entangled Heritage: Tourism, Vernacular Religion, and Wedding Rituals in Hisor, Tajikistan
Benjamin Gatling (George Mason University)
62-01 Plants are People Too: The Personification of American Ginseng
Betty J. Belanus (Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage)
62-03 Tradition, Environment, and Politics in Armenian Folktale Cycle “Hazaran Blbul” (Thousand-Voiced Nightingale)
Gohar Melikyan (Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Academy of Sciences of Armenia)
64-04 Exploring Iconicity and Erasure Related to the Kazakh Nomadic Ideal as Tradition
Erik A. Aasland (Fuller Theological Seminary)
Monday
11-02 Fukunosuke Kusumi: The Art of Looking Back
Julia Shizuyo Popham (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
12-01 The UNESCO Effect, Part II: Local Practice and the Power of Metacultural Categories
Michael Dylan Foster (University of California, Davis)
14-07 Bonding and Building Connections with the Nature: Exploring through Indian Folktales
Tulika Chandra (Shiv Nadar University)
17-03 Between Inside and Outside: The Poetics of Windows in a Los Angeles Neighborhood
Leah Busby (University of California, Berkeley)
Tuesday
21-04 Transcending Borders: The Use of Sufi Lore and Mysticism in Zeyn Joukhadar’s The Thirty Names of Night
Ghassan Abou-Zeineddine (University of Michigan, Dearborn)
22-02 Chamba Rumal: A Glance through the Folkloristic Lens
Smriti Dutt (Ambedkar University Delhi)
22-02 The Transformation in Iranian Dwelling Patterns and Neighborhood Relationships: A Qualitative Content Analysis of Iranian Movies
Foroogh Mohammadi (Memorial University of Newfoundland)
24-02 Fen Alcohol Making as Intangible Cultural Heritage in Contemporary China: Integration of Alcohol Regime and Heritage Regime on the Ground
Ziying You (The College of Wooster)
Wednesday
34-01 Folk-Colonial Critique: Legendary Pasts and the Present in Kutiyattam Sanskrit Theater
Leah Lowthorp (University of Oregon)
34-05 Pilgrimage in the Indo-Gangetic Plains: Politics, Religion, and Folk Tradition at a Confluence of Rivers in North India
Amit Singh (Ambedkar University Delhi)
34-05 Bringing the Dancing Demons Back to Life: Mongolian Tsam Rituals in the 21st Century
Ariana N. Pedigo (Western Kentucky University)
36-01 Women Artisans of Chikan: Investigating Traditions and Lived Realities of the Embroiderer Community
Meetali Srivastava (Ambedkar University Delhi)
36-04 Nostalgia and Identity: A Research of Chinese Contemporary Dialect Songs
Yangping Wei (Wuhan University)
36-04 Returning to Place: Female Expressions in New Media of China
Lei Cai (Wuhan University)
Friday
52-04 Worshipping Bemata and Singing Songs of New Mother: Tradition and the Maternal Body in Folk Tradition of Haryana
Anjana Prakash (Independent, retired)
Special Events
Saturday
Honoring Pang Xiong Sirirathusak Sikoun (1944-2020): Keeper of Hmong Culture and Community Activist
Saturday, 3:30 pm–5:00 pm
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