UCI Global Asias

5th Annual UC Irvine Global Asias International Conference

February 18–19, 2027
UC Irvine

Keynote Speaker:
Paul Nadal, Princeton University

Early Career Publishing Workshop:
Tina Chen, The Penn State University

CFP: https://sites.uci.edu/globalasias/ga27/
Proposal Form: https://bit.ly/ga27cfp

CALL FOR PAPERS

PROPOSALS DUE
11:59PM PST AUGUST 14, 2026

We welcome the following proposal formats:

Individual paper: 250 word abstract + 2-page CV
Panel (3–4 presentations): 250 word description + 100–200 word abstracts and 2-page CVs for each presentation
Roundtable (4–6 presenters): 250 word description + 2-page CVs for each panelist
Other Format: 500 word description
Presenters can participate on a maximum of two panels.

Proposals should be submitted here: https://bit.ly/ga27cfp/

Decisions in late August.

This will be an in-person conference. We do not have staff support to accommodate requests for remote participation or hybrid online/in-person panels.

Conference registration opens in the fall. There will be a sliding scale registration fee for tenure-track participants only. No cost for all other participants.

The intellectual paradigm of Global Asias recognizes Asia’s shifting position in the realm of geopolitics, capital, and culture; this shift counters or exceeds longstanding narratives associated with that region and with global ordering more broadly. Global Asias invites submissions that expand our understanding of “Asia” as a region, discourse, and/or process in relation to the “global” or the “globe.” We invite proposals from scholars, artists, writers, activists, and other practitioners.

For this edition of the conference, we especially encourage proposals on the topics of

- Art
- Islands
- Indigeneity
- Circulation
- Southern California

We also invite proposals on:

- Circulation of goods and services
- Logistics, infrastructure, and supply chains
- Transpacific art networks
- Activism, Community Organizing
- Environment, militarization, land rights
- Technology, subjectivity, crisis
- Crip theory, Disability Studies, Anti-work
- Language and translation
- Critical University Studies
- Rethinking disciplines, methods, and knowledge productions of “Asia”

Please contact [email protected] with any questions.

Update: Congratulations to Yang Shuang-zi @roseyanger and Lin King @linkinglionking for receiving the 2026 International Booker Prize @thebookerprizes for TAIWAN TRAVELOGUE. 恭喜🎉！ Original Post: Delicious post-event dinner with Yang Shuang-zi @roseyanger and Lin King @linkinglionking at Dolan's.

Thanks to the cast and crew of the hit Taiwanese musical “Don’t Cry, Dancing Girls (勸世三姊妹)” for visiting UCI! UCI Drama PhD student An-Ru Chu kicked things off with a lecture on khan-bong-kua funeral practices. Director Hui-cheng Tseng recounted the development of the musical, and we were treated to a performance by Jiajia Chang . Sponsored by the Taiwan Academy in Los Angeles and .

UCI International Film Club Presents a Sreening of
Three Times (Dir. Hou Hsiao-Hsien, 2005)
May 13, 7-9pm, McCormick Screening Room

Register here: https://zotspot.uci.edu/illuminations/rsvp_boot?id=1946673

This three part film starring Shu Qi and Chang Chen as lovers across a century of Chinese history maps out a panoramic vision of two individuals caught in the turmoil of political and cultural upheaval. Shu Qi and Chang Chen play a concubine and a young, wealthy revolutionary in “A Time for Freedom” set in 1911, a soldier on leave and a pool hall hostess in “A Time for Love” set in 1966 and a performance artists and photographer in “A Time for Youth” set in 2005.

Thanks to all who joined us for our pop-up panel “The Politics of Empire in Hawai‘i: Settler Colonialism, the University, and Asian American Studies.” We were especially honored to have Auntie Lynette Cruz from Mālama Mākua, filmmaker Mikey Inouye, and Prof. Kyle Kajihiro in attendance to share their experiences and knowledge. Thank you to the Orange County & Southeast Asian Archive for hosting us.

Sponsored by UCI’s Global Asias Research Cluster, Geographers at UCI, and the UCI School of Social Sciences.

Happy National Boba Day to all who celebrate!

Please join us this Friday, May 1 for "When Taiwanese Funeral Rituals Meet Musical Theatre: A Presentation on Don’t Cry, Dancing Girls"

Date: Friday, May 1, 2026
Time: 1 PM – 2:30 PM
Location: McCormick Screening Room

Register here: https://zotspot.uci.edu/illuminations/rsvp_boot?id=1946312

Don’t Cry, Dancing Girls is a musical dramatizing three sisters’ experience of learning about local folk cultures, funeral rituals, and the intricate relationship between family, tradition, life, death, and spirituality in rural Taiwan. The play reimagines the Taiwanese spirit-guiding ritual “khan-bong-kua,” a funerary ritual performance with the purpose of guiding the spirit of the deceased toward the underworld. Don’t Cry, Dancing Girls premiered in Taiwan in 2023; it also had a workshop-style presentation in New York in 2025.

Hui-Cheng Tseng (the leader of the team), I-Heng Lin (the producer), and Ching-Chia Chang (lead actress) will discuss Don’t Cry, Dancing Girls with the UCI community. An-Ru Chu (PhD student, Drama) will give a brief talk on the Taiwanese spirit-guiding ritual, khan-bong-kua.

This event is sponsored by UCI Illuminations, UCI Global Asias, the Taiwan Academy of Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in Los Angeles and the Ministry of Culture of Taiwan.

PARKING INFORMATION

Park in Mesa Parking Structure (Mesa Rd) or Student Center Parking Structure (W Peltason Dr).

For an additional rate, you can park in nearby Lot 7 if you purchase an AR day permit.

From Mesa Structure, walk through Claire Trevor School of the Arts towards the bridge, or along the sidewalk on Mesa Rd. From Student Center, you can use the stairs behind Humanities Instructional Building.

Congratulations to UCI Global Asias Assistant Director Lucy Fang .iwei for receiving the Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Innovation Fellowship for her game-changing dissertation in progress, “Serial Mediations: Geopolitics and the Transnational Chinese/American Novel, 1931-1955”!

Join us this week for a series of events at UC Irvine around the documentary, Mālama Mākua (2025, Dir. Mikey Inouye). These events open space for conversation around the film’s engagement with the histories of settler colonialism, US militarism, environmental justice in Hawai‘i, as well as how these dynamics have been internalized in the university and continue to structure fields like Asian American studies. https://sites.uci.edu/globalasias/malama-makua/

Speakers: Mikey Inouye (Director); Sparky Rodrigues (Mālama Mākua); Summer Mullins-Ibrahim (mother, educator, Kanaka ʻŌiwi cultural practitioner, poet and activist); Kyle Kajihiro, Assist Prof Ethnic Studies at the University of Hawai’i Månoa; Prof. Tiara Na’puti (Chamoru/Chamorro from Guåhan/Guam), Associate Professor in Global and International Studies at UCI; Heidi Lee Lucero (Acjachemen and Mutsun Ohlone), PhD student in Global and International Studies; Lucy Fang, PhD student, English; Yvonne Cha, PhD student, English, UCI; Tolga Kesler, PhD student, Culture and Theory; Kelli Kimura, PhD student, Sociology; Jake Atienza, PhD student in Global and International Studies.

Event details linked in bio.

We're ecstatic to announce that Dr. Kylie Ching, one of our founding Assistant Directors, will be an Assistant Professor of Art History at CSU Fullerton this Fall! 🎉