[KS] [CFP for AAS 2026] Multispecies Ruptures in Asia: Aesthetics, Ethics, Scales

[Yeon-ju Bae]

Dear colleagues,

We are co-organizing a panel to participate in 2026 AAS (Association for
Asian Studies), which will take place in Vancouver, Canada, from March
12-15, 2026.

Please find below our CFP that invites papers on rifts and disjunctures in
the more-than-human world in the context of Asia.

If you are interested, please send your abstract (250 words) to Susie Wu (
yue_wu at ucsb.edu) and Yeon-ju Bae (yjubae at gmail.com) by July 23, 2025.

Best wishes,

Susie & Yeon-ju


Multispecies Ruptures in Asia: Aesthetics, Ethics, Scales

This panel explores how multispecies entanglements not only create
connections but also produce ruptures that unsettle dominant human-centered
frameworks. Rather than imagining clear pathways for remediation, we
propose the notion of “multispecies ruptures” to foreground the complex
politics of interspecies relations (Chao 2021) that can give rise to rifts
at different scales (Carr & Lempert 2016). Drawing upon the theoretical
insights of Timothy Clark (2012), Philippe Descola (2013), and John Bellamy
Foster (2011), as well as Thom van Dooren et al (2016), Anna Tsing (2015),
and Donna Haraway’s (2016) call for respect and attentiveness toward other
forms of life, we consider rupture as an important arena where the workings
of the more-than-human world defy (easy) resolution. These ruptures often
generate epistemological discomfort, ethical conundrums, and resistance to
aesthetic representation. What forms of attentiveness emerge when our
perceptual and conceptual boundaries are breached through interspecies
interaction? What possibilities arise when we take multispecies rupture as
a generative space for rethinking life and responsibility? This panel
invites critical reflection on the more-than-human politics and
disjunctures in an era defined by ecological crisis and multispecies
co-becoming.

Particularly, we propose to think about multispecies ruptures in the
context of Asia, the region that is vastly heterogenous yet shares lived
experiences of cultural, social, and political ruptures throughout
contemporary history. The historical contingencies include, but are not
limited to, de/colonization (Duara 2003), Cold War (Kwon 2010),
authoritarian state violence (Ganesan & Kim 2013), urbanization (Jones
2004), modernization (Davidann 2018), migration (Chu 2010), neoliberal
capitalism (Song 2010), and so forth. In what ways have the diverse forms
of ruptures across society and nature affected one another? What kinds of
new perspectives can we present by attending to ruptures in more-than-human
Asia(s)? Rather than treating rifts in nature as collateral incidents, we
posit multispecies ruptures as the focal point of discussion to reflect on
struggles and potentialities of other forms of life (Fedman, Kim & Park
2023) in the context of unsettling landscapes at various scales.


--
Yeon-ju Bae [jən-dʒu b̥ɛ]
(she/her/hers)
PhD in Anthropology

Instructor, Ferris State University
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