Category Archives: World History

Thursday, April 5th: Jiakai Sheng, “Homeward Bound: The Postwar Repatriation of Japanese Civilians in Shanghai, 1945-1947”

Jiakai Sheng

PhD Student, Department of History

“Homeward Bound: The Postwar Repatriation of Japanese Civilians in Shanghai, 1945-1947”

Thursday, April 5th, 4-6 PM

John Hope Franklin Room

Please join the East Asia: Transregional Histories workshop in welcoming Jiakai Sheng as he presents his paper titled “Homeward Bound: The Postwar Repatriation of Japanese Civilians in Shanghai, 1945-1947.” He has provided the following abstract:

Following the end of WWII, the Allies returned 6.5 millions overseas Japanese nationals back to their homeland, which was regarded by the former as part and parcel of the effort to dismantle Japan’s fifty-year colonial enterprise. This essay focuses on the management and repatriation of over 100,000 Japanese civilians in Shanghai between 1945 and 1947 as an important case of how mass population transfer was planned, negotiated, and executed in the context of postwar East Asian. By examining an array of ideological and logistical issues surrounding postwar Shanghai’s “Japanese Nationals Concentration Zone,” this essay seeks to reconstruct the dynamic interplay between the Chinese authorities, the U.S. military, and the Japanese repatriates. Rather than reducing the politics of postwar repatriation and decolonization to a simplistic story of the “defeated” being dominated and displaced by the “victorious,” this essay interprets it as being constantly shaped by the agency of multiple parties as well as the continuation of certain aspects of the prewar configuration of Shanghai’s Japanese settlement. Moreover, through highlighting the role played by people’s identities, connections and preferences, this essay intends to show how repatriation was experienced at individual level in variegated ways.

Jiakai’s Paper can be found at the post below.

As always, first-time attendees are welcome. Light refreshments and snacks will be served.

If you have any questions or require assistance to attend, please contact Spencer Stewart at sdstewart@uchicago.edu or Robert Burgos at rburgos@uchicago.edu

Friday, January 26th: Sandra Park “Crusading for the Twentieth Century: Christianity, Chaplaincy and Militarism in Cold War South Korea, 1945-1973”

Sandra Park

“Crusading for the Twentieth Century: Christianity, Chaplaincy and Militarism in Cold War South Korea, 1945-1973”

Friday, January 26th, 3-5 p.m.
Location: CEAS 319 (1155 E. 60th St.)
Co-sponsored with the Arts and Politics of East Asia Workshop

Discussant: Jun-Hee Lee (PhD Candidate, History)
This Friday, East Asia Transregional Histories Workshops and Arts and Politics of East Asia workshops are proud to host Sandra Park (PhD Student, History). She will be presenting a draft of her dissertation proposal, which she summarizes as follows:
My anticipated dissertation, “Crusading for the Twentieth Century: Christianity, Chaplaincy and Militarism in Cold War South Korea, 1945-1973,” elucidates the origins of Christianity’s increasing social and political influence from the Korean War (1950-1953) through 1973, when the Billy Graham Seoul Crusade attracted over three million people (the largest gathering in global Church history). Two decades before the Seoul Crusade, Graham visited American GIs and Korean Christians during the Korean War in 1952. At the time, wŏllam (those who went south) Korean Christian leaders like Han Kyung-Chik (who interpreted for Graham) and Hwang Ŭn-gyun articulated the conflict with communism in North Korea in eschatological language, invoking the imagery of medieval European crusades. My proposal engages the trope of “crusades” articulated during the Korean Cold War as reflective of the ways in which Christianity and militarism were folded into each other. At this stage, I expect to trace three currents that were formative to the relationship between Christianity and militarized politics in Cold War South Korea: the discursive, transpacific politics of Billy Graham and Han Kyung-Chik (1945-1950), the institutional history of the Republic of Korea (ROK) military chaplaincy from its inception in 1951, and the hegemonic culture of militarism and dissent.

Sandra’s paper can be found in the post below.

As always, first-time attendees are welcome. Please make note of the distinct time and location for this event.

 

Thurs. Feb. 9 **4:30 PM** : Stacie Kent “Commercial Treaties: A Framework for Governance”

Stacie Kent

Collegiate Assistant Professor, University of Chicago

“Commercial Treaties: A Framework for Governance”

February 9, 2017

4:30 – 6:30 PM

John Hope Franklin Room, SSR 224

**Please note the time change from 4:00 to 4:30**

Discussants:

Kenneth Pomeranz, University Professor of Modern Chinese History and the College, University of Chicago

Carl Kubler, University of Chicago History Department

In the first decade of the 19th century, European opinions about China and its trade policies began to shift towards bellicose opposition. China was denounced as backwards and antisocial, its administrators as arbitrary and self-interested. With this critique in mind, this paper examines the significance of Qing commercial treaties to global commercial and geopolitical integration as well as everyday commercial administration. It argues that Qing commercial treaties should be seen as part of a global effloresce in treaty making that attempted to rationalize and simplify global trade by curtailing the prerogatives and decision making power of local political authorities. Presented as a means to codify a natural community of equal nations, treaties naturalized the abstract compulsions of capital growth and offered a new interface between political authorities and global commerce that generated new limits on the exercise of official power. In China evolving treaty language gradually erased Qing claims to govern trade through flexible decision-making and mutual obligations between merchants and government authorities. In their stead, the treaties called for a novel static regulatory framework and rote official actions.

Professor Kent has been kind enough to provide us with both a chapter and the book proposal from her current project. Both can be found at the East Asia: Transregional Histories workshop website below.

As always, first-time attendees are welcome. Light refreshments and snacks will be served.
If you have any questions or require assistance to attend, please contact Jessa Dahl at jdahl@uchicago.edu or Erin Newton at emnewton@uchicago.edu.

3/4 – “Space and Region” Roundtable Discussion

A joint endeavor with the Art and Politics of East Asia Workshop

An open discussion about the nature of “space” and “region” in relation to the study of East Asia.

Discussants:  Scott Aalgaard (PhD student, EALC), Susan Su (PhD student, EALC), Nic Wong (Phd student, CMLT)

Date/Time: 3pm to 5pm

Venue: Center for East Asian Studies Media Room (CEAS 319 1155 E 60th St.)

10/8 Laura Hostetler

Narrating Empire: Cartographic, Comparative, and Horticultural Perspectives

Asia, China, 1785

Asia, China, 1785

Speaker: Dr. Laura Hostetler (Professor of History, University of Illinois, Chicago)

Discussant: Dr. Kenneth Pomeranz (Professor of History, University of Chicago)

Date/Time: October 8, 4:00 to 6:00pm

Venue: John Hope Franklin Room (Social Science Research Building, 224)

4/29 (Tue): Christopher Bayly

Twentieth Century World History – A roundtable discussion

East Asia in World History Roundtable Series, Part 3 of 3

Speaker: Christopher Bayly (The Indian Ministry of Culture Vivekananda Visiting Professor)

Discussants: Covell Meyskens (PhD Candidate), Michael Geyer (Samuel N. Harper Professor of German and European History), Bruce Cumings (Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift Distinguished Service Professor in History and the College)

Date/Time: April 29th (Tue), 4-6pm

Venue: John Hope Franklin Room (SSRB, 224)