Control, Communication, Cosmos: Systems Thinking and Practices in Asia and Beyond
Description
Systems are everywhere: as concepts, practices, and lifeways, they have sparked extensive theoretical debates and permeated creative work across multiple fields. Originating in the field of biology, systems theory was a mode of thought that incorporated many important mid-20th-century methods (cybernetics, information theory, scientific management) and evolved into social sciences and governance theories. For instance, sociologist Niklas Luhmann redefined autopoietic systems by extending the concept beyond biology to self-reproducing social mechanisms. The conceptual framework of the system has also permeated contemporary thought. Though not always named as such, Gilles Deleuze, for example, argues that Foucauldian disciplinary societies are giving way to control societies, governed by flexible, dynamic, and continuously modulating systems. In our contemporary moment, the persistence of systemic crises such as climate change, political extremism, and military conflicts may also be read as symptomatic of a broader failure of systems. In Asia, systems theory—despite its Western roots—intersects with local particularities, such as the influence of systems thinking on China’s One-Child Policy, the establishment of biometric systems in India, and Singapore’s Smart Nation initiative. The region’s rapid, uneven development also presents unique challenges and opportunities to rethink systems theory beyond Western paradigms. As Kuan-Hsing Chen argues in Asia as Method, shifting analytical attention to intra-Asian cultural and historical exchanges could allow for a more situated understanding of systemic thought.
This seminar explores how systems theories, practices, and aesthetics have been transmitted, transformed, and contested across Asia. We invite diverse interpretations of “system” and welcome comparative approaches that connect Asia with other regions, such as Eastern Europe and Latin America. Papers may engage with literary, cinematic, linguistic, sociological, philosophical, technological, religious, and other cultural or historical perspectives on the following themes (among others):
- How do Asian contexts—such as post-WWII infrastructure projects—produce alternatives to Eurocentric systems theory from premodern to contemporary times?
- In what ways are systems operationalized in Asia, particularly through digital technologies? For example, how do social media platforms and AI algorithms construct “data identities”?
- How do artistic and cultural works represent, critique, or reimagine systems thinking? For instance, to what extent do science fiction thought experiments expose or reconfigure systemic logics?
- How do system-oriented practices shape affective engagement in society, culture, and technology? For example, how does sound act as a systemic interface that governs affect?
- What new insights emerge when we reconceptualize “systems” as culturally and historically shaped imaginaries of knowledge, power, and interconnection?
Schedule
Papers
Speaker Bio
Ruiying Zhang is a Ph.D. student in Asian Studies at Cornell University. Her research interests lie in the history of science and technology and the narrative of science, technology, and media in modern and contemporary China, as well as the technological exchanges in East Asia. Her articles have published in Journal of Chinese Films Studies and SFRA Review, among others published in Chinese.
Speaker Bio
Zichuan Gan is a PhD candidate in Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto, with a specialization in Women & Gender Studies. Their dissertation examines the intersections of contemporary Chinese science fiction, death studies, and digital media. They hold an MA in Comparative Literature from Université de Montréal and a BA in French from Central China Normal University.
Speaker Bio
Flora Roussel is a Postdoctoral Fellow (FRQ) in the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at McGill University. Her research interests include feminist, queer, and intersectional considerations of bodies, relationalities, and affects, as well as exophony and its potential to transform literary studies. Her work has been published in national and international journals (e.g., Journal of World Literature).
Speaker Bio
Baryon Tensor Posadas is an Associate Professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. He is the author Double Visions, Double Fictions: The Doppelganger in Japanese Film and Literature (2018) and the translator of Aramaki Yoshio’s The Sacred Era: A Novel (2017). His current research revolves around such topics as Japanese science fiction and empire, animation and posthuman bodies, and techno-orientalism and transnational fan culture.
Papers
Speaker Bio
Siyun Pan is a Ph.D. student in the Department of Asia Studies at the University of British Columbia. Her research focuses on popular culture, fan studies, and urban media in modern and contemporary China.
Speaker Bio
Junshen Wu is a second-year MA student in Asian Studies at the University of British Columbia. His research explores contemporary Chinese literature, culture, and media with a focus on the entanglements of affect, infrastructure, and urban life. He is especially interested in how the human sensorium interacts with technological mediation to generate shifting modes of cultural and political experience.
Speaker Bio
Livia Monnet is Professor of Comparative Literature, Film, Asian Studies, and Environmental Humanities at the University of Montreal. Her recent and forthcoming publications include Toxic Immanence: Decolonizing Nuclear Legacies and Futures (2022), a co-edited special issue on the Chinese artist LuYang in the journal Screen Bodies, 7.1 (2022), and a co-edited book on contemporary Middle Eastern film and media art.