Past events
CEAS regularly organizes and hosts visiting lectures, seminars and international conferences. Information about upcoming events are shared on the CEAS website and CEAS' social media channels.
Navigating the Nexus: South Korea's Foreign Policy, Domestic Dynamics, and Deterrence Strategies in a Changing International Environment, seminar
3.10.2024, University of Turku, EDU2 and Zoom
How does South Korea navigate its foreign policy in a changing international environment? What role does domestic politics play? How do we need to understand the extended deterrence strategy, also from a comparative perspective (East Asia and NATO)? This seminar discusses the interplay between South Korea’s foreign policy, domestic politics and external strategies. Join us and discuss these and related questions with leading IR scholars from the University of Seoul in South Korea.
The seminar is organized by the Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Turku and co-sponsored by the Centre for East Asian Studies, University of Turku and the Department of International Relations, University of Seoul.
Nordic-Baltic Korean Studies Days 2024
4.-8.3.2024 at the University of Copenhagen and Zoom
The Nordic-Baltic Korean Studies Days is a co-taught course organized between Korean Studies faculty of Nordic (and newly) Baltic institutions including the universities of Helsinki, Turku, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Trondheim), Vytautas Magnus University (Kaunas), and The University of Latvia. It was generously funded by Nordplus that supports educational cooperation throughout Nordic and Baltic states. This was the fourth Nordic, and first Nordic-Baltic Korean Studies Days!
Finland-Korea Symposium
12.10.2023, 13:00-17:00 at Tieteiden Talo, Helsinki
At the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Finland and the Republic of Korea, CEAS in co-operation with Suomi - Korean Tasavaltayhdistys (Finland-Republic of Korea Association) organises a half-day symposium.
2023 Asian Studies Days Doctoral Seminar
31.10.2023 (Tue), University of Turku (onsite, no online participation)
Asian Studies Days' Doctoral Seminar
This doctoral seminar provides an outstanding opportunity to meet other young researchers whose doctoral thesis focuses on Asia, and to receive feedback from senior researchers who have a profound knowledge of the region. The seminar is arranged in connection with the annual Asian Studies Days.
Asian Studies Days 2023: At the Crux of New Europe-Asia Relations
1.11.2023, 10:30-16:20 at the University of Turku, Educarium, Lecture Hall Edu2 and Zoom
Recent geopolitical events and macroeconomic earthquakes have underscored the urgency of reevaluating the relationships between European and Asian countries. The rivalry between the US and China has exposed smaller European and Asian states to critical security and economic vulnerabilities over which they have limited control. Meanwhile, China is strategically positioning itself on the global stage to assume a leading normative role.
In Europe, it becomes imperative to grasp the regional dynamics in Asia and understand Asian countries better to chart a course that safeguards both our values and interests. With a wealth of outstanding scholarship in Asia, Asian Studies Days 2023 aims to delineate the key dynamics shaping current changes and pinpoint the essential areas requiring our attention.
Webinar: The Nordic countries' relations with the DPR Korea
24.11.2023, 12:15-15:00 CET on Zoom
Fifty years ago, the Nordic countries established diplomatic relations with the DPR Korea, with Finland simultaneously recognizing the Republic of Korea. In this webinar, we explore the Nordic countries’ relations with North Korea with a focus on Finland, Norway and Sweden. Particular attention will be paid to the time period of normalization, actors campaigning for recognition of the DPR Korea and the early years of bilateral relations.
Korean Speech Contest 2023 / 2023년 한국어 말하기 대회
1.12.2023, 13:00-15:30 at the University of Turku, Educarium, Lecture Hall Edu2
The Centre for East Asian Studies of the University of Turku invited Korean language students of all levels to participate in the 2023 Korean Speech Contest in Turku on Friday, 1st December 2023.
Visiting lectures
- Juha Saunavaara: The impact of Russian invasion of Ukraine on Japan's policy concerning the Arctic and North, 30.3.2023
- Dušica Ristivojević: Global China on the Ground: A Civil Society Perspective, 6.4.2023
- Hsin-I Sydney Yueh: The Uses of Cuteness: Gender, Identity Politics, and Elections in Taiwan, 28.9.2023
- Dominic Meng-Hsuan Yang: Taiwan, China, and the Cold War Refugees: Hong Kong, Dachen Islands, and Southeast Asia, 28.9.2023
- Youngtae Shin: Democratization and Economic Development of South Korea: benefits and costs of traditional values, 5.10.2023
CEAS - Lingnan University: China and Regional Studies Joint Webinar Series
11.2.-29.4.2022 on Zoom
Nordic Korean Studies Days 2022
7.-11.3.2022 at the University of Copenhagen and Zoom
The 2022 NKSD were organized as a 5-day intensive course and hosted by the University of Copenhagen, 7-11 March. The course comprised online talks, workshops and transferable skills-oriented training as well as a student-organized roundtable.
Asian Studies Days 2022: Time of Reassessments
26.-27.10.2023, 11:00-16:00 at the University of Turku, Calonia, Lecture Hall CAL1 and Zoom
Asian Studies Days 2022 challenges the participants to approach Asian Studies in new ways. Firstly, there is a growing movement in universities in “Global North” towards casting off West-centrism and coloniality in research on Asia. While these debates are developing in various directions, this conference focuses on the “politics of knowledge and the analysis of power within academia itself” (De Jong et al. 2017). The question is how to identify and abandon long-standing patterns of power structures that for example define criteria for academic performance and knowledge production. Along with being orientalised, Asia is also exceptionalised and seen as something that can be understood in isolation from the rest of the world. The two keynote presentations help us to work towards de-westernized and non-hierarchical approaches of Asia.
Secondly, the past three years have forced us to rearrange educational programs in unexpected ways. This has accelerated new thinking and innovation in education. On the one hand, we will explore ways to protect non-local students’ well-being. On the other hand, we will address practices that have been found feasible when launching cooperation with Asian partners in online education.
Visiting lectures
- Myunghee Lee: Fight for nostalgia: authoritarian legacies, collective identity, and the far-right protest in South Korea, 12.10.2022
- Myunghee Lee: Authoritarian Successor Parties, Supporters, and Protest, 13.10.2022
- Grazia Milano: From the N-P’o Generation to the God-Saeng lifestyle: The Drive Towards Renunciation and Rejection of Long-term Life Goals among South Korean Young People, 2.11.2022
- Harry Yi-Jui Wu: Historicizing Taiwan’s Role in Global Health: from Colonial Period to Post-Covid Times, 8.11.2022
Korean Speech Contest, 한국어 말하기 대회, 26 November 2021
As part of the 15th anniversary celebrations of the Centre for East Asian Studies at the University of Turku, we invite all students studying Korean language to participate in the 2021 Korean Speech Contest.
Intensive course: China’s New Rule or No Rules for World Order, 23 November 2021
Course provider: Docent Markku Salomaa
Content: The course deals with current hot issues in China and China's foreign relations and consist of seven 45 minutes lectures on the following topics:
Lecture 1: Chinese “Kung Flu” Virus Wakes Up Nation-States
Lecture 2: Trade War Risk leads to a Hegemony War Danger
Lecture 3: Chinese Human Rights Problems in Xinjiang
Lecture 4: China’s Unity Crisis with Hong Kong and Taiwan
Lecture 5: “King Kong” Geopolitics in the South China Sea
Lecture 6: Arms Race in Asia in the Perspective of Nationalism
Lecture 7: Space War strategy in China’s space program?
Asian Studies Days 2021
18.-19.11.2021, 11:00-18:00 at the University of Jyväskylä and Zoom
The Finnish University Network for Asian Studies has organized Asian Studies Days annually since 2010. The event provides a national platform for discussions and networking in Asian studies.
Many of the events are in hybrid form and open to everyone. We also hope to have locally in Jyväskylä a post-pandemic reunion for scholars in Asian Studies who are affiliated at Finnish universities or research institutions.
CEAS15 Guest lecture: Hiromi Akiyama, Harvard Kennedy School, 16 November 2021
16.11.2021, 16:00-17:30 EET (Helsinki time)
Dr Hiromi Akiyama (Harvard Kennedy School, USA)
This lecture presents case studies of activities initiated by various local nonprofit organizations (NPOs) in the communities recovering from the impacts of the Tohoku disasters of March 11, 2011. Many NPOs were established in the aftermath of the disaster, some in the response phase and evolving their roles over time into the post-disaster recovery phase. Certain needs of local residents and community recovery could not be met by the government, giving space to these NPOs to engage in recovery efforts, through various ways to achieve their goals and in spite of challenges in getting through what they wanted. A variation exists in the ease in which these organizations achieved their goals. Besides the constraints of resources and management capacity, the examination points to the importance of networks – or social capital – of NPO organizers, both among themselves and between public officials and other stakeholders, in getting the information and resources needed to succeed and continue NPO activities, especially among new NPOs. The presentation concludes with a comparison with nonprofit and community engagement after major earthquakes in Sichuan, China.
CEAS15 Guest lecture: Beata Bochorodycz, Anti-Nuclear Movement in the Post-Fukushima Japan: Structures, Mobilization and Framing, 28 October 2021
28.10.2021, 12:00-14:00 EEST via Zoom
The anti-nuclear movement in Japan after the Asia-Pacific War has been very dynamic, changing its nature and focus with the fluctuations in the domestic and international political opportunities and constrains. From the mid-1950s, after the incident with the fishing vessel Lucky Dragon, the movement evolved from the anti-war, peace and anti-nuclear (hansen, heiwa, hankaku) movement, which focused primarily on abolition of war and nuclear weapons, into the protests against construction of nuclear power plants and lawsuits for damages in the 1970s. In the following decade of the 1980s after the Chernobyl accident, the movement encompassed the calls for abolition of nuclear energy in Japan under the slogan of opposition to the nuclear power plants (han/datsugenpatsu). During the lecture I will analyze the post-Fukushima (new) antinuclear movement in comparison to those previous (old) movements focusing on such issues as: organizational structures, mobilization strategies, repertoire of protests and issue framing. Drawing on the sociological methodology of social movement theory and political studies’ theory of civil society, as well as the results from the field work conducted in Japan in 2013-2014, I will underline the mechanisms of networking forming, what I call “the anti-nuclear ecosystem,” and furthermore, the development of the narrative of the ‘common people’ protest – as key features of the post-Fukushima anti-nuclear movement. Finally, I will comment on the consequences of the movement for the national energy policy and broadly, for society.
CEAS15 Guest lecture: Kyounghee Cho, Media transformation and democratic issues in South Korea, 20 October 2021
20.10.2021, 12-14hrs EEST (Pub299 and Zoom)
The presentation will cover the historical transformation of Korea's media in the political and societal realm from traditional conservative newspapers to the present digital media, and explore what roles have the media played in Korean politics, society, and democracy.
CEAS15 event "East Asia - The New Normal?", 14-15 October 2021
This year, CEAS celebrates its 15th anniversary with a two-day hybrid event.
Date: 14-15 October 2021
Venue: Hybrid (University of Turku I Publicum PUB 3 and ZOOM
14 October 2021 (Thu), 10.00-16.15 (Finnish time UTC+ 03:00)
East Asia - The New Normal?
Opening words by Professor Lauri Paltemaa, CEAS Director
10.15 Minister Audrey Tang: Digital Social Innovation
10.50 Professor Jeffrey Kingston: The politics of pandemic in East Asia
11.20 Professor Haksoon Paik: Geopolitics & Emerging Security Problems in the Asia-Pacific and South Korea's Strategic Choices
11.50 Professor Ka Ho Mok: Refining the Ways of Knowing and Doing: Research in the Times of COVID-19 Pandemic
13.00 Sungju Park-Kang: A Korean spy who is (still) to die 115 times.
13.30 Juha Saunavaara: East Asian actors’ interest and involvement in the Arctic – from curiosity to mainstream
14.00 Satoko Naito: Japan, The Imagined, and Myself: Recollection, Identity, and Kazuo Ishiguro
14.45 Yoko Demelius: Visions and Challenges of Work-Life Balance in Japan: Looking Beyond the COVID Crisis
15.15 Elina Sinkkonen: Dynamic dictators: autocratization and authoritarian resilience in China and elsewhere
15.45 Minna Valjakka: Remediating existence: new audiences, localities and importance of public art
15 October 2021 (Fri), 9.00-16.00 (Finnish time UTC+ 03:00)
Greetings from the Alumni - Where did East Asian Studies take me?
Working in Diplomacy, PR and Educational Exports
9.00 Anne Mutanen, Deputy Head of Mission, Embassy of Finland to Dublin
9.30 Reetta Ilo, PR & Comms Manager, San Francisco Agency
10.00 Wang Yue, Planning Officer at Global Education, TAMK
Doing Business with China and in China
10.45 Suvi Kurki, International Sales Specialist, Jintian Copper
11.15 Tuomo Kauha, Growth and Internationalisation Coordinator, Team Finland
11.45 Olli Hakala, Chief Liaison Officer, Turku Chamber of Commerce
New normal in China – Perspectives from business and politics
Opening words by SLT Director Marjut Johansson
13.15 Markus Laine, Hanza Group: Business environment in China from a Finnish perspective: a changing landscape
14.00 Sari Arho Havrén, Business Finland: Europe and China relations and future prospects, what they mean for EU and Finland
14.45 Mikko Puustinen, MEAE: Finland, China and the expanding meaning of economic and trade relations
CEAS15 Guest lecture: Florian Pölking, "Becoming civilized. Korea and the whirlpool of the late 19th century", 4 October 2021
4.10.2021, 16-18hrs on Zoom
From about the middle of the 19th century, Korea quickly was confronted with diverse interests not only of western empires but even more so of its East Asian neighbours. The collapse of the traditional cosmic/world order and the confrontation with new realities and ideas led to an intense discourse within the political and social elites about how to react to the changing environment. At the same time, the room for manoeuvre quickly became smaller in the course of the late 19th century. This guest lecture aims to outline how Korea and Koreans tried to face these developments from the "opening" of the country in 1876 until its collapse in 1910 and beyond.
WEBINAR for new EAST students, 26 August 2021
Webinar for new EAST students including information on courses and general advice on personal study plan.
26 Aug 2021, 13-14hrs (Finnish Time)
Students receive the link to the webinar by email.
WEBINAR for admitted EAST students, 17 May 2021
CEAS hosts a WEBINAR for accepted EAST students on 17 May 2021 (Mon), 15:00-16:00hrs EET. Invitations have already been sent out to our prospective students.
Congratulations to our new students! We can't wait to welcome you all here in Turku!
Apply now: Korean Studies Int'l Summer School, St Petersburg University, 3-4 June
Apply now for the International Summer School on ‘The Republic of Korea and the DPRK: Society, Culture and Politics’ organized by Saint Petersburg University, 3-4 June 2021, online via Zoom. The summer school is a great opportunity to deepen your knowledge about Korea, to exchange views with renowned Korean studies scholars and peers and to take part in a virtual visit to the St. Petersburg Institute of Oriental Manuscripts.
UTU students can earn 2cr by submitting six learning diaries (each 400-500 words) on six different summer school lectures (EAST0117 Lecture passport).
To apply, please send an email to sabine.burghart[at] utu.fi expressing your interest and motivation, including previous Korea-related studies (100-150 words).
Deadline for applications: 29 April 2021 (Thu), 2:00pm. Eligible are UTU students (status: attending).
CEAS15 Guest lecture: Alevtina Solovyeva, "The god of wealth in Chinese ritual mythology and Mongolian conspiracy theories", 22 April 2021
22.04.2021, 12-14hrs (EET)/11-13hrs (CET) on Zoom
In this guest lecture I look at the case of the reinterpretation of the Chinese rituals of veneration to the ‘god of wealth’ (財神) in contemporary Mongolian culture. I shall introduce the figure(s) of the god of wealth, and its specific features and functions in the ritual mythology and everyday practices of Chinese communities. I shall also regard these features in the broader context of Chinese and Mongolian folk beliefs about the forms of the wealth and the supernatural ways it manifests. A comparative perspective on these beliefs will give some hints as to the mystery of the demonization of such a generally cheerful deity as the Chinese God of wealth in the perceptions of neighbouring ethnic groups. Special attention will be paid in the report to the concept of the ‘evil wealth’, which is applied to indicate social distrust in various situations of life in contemporary Mongolian communities. Very often this concept takes on an ethnic identity and becomes enmeshed with diverse aspects of the ‘Chinese question’. This topic reflects old, and new, transnational concerns and often included by the increasingly popular and influential genre of conspiracy theories. Finally, I shall discuss examples of such conspiracy theories and their historical and current contexts.
CEAS15 Guest lecture: Eva Liias, "Olympic Games in Higher Education - Japanese Responses to Internationalization of Universities", 29 April 2021
29.04.2021, 12-14hrs (Helsinki, EET)/11-13hrs (CET) on Zoom
During the last two decades university rankings dominate in media headlines, they have an impact on how students choose their universities, and they even shape developments at universities. International rankings, sometimes also referred to as the Olympic games in higher education (HE), are a driver for universities (and governments) to question their reputation, standards, and quality. Japanese universities, being argued of having Western roots in their institutions, are well-known in Asia and a view on Japanese (governmental) HE policy reveals that internationalization is one of the most important aims for the whole HE sector. However, an in-depth analysis reveals the gap between policy aims and policy implementation. In this presentation I examine the discrepancy between internationalization and de-internationalization at Japanese universities. Furthermore, the presentation aims to spark a discussion on the connectedness between HE/universities and the labor market.
Guest lecture: Kanako Kuramitsu, "In Search of the Japanese Father: Unremembered voices of Sino-Japanese children born of the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945)", 15 April 2021
15.04.2021, 12-14hrs (EET)/11-13hrs (CET)
This lecture explores the little-known experiences of children born of Japanese fathers and Chinese mothers who had consensual relationships during and after the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) in China, with a specific focus on those who migrated to Japan after the re-establishment of Sino-Japanese relations in 1972. These individuals, who were raised in China, without a father in most cases, call their migration as 'return' to their 'homeland'. This study analyses their experiences in comparison with other ‘children born of war’ – offspring of local women and members of an enemy, occupation or peacekeeping force or child soldiers – in other historical and geopolitical contexts and highlights the particularities of these Sino-Japanese children's experiences as well as the significance of the constructed notions of the father. The long-neglected stories of Sino-Japanese consensual relationships and familial love that transcended the national boundaries defy the rigid historical narratives that made wartime and post-war Sino-Japanese human interactions appear so narrow.
2021 Nordic Korean Studies Days go Online
The 2021 Nordic Korean Studies Days start online on 8 February!
The 2021 NKSD offer a wide range of exciting topics, especially to those students who are interested in multidisciplinary Korean Studies
CEAS15 Zoom talk: Lukáš Laš and Simon Wellisch, "Japanese Media on Territorial Disputes and Political Geography of East Asia", 21 January 2021
21.01.2021, 12-14hrs (EET)
The guest lecture is devoted to Japan’s territorial disputes in East Asia based on an article published in ‘Asian Geographer’ in 2020. We will introduce general issues of political geography in East Asia, then compare all Japanese territorial disputes with neighbouring states and connect the findings to broader international phenomena, meanings and repercussions. In the first part, we will introduce our research design and how we approached deconstructing selected media discourses on Japan’s territorial disputes, namely in The Asahi Shimbun, The Japan News and The Japan Times, covering articles from 2002 to 2018. We conducted a mixture of content and discourse analysis with the lexicostatistical tool AntConc in the general framework of critical geopolitics. The outcomes illustrate that nationalist geopolitical imaginations are popular among all researched newspapers with strong dominance of solely Japanese toponyms. On top of that, we will explore other problems - the continental shelf expansion in Japan's and South Korea’s naming dispute over the Sea of Japan/East Sea.
CEAS15 Zoom talk: Kamila Szczepanska and Anna Caspari, "Beyond the Trappings of State Animosities: Sino-Japanese Civil Society Cooperation in the 21st Century", 28 January 2021
28.01.2021, 11-13hrs CET/12-14hrs EET on Zoom
Whereas the official relationship between Japan and the People’s Republic of China has always been marked by tensions in multiple fields, in the background of high-level politics the contacts and exchanges between civil society actors have grown steadily. This presentation aims to illuminate further the matter of collaboration between civil society actors from mainland China and Japan, with a special focus on cooperation between civil society organisations (CSOs) and the obstacles they encounter when attempting to pursue joint initiatives. In doing so we utilise perspectives and concepts from Social Movement Theories focusing on political opportunity structure and resources to analyse the performance of civil society actors and their collaborative initiatives among each other. The presentation first explores the nature and characteristics of cooperation between Chinese and Japanese civil society actors by analysing greening and anti-desertification initiatives conducted by Japanese CSOs in mainland China. We take a special note of the extent to which Chinese CSOs, either officially sanctioned (i.e. including government-organised NGOs or GONGOs), or grassroots actors without a proper legal status, were involved in greening projects pursued by Japanese organisations. And second, drawing on evidence from joint symposiums devoted to fostering Sino-Japanese CSO cooperation organised by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and its Chinese partners, we elucidate the challenges inherent in facilitating closer cooperation between Japanese and Chinese CSOs. Here, we put emphasis on investigating the significance of inhospitable and opaque legal frameworks for CSOs in China, and the relative scarcity of resources in Japanese CSOs, as a hindrance for establishing collaborative relationships.
ZOOM talk with Barbara Wall: Hell Joseon and the Webtoon Sin kwa hamkke, 16 Nov 2020
16-18hrs (EET), 15-17hrs (CET)
Dr. Barbara Wall is Assistant professor at the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen.
ZOOM talk with Anders Uhlin: “Civil Society Elites: New Perspectives on Civil Society in Cambodia and Indonesia”, 19 Nov 2020
19.11., 12:00-14:00 (Turku, Helsinki time)/11:00-13:00 (Lund/Stockholm time))
In this guest lecture, I will report from an ongoing research project that explores how and why certain individuals reach leading positions within civil society and what kind of resources they use, gain and lose when they interact with and sometimes move to the state, political, and economic fields, in increasingly authoritarian Cambodia and post-authoritarian Indonesia. To many civil society researchers and practitioners, the notion of a “civil society elite” is a contradiction. I will attempt to demonstrate how an elite perspective can shed new light on internal and external civil society dynamics, highlighting power inequalities within and beyond civil society. Combining two fields of research – civil society studies and elite studies – the project identifies different types of elite formation within civil society and traces interactions and integration with elite groups from political society, economic society, and the state. The project explores how such processes play out in the context of generally shrinking (Cambodia) and relatively expanding (Indonesia) political space for civil society, and analyses the role of foreign funding in processes of elitization. In the lecture, I will elaborate on an analytical framework based in field theory and describe how the project has employed this framework to execute case studies of civil society activists, organizations, and networks operating in the fields of agriculture, youth, natural resources and environment, human rights, and anti-corruption, on national and local levels in Cambodia and Indonesia. I will report preliminary findings that challenge a view of civil society entities as relatively isolated from the state, political and economic society, by revealing power relations that link them.
ZOOM lecture by Aoi Horiuchi: Civil Society Assessment of the Impact of the COVID-19 on Democracy and the Response to COVID-19 Pandemic in Japan – from the SDG 16+ and human rights-based approach, 12 Nov 2020
Time: 12.11, at 9:00-11:00 (Turku/Helsinki time)/16:00-18:00 (Japan time)
Civil society organizations in Japan have responded to COVID-19 both domestically and internationally. They monitored how the government of Japan effectively handled the situation since January 2020, as it is obvious that COVID-19 affected human rights situation and implementation of SDGs. During the presentation, selected SDGs, such as Goal 3 (Health), Goal 5 (Gender) and Goal 16 (Peace and Justice), will be discussed. Goal 16 will be referred as SDG16+, as this is a cross-cutting goal which is an enabler and accelerator of all SDGs, and requires nexus and mainstreaming approach, which are gender, conflict and climate sensitive, and human right-based.
ZOOM talk with So Young Choi: Resilient Peripheralization through Authoritarian Communication Against Energy Democracy in South Korea, 11 Nov 2020
To understand anti-democratic barriers to accomplishing energy democracy, I examine how and why a centralized energy system can maintain itself based on an ethnographic analysis of the local protest of Miryang against the Korea Electric Power Corporation’s construction of a 765,000-volt transmission line. Explaining the element of authoritarian communication in South Korean environmental politics, I highlight the active roles of citizens to contest socio-environmental inequalities as a precondition to building a sustainable energy democracy.
Asian Studies Days: Research and Education during the Pandemic, 6 Nov 2020
Time: 9:30-14:00
Restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic have disrupted well-established education and research practices in Asia and elsewhere. International research and education projects have moved online, and scholars in Asian studies have been forced to find alternatives to on-site fieldwork. How have students and scholars adapted to the new situation and what kinds of new practices are emerging? Can we find a silver lining in the pandemic, and how to grasp it? What might the new research methods mean for the production of knowledge in the future.
The programme will be available on this page.
ZOOM Lecture by Takeshi Komino: COVID-19 and disaster management challenges in Japan/Asia, 22 Oct 2020
Time: 22.10., 10:00-12:00hrs (Turku/Helsinki time)
Climate change is causing rapid increase in disaster risks, and the world is facing the era of ‘new normal’ with complex mixture of various risks cascading one another. The webinar aims to cover the recent disaster trends, the evolution of disaster risk reduction frameworks, specific challenges in the region, and how COVID-19 has impacted the way we approach disaster risk management in Japan and wider Asian region. Furthermore, it will cover the linkages of localization and disaster management, and how knowledge management/sharing and innovation would play a key role in addressing this ‘new normal’. Last, the webinar will also highlight some of Japan’s recent endeavours in tackling the current increase in disaster risks.
ZOOM seminar with Prof. Liu Jun: Shifting Dynamics of Contention in the Digital Age: Mobile Communication and Politics in China, 29 Oct. 2020
29.10.2020 (Thu), 12-2pm (Finnish time)
Students N.B.: this is a Lecture Passport event.
ZOOM talk with Liora Sarfati "Landscapes of Mass Cooperation in Seoul: from the Sewŏl Disaster to the Corona crisis", 12 May 2020
Time: May 12, 2020 10:00 AM (Finnish time)
Special thanks to Barbara Wall / Korean Studies of the University of Copenhagen for organising the virtual event.
ZOOM talk with Owen Miller, "North Korea's 'miracle' economy after the Korean War", 30 April 2020
30 April 2020, 10:15-11:45 (Finland time).
This talk will look at the decade after the end of the Korean War in 1953, when North Korea was recovering from the devastation of war and attempting to build a modern, heavy-industry-centred economy. This period is usually understood as one of rapid economic growth, industrialisation and urbanisation, but it was also inevitably a period of huge social change in the northern half of the Korean peninsula. During the period 1953-1967 North Korea is thought to have achieved average annual growth of 16.6%, leading some, such as the British economist Joan Robinson, to write of a ‘Korean Miracle’. The rapid social change of the postwar period was exemplified most obviously by the explosion of the working class, as approximately two million people (out of a population of 10 million) moved from the countryside to the cities, taking the urbanisation rate from 17.7% to 40% in only seven years.
In this lecture I will explain the main factors that led to North Korea’s rapid growth in the 1950s and early 1960s, including aid from fraternal countries, economic planning, agricultural collectivisation, and large-scale labour mobilisation. I will also look at some of the major social changes that came to North Korea in the 1950s with the rapid proletarianisation of the population, examining such questions as how new industrial workers were made and remade and how gender roles changed as a result. Part of the lecture will illustrate some of these issues by using my own recent research on class formation at the Hŭngnam Fertiliser Complex, one of North Korea’s most important industrial sites since the colonial period and a key focus of the economic reconstruction programme in the 1950s. In the context of this workplace I will examine how the state and factory authorities attempted to impose discipline on new workers and how productivity campaigns were used to instil new attitudes to life and work under harsh working conditions.
WEBINAR for admitted EAST students, 24 April 2020
CEAS hosts a WEBINAR for accepted EAST students on Friday, 24 April at 3pm. Invitations have already been sent out to our prospective students.
Congratulations to our new students! We can't wait to welcome you all here in Turku!
ZOOM talk with CedarBough T. Saeji, "Making Icons: The Rise of the K-pop Adjacent Industries", 14 April 2020
14 April 2020, 14:15-15:00 (Finland time).
"Making Icons: The Rise of the K-pop Adjacent Industries", CedarBough T. Saeji, organized by Korean Studies (Barbara Wall) of the University of Copenhagen.
Korean popular music (K-pop) is a musical industry centered on artistic products of idol stars. In tandem with K-pop's success, but beyond those leading entertainment agencies and singers, an entire industry that parasitically feeds off K-pop while also symbiotically amplifying it has emerged. The K-pop industry is now supporting and supported by a multitude of lime-light eschewing and lime-light seeking people who are making a living through various K-pop dependent activities—a secondary yet autonomous industry. New participants in this adjacent/dependent industry support K-pop fandom, and may become secondary stars or in rare cases, penetrate the ranks of the idols. The very publicness of their activities gestures not at a subculture but at a side culture, generating a fascinating and contradictory transcultural practice and dialogue. In this talk I explore the specific issue of the K-pop adjacent industries that are dependent on the same sources of finances—fans and the Korean government—that the industry relies on. I conducted in-person and online interviews with performers, educators, and artists; (1) performers whose desire to be noticed collectively encourages creativity—a weakness of the hegemonic K-pop insiders, (2) educators that deepen fan engagement with K-pop through dance classes, tourism experiences, and educational programs, and (3) artists who produce new unofficial merchandise. In this talk I argue that these industries have become an integral part of interacting with and understanding K-pop today, introducing and enabling personal encounters with K-pop and Korea, and contributing to the growth of the industry.
In these extraordinary times, we want to create new synergies and opportunities for our students. It has never been easier to meet CedarBough T. Saeji, one of the leading international experts on K-pop, traditional music and performance, who is based in the US.
2020 St Petersburg University Int'l Summer School Modern & Classical Studies of Korea APPLY NOW!
Saint Petersburg University (SPbU), our partner university, organizes an international summer school on modern and classical Korean studies again this year. The school is being organized by the Faculty of Asian and African Studies, the Faculty of Sociology and the Faculty of International Relations with the support of the Academy of Korean Studies.
Dates : 7-9 September 2020
Venue: St Petersburg State University, Faculty of Sociology, St Petersburg
Eligibility : students (BA, MA, PhD levels) majoring in Korean Studies or learning Korean at one of SPbU's partner universities
Working language : English
Major topics : history, language and literature, socio-cultural aspects of the development of Korean society and interaction of Korea and Russia, Korea in the system of international relations and Korea related collections in museums of St Petersburg.
Format: lectures, seminars, workshops, excursions and student activities
Credits : 2-5
Study methods : attendance in all classes, active classroom participation, readings and written assignments.
Terms & conditions : successful applicants will be provided with accommodation (4 nights, 6-9 Sept), round-trip economy class tickets (arrival: 6 Sept, departure : 10 Sept), meals during event, visa support.
How to apply : send (1) short motivation letter, (2) copy of study transcripts, (3) CV and (4) copy of passport (required for invitation letter) by email to Sabine Burghart until 30 March 2020.
Visiting lecture: Whither Japan? Assessing Abe’s Legacy, Jeff Kingston, 11 Mar 2020
11 March (Wed), 10-12hrs, Pub4
Jeff Kingston, Director of Asian Studies at Temple University Japan, is author of Japan (Polity, 2019) and Nationalism in Asia: A History Since 1945 (Wiley-Blackwell, 2016) and editor of Press Freedom in Japan (2017), Asian Nationalism Reconsidered (Routledge, 2015); Critical Issues in Contemporary Japan (Routledge, 2014) and Natural Disaster and Nuclear Crisis in Japan: Response and Recovery after Japan’s 3/11 (Routledge, 2012). He writes regularly for several international dailies.
Research Seminar, 5 Mar: Researching South Korea's global Saemaul Undong programme in Tanzania
Presentation by Sabine Burghart on 5 March 2020 (Thu), 12-14hrs, Pub409
South Korea’s development from an aid recipient to the world’s 12th largest economy and an OECD-DAC member has drawn interest from developing countries, including Tanzania. The South Korean government’s emphasis on a shared development experience, reciprocal gains and non-hierarchical partnerships is largely in line with the constructive discourse of South-South development cooperation. In official aid documents, South Korea emphasises a request-based approach that, at least in theory, guides its cooperation with aid recipients. Notions of self-reliance and self-help efforts imply a certain respect for independent, not pre-determined development choices in partner countries. By emphasizing a new way of providing foreign aid South Korea’s official ODA rhetoric attempts to distinguish itself from the “mainstream”, i.e. traditional (Western) donors.
Japanese speech event for UTU students, 28 Feb 2020
CEAS invites all UTU Japanese language students to participate in the 2020 Japanese Speech event on 28 February.
This event will be held for students of Turku University (including exchange students) at all levels from beginners to (upper-)intermediate and advanced, and is a great opportunity of showing your achievements in Japanese language learning and listening to your fellow students' speeches. The deadline for registration is 7 February (24:00hrs).
Please find more details here.
Research Seminar, 13 Feb: Multiculturalism in a "Homogeneous" Society: Going Beyond Policies
Presentation by Yoko Demelius on 13 Feb 2020, 12-14hrs, Pub368
Research Seminar, 6 Feb: Coping with Peripheralization in the Sea of Japan Rim: Geopolitical Economy of Anticipation
Presentation by Outi Luova on 6 Feb 2020, 12-14hrs, Pub368
Nordic Korean Studies Days in Copenhagen, 11-15 March 2019
The Nordic Korean Studies Days (NKSD) is a five-day intensive Korean Studies course with lectures on topics including (pseudo)historiography, ghost stories, changing dynamics in family as well as politics in South and North Korea. It aims at bringing together students with an interest in Korea and teaching faculty of Nordic universities. The NKSD is generously supported by the Korea Foundation. Participation in the course, together with the required readings and a final presentation and a written research essay will be equivalent to 5 credits.
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NAJS 2019: Naming an Era, 23-24 May 2019
The Fifteenth Conference of the Nordic Association for the Study of Contemporary Japanese Society (NAJS) was held on 23-24 May 2019 at CEAS.
Read more about NAJS 2019.
Studia generalia lecture: ”Suomen ja Japanin 100 vuotta" (in Finnish), 26 August 2019
CEAS together with the unit of Contemporary History (University of Turku) and the Arctic Research Center (Hokkaido University) are organizing a studia generalia lecture at the Turku City Library on Monday 26th August 2019 at 18.00–19.30 in the theme of 100 years of Finnish-Japanese diplomatic relations. The lecture is free of charge and open to the public. Welcome all! Language of the lecture is Finnish. Read more about the event here.
Finland and Japan in the Changing World, 27 August 2019
The year 2019 marks the 100th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Finland and Japan. The seminar Finland and Japan in the Changing World celebrates the occasion by bringing together specialists from different fields to discuss both the shared historical experiences and the future challenges that the two different yet in many ways similar countries encounter in the contemporary world. The seminar is organized by the Centre for East Asian Studies and the Unit of Contemporary History, University of Turku, and supported by the Toshiba International Foundation and the Hokkaido University Europe Office in Helsinki.
Read more about the seminar here.
Seminar "Peace Process and the Future of the Korean Peninsula", 5 September 2019
South Korean President Moon Jae-in entered his third year in office in May this year. Under his administration inter-Korean relations have improved and the South Korean government played a crucial role in brokering the US-DPRK summits. However, the dynamics of the peace process have slowed down. This seminar will address current issues, challenges and prospects of formally ending the Korean War and establishing a peace regime on the Korean peninsula.
Intensive Course: Regional Security in East and Southeast Asia, 11 October 2019
This 2cr course is provided by Docent Markku Salomaa and focuses on China's position in world politics in 2019 (MPAS2172).
Visiting lecture by Duncan McCargo: Trends in Asian Politics: Populism, Electoralism and Authoritarianism, 31 October 2019
This talk examines recent developments in the region, including the rise of Duterte in the Philippines, the 2018 electoral upset in Malaysia, Cambodia’s controversial banning of the political opposition, and Thailand’s controversial 2019 elections. It discusses the interplay between political protests, election campaigns and media events in the era of social media when the rules of the political game are being torn up and rewritten around the globe.
Duncan McCargo is Director of the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies and Professor of Political Science at the University of Copenhagen, working mainly on the politics of Southeast Asia.
Visiting lecture: Human dimension of Russian-Japanese dialogue in 1990's, 1 Nov 2019
Join the lecture by visiting scholar from St Petersburg University, Dr. Maria Malashevskaya on 1 November 2019 (Fri), 12-14 in Pub150. Her presentation is titled "Human dimension of Russian-Japanese dialogue in 1990's".
Korean Speech Contest 한국어 말하기 대회, 15 November 2019
The Centre for East Asian Studies of the University of Turku invites all students of the Korean language to participate in the 2019 Korean Speech Contest.
Asian Studies Days, "Science policies in Asia", 26 November 2019
Science and University Policies in Asia: How Asian countries are building state capacity and sustainability through science and education. Keynote presentations from Christian Göbel, Professor, Department of East Asian Studies, University of Vienna and Ma. Assunta Caoile-Cuyegkeng, Professor, Director of ASEAN University Network (AUN) Thematic Network on Ecological Education and Culture (AUN-EEC), Ateneo de Manila University, the Philippines.
This year, the goal of the Asian Studies Days is to discuss science and university policies in Asian countries. In addition to recent trends, the topics deal with the prospects and challenges in the implementation of those policies, both in domestic and global context. This event will deepen our understanding of the specific features in the academic environment in Asia: what should we be aware of when pursuing cooperation with Asian actors. The discussions will help to develop realistic and sustainable cooperation with Asian countries in the field of science, education and technology.