Moving Objects: Modes of Conveyance & the Making of Global Asias

Applications are now closed. The symposium schedule and registration are now available.

Penn State’s Global Asias Initiative (GAI) and the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU (A/P/A) invite applications for a collaborative project on the varied modes of conveyance that facilitate the movements (of people, cultural objects, and materials) by which Global Asias come into existence. We are seeking a diverse group of participants for a linked set of opportunities: a spring 2026 symposium at NYU (scheduled for Friday, April 24) and a Convergence feature for a special issue of Verge: Studies in Global Asias.

In the call for Verge 13.2—a special issue on “Things That Matter: Materiality and the Making of Global Asias”—we ask potential contributors “to think with things to understand and/or map Global Asias world-making by looking at actant objects to discuss how Asians and non-Asians socially encountered, conceptualized, imagined, and sensed distant places, people, and cultures.” To support the work of this issue, this set of projects on moving objects encourages us to direct critical attention to the material infrastructures that enable conveyance from one location to others. What are the objects, vehicles, and vessels of migration, circulation, and exchange that connect Asians to one another and to others? What are the platforms and material environments through which Global Asias are built? How do cultural and political representations of such moving objects serve to make diasporic passages possible? How are such passages re-routed with the arrival of new modes and technologies of travel and transit? How do moving objects shape the national, ethnic, racial, and religious subjectivities of those who inhabit Global Asias? What cultural and political meanings attach to the objects of movement and the paths they take?

We welcome applications from artists and scholars who are interested in exploring the many moving objects that are fundamental to facilitating the movement that makes Global Asias possible. Such moving objects include boats, ships and other watercraft (canoes, steamers, dhows, cargo ships), trains, automobiles, jeepneys, rickshaws, planes, as well as less expected forms of conveyance: for example, balikbayan, cardboard boxes, and shipping containers.

Application Process

We are looking for collaborators who would like to participate in the symposium and also be willing to contribute a short response essay to the Convergence feature we are developing. We anticipate twenty-minute symposium presentations; response essays would be about 1500 words.

• To apply, please send a 500-700 word abstract describing your proposed contributions to the symposium and feature along with a two-page C.V. to verge@psu.edu by Friday, October 3, 2025.
• Inquiries and questions can be directed to Tina Chen (tina.chen@psu.edu) or Crystal Parikh (crystal.parikh@nyu.edu)