On Friday, Dec. 1, the Asian and Asian American Studies Institute and history department at the University of Connecticut presented “New Approaches to Revolution, Gender, and the Nation in Asia and Beyond” at Walter Childs Wood Hall.
Three students presented their research at the workshop and displayed expertise in each area. The first speaker was Justin Theodra, a Ph.D. candidate from the political science department. He presented a sneak peek of his dissertation titled “Revolution and the ‘International’ Revisited: Towards a Non-Eurocentric Conception of the Indonesian ‘National’ Revolution.”
The Indonesian Revolution lasted from 1945 to 1949, during which the Republic of Indonesia fought against the colonial Dutch Empire. Theodra primarily focuses on how scholars define this particular revolution and how it compares to others that have been studied.
Theodra began by highlighting how the existing literature on the Indonesian Revolution, while helpful, is largely Eurocentric. He suggests that international relations theory can be used to reexamine history. During his presentation, he quoted Tan Malaka, a member of the minority radical left party during the time of the revolution. “It would be better for us to be atom-bombed than to win less than 100%,” Malaka once said. Theodra suggests that this quote emphasizes the need for a social justice revolution in Indonesia, not only a national revolution.
A national revolution “refers to one that leads to political independence without changing the social structures of the society in question,” Theorda described. Borrowing from international relations theory, he argues that this conception of the revolution resulted from an importation to understand social revolution Indonesian history. To further his argument, he posits that because of this Eurocentric view implicitly invokes what IR theorists call the “international.” Their definition has been highly contested and Theodra states that he believes alternative definitions should be used in the case of the Indonesian Revolution.
“It would be better for us to be atom-bombed than to win less than 100%”
Tan Malaka
The second speaker was Shuyu (Cindy) Guo, a Ph.D. candidate in UConn’s comparative literature and cultural studies program. Her presentation was titled, “Charlotte Smith and Xiao Hong’s Elegiac Poems: A Gendered Home and a (Re)gendered Society.” Guo compares and contrasts two poems, “Sonnet LXII” by Charlotte Smith and “Bitter Cup” by Xiao Hong. Guo explains that both poems describe the challenges and suffering of both women despite them being separated by nearly a century and countless miles. Guo states that “domestic trauma of women is somehow universal.”
Smith composed her sonnets describing her unhappy marriage, in which she had to leave her husband and earn a living for her children by writing poems. Her sonnet begins with a representation of a lonely wanderer to showcase internal turmoil. Her writing exacerbated her loneliness and sorrow from her separation, and Guo concludes the poem with the idea that “home is the source of her suffering,” a contradiction to the typical housewife role during the time.
Hong is more well-known for her novels “The Field of Life and Death,” “Ma Bole” and “Tales of Hulan River.” Yet her poem “Bitter Cup” encompasses her internal conflict as a wife to a husband who doesn’t love her. Guo describes the poem as a triangular relationship between two women and a man. The poem represents absolute submission as the defining characterist of a woman’s gender role, yet submission does not seem to satisfy the marriage. To make the poem more depressing, Guo states that for the speaker, “her partner’s mistakes became her punishments.”
The final speaker was Minju Lee, another Ph.D. candidate from the department of political science. Her presentation was titled, “Exploring the Statue of Peace’s Agency on Solidarity and Backlash for/against Women’s Rights: Feminist New Materialism (FNM) and Actor-Network Theory (ANT).” Lee co-authored her work with Chloe Kwak and San Lee.
The Statue of Peace is a memorial to all the victims of sexual slavery during the Japanese occupation of Korea during WWII. It is located in Seoul, right in front of the Japanese embassy. Those who were victims of sexual slavery were called “comfort women,” and the statue is of a girl sitting on a chair, with an empty one beside her. This is meant to represent both those who would abuse her and as a symbol of solidarity for all the victims.
Lee and her team examined how the statue has emitted its own sense of agency in the world, particularly how bodily interactions with the statue elicited a response from people to power relations in our society. An instance of bodily interactions that Lee mentioned was the fact that “We can see your own face on her’s [Statue of Peace],” demonstrating how connected individuals can feel to the statue. The responses that the statue draws out from people have varied, mostly based on how individuals feel about Japan’s lack of apology to the comfort women. Lee asked “Why do we want to protect her?” when mentioning occasions when passersby would clothe the statue during the winter, or wipe her “tears” when it has rained.
The three students illustrated their understanding of their respective research well, and presented them through different lenses that have either been ignored or unexplored by academics.