International Conference: The Ambiguous Semantics of “Reeducation” in Transnational and Transhistorical Perspective (Online Participation is Possible)

International Conference: The Ambiguous Semantics of “Reeducation” in Transnational and Transhistorical Perspective (Online Participation is Possible)

Organizer
Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg
Venue
Amerikahaus + Online
ZIP
80333
Location
München
Country
Germany
From - Until
16.02.2022 - 18.02.2022
By
Connections Redaktion, Leipzig Research Centre Global Dynamics, Universität Leipzig

The conference takes as its point of departure an examination of US-American reeducation policies in Germany and Japan after World War II from a comparative and transnational perspective yet broadens the focus beyond this specific geographical constellation and beyond the period of the immediate postwar to problematize and discuss the concept of “reeducation” in a broader sense.

International Conference: The Ambiguous Semantics of “Reeducation” in Transnational and Transhistorical Perspective (Online Participation is Possible)

International Conference, February 16-18, 2022 at Amerikahaus Munich (Germany)

The conference takes as its point of departure an examination of US-American reeducation policies in Germany and Japan after World War II from a comparative and transnational perspective yet broadens the focus beyond this specific geographical constellation and beyond the period of the immediate postwar to problematize and discuss the concept of “reeducation” in a broader sense. This includes a rigorous investigation of power differentials and a nuanced analysis of intercultural encounters in occupied territories as well as in colonial and postcolonial settings. “Reeducation,” viewed in this light, describes various, at times incommensurable, ideas, norms, and practices, including strategies of democratization, emancipation, and empowerment but also, more often than not, different forms of violence (both physical and epistemic) and the use of force in occupation settings in order to control an indigenous population. Hence, the ambiguous and changing semantics of “reeducation” will be discussed as they appear in different functional areas of society – as part of political communication, as mass media phenomena, as institutional creeds, and as programmatic rhetoric appropriated by different actors and groups in civil society and military and para-military institutions. Studying “reeducation” can shed light on multidirectional influences and ramifications as well as point to the overt or more subtle paradoxes that the prescribed or voluntarily enacted (un)learning processes may entail. The focus on processes indicates that “reeducation” in its different shapes and guises is itself often both a vehicle and a product of transitions.

The conference opens with a keynote by Susan L. Carruthers (University of Warwick), titled “Re-education: The Imperial Pre-History and Afterlives of a Punitive/Pedagogical Conceit” on February 16, 5.30 pm (CET) that will be available via livestream.

To register, please send an e-mail to jana.aresin@fau.de. The conference will be conducted in a hybrid format with the majority of speakers present in Munich. There is a limited number of places available for guests who would like to join in person. In addition, guests can attend virtually and participate in the discussion. Please specify in your e-mail if you wish to attend in person or join virtually.

Programm

Wednesday, February 16, 2022
5 p.m. Opening by the Organizers
Welcoming Address by Meike Zwingenberger (Bavarian Center for Transatlantic Relations/Amerikahaus)

5.30 – 7 p.m. Keynote
Susan L. Carruthers (University of Warwick):
Re-education: The Imperial Pre-History and Afterlives of a Punitive/Pedagogical Conceit
Chair: Heike Paul (FAU)

7.30 p.m. Conference Dinner

Thursday, February 17, 2022

Panel 1: Colonization and Reeducation
Chair: Akino Oshiro (FAU)
9.30 – 10.15 a.m. Holger Droessler (Worcester Polytechnic Institute): The Americanizing Mission and the Politics of Incorporation in Eastern Sāmoa, 1900-1937
10.15 – 11 a.m. Federica Guazzini (Università per Stranieri): British Reeducation Policies in Occupied Eritrea: The Antinomies between the Quest for Democracy and Imperial Design

Coffee Break

11.30 a.m. – 12.15 p.m. Juan José Vélez-Peña: ‘Re-educational’ Policies and Coloniality in Puerto Rico: Folklorization and Whitening of Afroboricua Music
12.15 – 1 p.m. Christine de Matos (University of Notre Dame Australia): The Occupied Home as a Space of Re-education: Power, Democracy and Housekeeping Manuals

Lunch Break

Panel 2: The Global Entanglements of Post-World War II "Reeducation”
Chair: Katharina Gerund (FAU)
2.30 – 3.15 p.m. Ji Hee Jung (Seoul National University): Reeducation as an Inclusive Trope for Post-colonial Imperialism: Three Redemption Stories of Juvenile Vagrants in Transwar Transpacific
3.15 – 4 p.m. Alisa Freedman (University of Oregon): Occupied Exchange: A Student’s Guide to Surviving American Imperialism and Reeducation in the 1950s

Coffee Break

4.30 – 5.15 p.m. Birte Christ (University of Gießen): Rowohlt’s ‘Internalized’ Reeducation: American Novels and their German Framings in the RORORO Newspaper Format, 1946-1949
5.15 – 6 p.m. Sandra Schell (University of Heidelberg): Reeducation from a Literary Studies Perspective: Mediation Attempts in Margret Boveri’s Amerikafibel für erwachsene Deutsche (1946)

Friday, February 18, 2022

Panel 3: “Reeducation” in Contemporary Postcolonial and Post-Conflict Settings
Chair: Jana Aresin (FAU)
9.30 – 10.15 a.m. Greta Biro (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg): The State-Islamic Re-education of Transgender People in Malaysia
10.15 – 11 a.m. Sarah Sporys (Albert-Ludwigs University Freiburg): Reeducation, Liberation, Democratization, Nation-Building? The United States and Its Post-War Strategy in Iraq

Coffee Break

11.30 a.m. – 12.15 p.m. Björn Alpermann (University of Würzburg): Transforming the Ethnic “Other”: China’s Re-education Drive in Xinjiang

12.30 – 1.30 p.m. Keynote
Werner Sollors (Harvard University): ‘Everybody gets fragebogened sooner or later’: The Denazification Questionnaire as Cultural Text
Chair: Fabian Schäfer (FAU)

1.30 – 2.15 p.m. Concluding Discussion

Contact (announcement)

jana.aresin@fau.de

https://www.reeducation.phil.fau.de/activities/
Editors Information
Published on
28.01.2022