CALA2020

Call for Papers

Themes Asian Text, Global Context

The CALA 2020, in February 2020, in Bintulu, Sarawak Land of the Hornbills, Malaysia, will follow on from the success of the CALA 2019 in January 2019, in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The CALA 2020 will thus expand on work on Asian Linguistic Anthropology, as well as Asian Language and Society. Here, the world’s prominent Linguistic Anthropologists will gather to discuss work on Linguistics, Anthropology, and Language and Society, in and of Asia, and beyond.

With an increased focus on the significance of Asian Language and society, the Annual CALA Conference has emerged at an appropriate time, allowing academics from the West to tap into, and work with, Academia in the East. Scholars in institutions throughout Asia have increasingly affiliated with the CALA network, as have those in Western contexts, to explore the vast possibilities of the Conference on Asian Linguistic Anthropology, academically, and socioculturally, where the CALA network has now well contributed and has significantly boosted research, publications, and academic networks, globally.

Themed Asian Text, Global Context, The CALA 2020 will represent over 300 years of East-West global interaction, communication, and transnationalism. Throughout, symbolisms of Asian ‘texts’ have been significantly emphasized, (re)interpreted, contested, and distorted, while employed for cultural and political purpose. Asian texts have become highly representational, authenticating, and legitimizing sociopolitical and cultural devices, and their potency should not be underestimated. Never have these texts shown more significance than in the present, as their intensified use, and their qualities in Asian identities long contested, seek this Linguistic Anthropological exploration.

The Asian text has thus become iconic, symbolic, and indexical, in that, as a verbal, non-verbal, and visual artifact, it encompasses the whole semiotic spectrum of that which is performatively Asian, and distinct from the Non-Asian, yet a text which can interlink the East and the West, through a multitude of textual modes. The continuous recentralization and recontextualization of Asian texts, both locally and globally, have hence become vital to representations of Asia, Linguistically, Anthropologically, Socioculturally, Politically, and much more.

The CALA 2020 thus calls for renewed interpretations of Asian texts, and asks that we seek new perspectives of these complex texts, in global contexts. These interpretations increase in significance as; return migration to Asia is now a salient factor in transnational flows; online texts and their textual modes now compete ever more enthusiastically to effect disjunctures in previously Western dominated technologies; ontological conceptions of life and social interaction now increasingly draw from Asian philosophies, sociocultural models, lifeworlds, and Asian urban anthropologies, thus producing interstices for new or revised textual and textualized semiotics; the entangled complexities and intersubjectivities of political, sociocultural, and religious practices and their constraints motivate engagements in interfaith dialogue, shifting ethnic demarcations, and sociopolitical interventions. Ultimately, the massive sets of Eastern demographics, and their expansive set of social dynamics, models, and praxis, continue to uniquely inform and complexify productions of Asian texts, in both local and in global contexts.

Location

Universiti Putra Malaysia Bintulu Campus 

Bintulu, Sarawak 

Malaysia 

Chronology 

Abstract and poster proposal submission

Opens: May 23, 2019 at midnight

Closes: Aug 9, 2019 at midnight

Notification of acceptance

No later than Sep 10, 2019 at midnight

Registration

Early bird registration 

Opens: March 10, 2019 at midnight (UTC Time)  

Closes: June 14, 2019 at midnight (UTC Time)

Normal bird registration 

Opens: June 15, 2019 at midnight (UTC Time) 

Closes: September 25, 2019 at midnight (UTC Time)

Presenters will need to have registered for The CALA by no later than September 25 2019, midnight (UTC Time), to guarantee a place in the program. Registration will remain open after this date, but the conference organizers can not guarantee placement in the conference.

Late bird registration 

Opens: September 26, 2019 at midnight (UTC Time) 

Closes: February 8, 2020 (Conference end)

Dates 

Day 1: Wednesday February 5, 2020 

Day 2: Thursday February 6, 2020 

Day 3: Friday February 7, 2020 

Day 4: Saturday February 8, 2020 – Full day of optional cultural tour (separate cost)

Submissions Presentation lengths 

Submitters must plan around the following:

1. Colloquia – 1.5 hours with 3-5 contributors (Part A and B is possible, thus 6-10 contributors)
2. General paper sessions – Approx. 20-25 minutes each, which includes 5 minutes for questions/responses
3. Posters – to be displayed at designated times throughout the CALA

Fees Students/Affiliates: 

Early Bird: USD 140 

Regular Bird: USD 170 

Late Bird/On-site: USD 200

Others: 

Early Bird: USD 170 

Regular Bird: USD 210 

Late Bird/On-site: USD 250

Excursion: USD 60

The conference fee includes daily buffet lunch, morning and afternoon break refreshments, and one buffet dinner with a cultural show. The conference hotel, and most hotels in Bintulu, Sarawak where participants may choose to stay, will include a breakfast buffet with the room rate. The 8th February optional anthropological program is priced separately.