Call for Papers: East Asian Student and Youth Movements in Comparative Perspective

Symposium Location: Chonnam National University, Gwangju, South Korea

Dates: May 18-19, 2026

 

Student activism has been a regular feature of twentieth and twenty-first century East Asia. From May Fourth in Beijing in 1919, to the widespread university protests in Japan in 1968, May 18 in Gwangju in 1980, the Wild Lily movement in 1990 Taiwan, and so many more examples, student activism has energized and propelled social change. While these cases have been studied, to date the focus of study has been primarily on the protests’ impact or lack thereof on the nation state. Although this is obviously of value, the various movements might also be productively examined in comparative light. This symposium aims to do just this, to explore student movements in China, Japan, Taiwan, and Korea in comparative perspective, and to analyze continuities and changes of each movement, as well as the hierarchy in terms of region, race, and gender. To do so, we invite scholars from diverse disciplines within the social sciences and humanities to contribute papers which illuminate the history and characteristics of the student movement in East Asia. The papers themselves do not have to be comparative across nation-state borders, but the presenter should be prepared to think in such terms.

Topics may include, but are not limited to the following:

·         Structures and hierarchies withing student protest organizations

·         Discrimination from within and without the movements

·         Conflicts and cooperation between radicals and moderates

·         Historical contexts

·         Religion and protest

·         Analysis of areas of success and/or failure

·         Impacts on social and policy changes

·         Differences and connections between historical events and the times when the movement unfolded

·         Intergenerational and regional linkage effects

·         Commonalities and differences of the student movement in non-Western regions

·         Causes of continuity and disconnection of the movement

·         Appropriateness of applying the concept of simultaneity to asynchrony

 

The symposium language will be English. Conference organizers will consider publication of select papers in an edited volume or journal. Funding is still being arranged, but participants can expect some level of support for their time at the conference, but not for travel to and from Gwangju.

 

Keynote speaker:

Dr. Ho-fung Hung, is the Henry M. and Elizabeth P. Wiesenfeld Professor in Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University, and author of Protest with Chinese Characteristics, The China Boom, and City on the Edge: Hong Kong under Chinese Rule, among others.

 

Co-organizers:

Dr. Hyung-Ju Kim, 5.18 Research Institute, Chonnam National University (achung2002@hanmail.net)

Dr. Jen-Shuo Hsu, Research Faculty of Media and Communication, Hokkaido University (hsujs@imc.hokudai.ac.jp)

Dr. Jeff Kyong-McClain, Habib Institute for Asian Studies, University of Idaho (jeffkm@uidaho.edu)

 

Submit a proposal: 250-word abstract and short cv by Oct. 20, 2025 to the May 18 Institute at Chonnam National University: cnu518@hanmail.net