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Call for Papers – Arts and Culture in East Asia: Creative Practices and Their Marketization in a Global Perspective

Guest Editors: Svetlana Kharchenkova (Leiden University), Jun Fang (Northwestern University)

Contemporary East Asian societies have been a rich resource for sociological research, especially in the fields of politics and economics. However, sociologists have paid less attention to the arts and creative industries located in the East Asian context. Cultural products from East Asia, ranging from Japanese animation to K-pop and Chinese contemporary art, have gained global popularity over the past few decades. Though local art scenes possess distinct features as they are embedded in their historical and social contexts, they have also been increasingly globalized through technological developments and international collaborations. Such regional and global flows, as well as practices of producers, consumers and intermediaries in local cultural markets and creative industries, provide opportunities for empirical research and theory building.

This thematic series is dedicated to empirical studies exploring the art worlds and cultural markets in East Asia, including contemporary art, film, music, and other fields, and global circulation of East Asian cultural products. We seek sociologically informed papers from sociology and associated disciplines, e.g. anthropology and geography, that examine artistic and creative products and practices within a national context or situate them within comparative, regional, and transnational frameworks and flows. Papers can address the following themes (including but not limited to):

  • Cultural production, creative labor, and artistic careers
  • Market structures and practices of cultural intermediaries, including valorization, development of art scenes, and the role of the state 
  • Consumption of culture  

Scholars who are interested in submitting articles should send the title and abstract (approximately 800 words) to both guest editors by December 1, 2020. The abstract should articulate the research question, the methods used, and the main findings. The authors will be notified if their abstracts are selected by January 8, 2021. Full papers of the selected abstracts should be submitted for review by May 1, 2021. The issue is tentatively scheduled to be published in March 2022.

For questions, expressions of interest and to discuss your abstract prior to submission please contact the guest editors Svetlana Kharchenkova (s.s.kharchenkova@hum.leidenuniv.nl) and Jun Fang (philip.fang@u.northwestern.edu). We look forward to reading your submission.

The Journal of Chinese Sociology (JCS) is a peer-reviewed, open access journal sponsored by the Institute of Sociology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and published by the world-renowned publisher Springer Nature. As Chinese mainland’s first English-language journal in sociology, JCS strives to build a first-rate international platform for academic exchange and collaboration between Chinese sociologists and their overseas peers. This thematic series is part of a continuous effort of JCS to promote sociological research concerned with culture in China and other Asian societies to a global audience. A 2018 thematic series of JCS focuses on “Cultural Sociology and China,” guest-edited by Michèle Lamont and Amy Tsang.