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For the last ten years, the Trans Asia Photography Review, an open-access online refereed journal, has made a space for the examination of photography across the Asian region. It has made explicit the Eurocentricity of the study of photography; promoted the existence of alternative archives and their potential to bring to life new histories of photography; served as a venue for new voices; promoted the work of emerging scholars outside the Euro-American academy; and encouraged narratives beyond the nation. Looking forward, we want to continue these important aspects of the journal’s legacy. At the same time, we acknowledge that the framework of the journal—defined by the terms “Trans,” “Asia,” and “Photography”—has evolved and remains in flux. Thus, in the journal’s next phase, the first three issues will re-examine and shed new light on these key terms, as a way to shape the continuing investigation of this important nexus of photo practice. We hope these issues will then set a course for critical investigation and debate about photographic practice from across the Asian region for the coming years.
Spring 2021 (Edited by Thy Phu, Western University)200-word proposals and 100-word biographies due July 15, 20205000-7000-word research articles due October 1, 2020
This issue will focus on the term “Trans” and its impact in shaping the ways that Asian photography is seen and understood. In recent years, critics have developed the concept of the transpacific to investigate global Asia as an imaginary, a region, and geopolitical formation, established through militarization, financialization, and cultural exchanges. Such investigations bring to light possible transnational solidarities and transcultural connections. Though critics have shown the shortcomings of transpacific approaches in overlooking the specificities of indigenous experiences, the prefix remains generative. We invite writers to submit work that considers the critical potential of “trans” as a lens through which to reconsider the social lives and varied histories of Asian photography. Contributors might consider such issues as: the extent to which the concept of “trans” engages with and makes visible sexuality and gender formations across the region; how it might take up or challenge intercultural approaches; the relationship between transracial identity formation and transnational adoptions; the role of transmedia representations in making visible the geopolitical disparities of global Asia; and more.
Fall 2021 (Edited by Yi Gu, University of Toronto)200-word proposals and 100-word biographies due September 1, 20205000-7000-word research articles due January 15, 2020
This issue will focus on the term “Asia.” A geopolitical as well as imaginary entity, “Asia” has been adopted in recent scholarship as an anchor for decolonizing knowledge practice. Built on the collective call for “Asia as method” and the subsequent debates on both its potential and limit, this issue invites contributors to reflect on how the study of photography in/of Asia and its diaspora is imbricated in the complex formations of the idea of Asia. We welcome submissions that investigate and engage photography to shed new light on issues such as inter-Asian stratification and domination; global South solidarity; the impulse to regionalize Asia; and the uneven global network of photography.
Spring 2022 (Edited by Deepali Dewan, Royal Ontario Museum / University of Toronto)200-word proposals and 100-word biographies due March 5, 20215000-7000-word research articles due June 15, 2021
This issue will focus on the term “Photography.” Recent scholarship in photo studies has shown the instability of the photograph, both as a material object and as a concept. Photo practice within the Asian region has pointed to this instability from the beginnings of the medium through its close relationship with other media (e.g. paint), its uneven relationship with “reality,” its varying modes of signification beyond the indexical, and the ways in which the photographic may not even be a photograph, among others. We welcome submissions that examine the ways photography within Asia adds to our understanding of the nature of photography itself.
