Deterritorializing Artificial Intelligence: East Asia as Method

February 12–13, 2027
Washington University in St. Louis

What comes into view when East Asia is placed at the center of how we study artificial intelligence? This symposium traces how AI has been built and contested through transpacific circulations of knowledge, labor, capital, and infrastructure. Scholars across disciplines will discuss the histories, politics, technologies, and media cultures of AI, and consider how research grounded in East Asia can open up alternative ways of thinking about intelligence and automation.

Symposium Organizers

Uluğ Kuzuoğlu
Associate Professor of History and East Asian Languages and Cultures

Jianqing Chen
Assistant Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures and of Film and Media Studies

Participants

Qiaoyu Cai (Tsinghua University), Cynthia Xinyi Chen (WashU), Julian Junyuan Feng (Brown University), Zihan Feng (WashU), Xinyue Gao (WashU), Yingtian He (Tsinghua University), Qi Hong (University of Toronto), Hansun Hsiung (Durham University), Junting Huang (Binghamton University), David Humphrey (Michigan State University), Hyeok Hweon Kang (WashU), Ksenia Tatarchenko (Johns Hopkins University), and Zina Wang (UC Berkeley).

This event is sponsored by the Center for the Humanities, the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, the Department of History, the Medical Humanities program, and the Digital Intelligence & Innovation (DI²) Accelerator.

For questions, please reach out to the organizing committee at eastasia-ai@wustl.edu.