Registration Period: November 9th – December 1st, 2023

Registration Form : https://forms.gle/1GjYmMxh94LhcC4H6

The sea is a barrier that separates people, while also connecting them as a path that enables them to come and go freely. When we focus on the sea called “the Indian Ocean” and consider how the people living around it have imagined it and what it has brought to them, the inherent ambiguity of the sea also comes to the fore. Specifically, while the Indian Ocean has emerged as a barrier, it has also continued to play a rich role as a mediator.

The Indian Ocean World, stretching from Southeast Asia to India and Africa, is a place of exchange among different cultures and peoples, where ideas and philosophies influence each other, and many religions coexist. While previous studies have focused on individual countries and events in relation to adjacent regions, positioning the Indian Ocean World as a single cultural zone and viewing micro-phenomena from a macro- perspective will provide a new horizon of research.

In this symposium, we set up four sessions to consider the question of how literature, culture, thought, and language in Southeast Asia, India, and Africa are continuous or disconnected on the stage of the sea, which has the dual nature of barrier and mediator.

Just as organisms in the sea are dispersed by ocean currents and transformed into new forms when they arrive at new destinations, we would like to depict the various metamorphoses of literature, culture, thought, and language in the Indian Ocean World.