Travelling Theory, Reshaping Disciplines? Envisioning Asian Germany through Asian Australian Studies

Abstract

This article explores the possibility of creating an Asian German Studies by exploring the ‘coming into being’ of Asian Australian studies as an academic discipline. I suggest that such a transdisciplinary, transnational dialogue might draw attention to the ways in which disciplines are created and the (nationally and culturally specific) obstacles with which their institutionalisation has to contend. An Asian German Studies might be situated at the intersection of Asian diasporic studies and intercultural German studies, and in a dialogic relationship with fields such as Asian Australian Studies which have only recently gained a secure foothold in academic institutions and, in their turn, been made possible through a dialogue with already established fields such as Asian Canadian Studies. It is these theoretical considerations that the article seeks to map onto the study of two examples from German popular culture and ‘Asian German’ literature, respectively.