Ballot for the ASA Executive Committee

Candidates

1. Jason Eng Hun Lee

Bio

Jason Eng Hun Lee is currently a Senior Lecturer in the Academy of Language and Culture at Hong Kong Baptist University, which he joined in 2013 after completing a PhD from The University of Hong Kong. A scholar, creative writer, performer and community advocate, his research and practice fields encompass global Shakespeares, postcolonial and diasporic Asian writing, performance studies, and creative pedagogy. His articles have been published in Shakespeare, Textual Practice, The Journal of Postcolonial Writing and Wasafiri. His current research project locates the “techno-cultural mobility” of text, performance, film, games and other digital artifacts across Asian Shakespeares. As a creative writer/performer, he has featured internationally in festivals across the UK, Singapore and Hong Kong. He has authored the poetry collection Beds in the East (2019) and is the literary editor for Postcolonial Text and chief organizer for the OutLoud HK poetry collective. He regularly convenes seminars, panels and workshops for academic conferences as well as literary and arts festivals across the Asia-Pacific region. He joined the ASA in 2018.

Statement

I’ve been a regular attendee of the ASA since 2018, when I started to expand my primary research field in postcolonial studies to cover Shakespearean adaptations and performances in Asia. As a long-term Shakespeare instructor with a predominantly practice-based background, I was particularly impressed by the diverse make-up of the ASA, the camaraderie amongst its membership, and the fact that delegates were so committed to pushing Shakespeare beyond conventional scholarship by redeploying him in ways that speak to the immediate context of living and working in Asia. In joining the ASA Committee, I’d look to bring in fresh impetus to the organization, in particular, by leveraging my experience in working with community partners, artist groups and non-academic units to increase the visibility of the ASA, and to promote it to these partners and their respective publics. Beyond my role in the academic community, I’m especially looking forward to growing further synergies between the ASA and the Hong Kong International Shakespeare Festival for the 2026 conference, working towards our mutual goal of fostering greater accessibility, cross-disciplinary networks and Shakespearean exchanges at the pan-Asian level.

2. Ted Motohashi

Bio

Ted Motohashi, a founding member of the ASA, is Professor of Cultural Studies at the Tokyo University of Economics. He received his D.Phil. in Literature from the University of York, UK in 1995. He is the incumbent president of the Japan Section of the International Association of Theatre Critics. His publications include several books on drama, cultural and postcolonial studies, and most recently ‘“Our Perdita is found”: The Politics of Trust and Risk in The Winter’s Tale’ in Shakespeare and the Political edited by Rita Banerjee and Yilin Chen (Bloomsbury, 2024). He is a leading translator into Japanese of works by Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak, Judith Butler, Noam Chomsky, Arundhati Roy, among others.

Statement

I am proud to have been one of the core members of the ASA since its inception in 2013, and since then thanks to your indefatigable comradeship l have always enjoyed being a humble member of this wonderfully productive and joyfully friendly community of “Asian” Shakespeareans. I think I can say with some confidence that I have been continuously supporting ASA’s visions fully within my limited capacity, being a part of its internal and external growth, and I am determined to commit to its further development in many years to come. Let me then summarize below my visions for its future in five main points. First, if I am allowed to further serve this association as one of the Executive Committee members, I am very keen to take a leading role after Hong Kong Conference in 2026. That means, I would like to take an initiative in organizing the ASA conference in Tsukuba (Japan) in 2028 with Yukari Yoshiwara and other excellent colleagues in Japan. Second, I would like to enhance the synergy of our inherent diversity in Asian Shakespeares by encouraging new participants in the conference. Related to this aim, l believe that we constantly need to renew leadership and representation among our international community. Hence, third, if elected, I would take initiatives in nurturing the next generations of Asian Shakespeareans and help with implementing democratic processes for electing the ASA Executive Committee and its Chairperson. Fourth, to foster and maintain a closer-knit community among our members, I wish to play an active part in the regular seasonal online meetings of the Executive Committee and the annual General Assembly involving all the members. And finally, fifth, to reflect the changing needs of the membership and contexts of the ASA, I would help with the updating of the ASA Constitution. I am very happy to now have the time to contribute more actively to the indispensable works done by ASA and will stand behind it in every respect. Thank you very much for your sparing time to read this humble statement of mine.

3. Reto Thomas Edgar Winckler

Bio

Reto Thomas Edgar Winckler is Assistant Professor in the Department of English at City University of Hong Kong. Originally from Hamburg, Germany, he received his M.A. from the University of Hamburg. In 2018, he received his PhD from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Before coming to CityU in 2023, he served as an associate research fellow at South China Normal University in Guangzhou, China from 2020 to 2023. Starting with his M.A. on the philosophical implications of Shakespearean folly, Reto has been interested in Shakespeare’s works and their intersection with contemporary philosophy and media forms. He has also written on migration, adaptation theory, sitcom, nostalgia and the connections between literature and television series. His articles have been published in Journal of Popular Culture, Texas Studies of Literature and Language, Shakespeare, The Journal of Adaptation in Film and Performance, Cahiers Élisabéthains, and Adaptation. He is on the editorial boards of Shakespeare and Adaptation.

Statement

I have been a member of the ASA since 2016, when I attended the conference in New Delhi, and have attended every conference since then. The ASA conferences have always struck me as exceptionally vibrant forums for scholarly and creative exchanges on Shakespeare in all its forms. To my mind, much of that vibrancy is due to the conferences being genuinely inclusive, in that academic rank is not a factor and student papers are attended to with the same degree of seriousness and consideration as the keynotes. This inclusive spirit is something I would like to promote further going forward as a board member, in particular by continuing to find ways to support young students and scholars from across Asia to participate in the conferences and become active parts of the ASA community. In addition, I believe that the ASA would greatly profit from continuing to provide room for both the study of Asian Shakespeares and the study of Shakespeare in Asia, as well as from maintaining a consistent dual focus on Shakespeare in performance on the one hand and textual and conceptual forms of scholarship on the other. As a board member who is working chiefly on the latter, I would work to integrate and strengthen these strands within the ASA and in the 2026 conference I am co-organizing in Hong Kong together with Jason Lee.