In partnership with Sweden, the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) has launched a four-year initiative to help reduce the social and economic vulnerabilities of Southeast and South Asian low and lower-middle-income countries. The “Cultivating the Humanities and Social Sciences and Supporting Under-Represented Scholars of Asia” (CHSS) project aims to strengthen the research capacity of underserved universities while enhancing the academic knowledge, research skills, experience, and resources of their scholars in the humanities and social sciences. One of the major components of this ..read more

Y-Dang Troeung was Associate Professor of English Language and Literatures at the University of British Columbia and author of Refugee Lifeworlds: The Afterlife of the Cold War in Cambodia, published by Temple University Press and recipient of the Honorable Mention for the 2024 AAS Harry J. Benda Prize (First book on Southeast Asian Studies). Y-Dang passed away in the fall of 2022; accepting the award on her behalf, and responding to the interview questions below, is her husband, Christopher B. Patterson. He is Associate Professor of Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice at the Universit ..read more

July 8, 2024 Universitas Gadjah Mada Yogyakarta, Indonesia Application deadline: May 1, 2024 Overview Migration is a distinctive behavior that affects all living creatures. Remains of homo sapiens dating back more than 200,000 years demonstrate that modern humans were already actively engaged in expansive travels across various parts of Africa. Whether caused by seasonal changes, food supply or various threats and predations, causes for human movements across various landscapes have increased throughout the centuries and have assumed greater complexity. While nomadism, commuting, and tourism a ..read more

Sudev Sheth In this interview, AAS Membership Manager Bill Warner speaks with historian Dr. Sudev Sheth, Senior Lecturer at the Lauder Institute at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, about his recent book Bankrolling Empire: Family Fortunes and Political Transformation in Mughal India (Cambridge University Press, 2024). The book focuses on the Jhaveri family in the western Indian province of Gujarat and explores the rise of finance in merchant family portfolios and its entanglement with Mughal state power and that of its successors. Drawing on materials in various South Asian lang ..read more

Shailaja Paik is Taft Distinguished Professor of History and Affiliate Faculty in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Asian Studies at the University of Cincinnati and author of The Vulgarity of Caste: Dalits, Sexuality, and Humanity in Modern India (Stanford University Press), winner of the 2024 AAS Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Book Prize. On the afternoon of July 14, 2016, we—Meena Javale, a Dalit (“Untouchable”) Tamasha woman in her early fifties; her sister Veena; their friend Rupali Jagtap; and I—were discussing the lives of women in Tamasha in Meena’s apartment in Somvar Peth-Pun ..read more

Featured Above: AAS staff members embracing Seattle with a smile! What a Week! We hope you had a fantastic time at the AAS Annual Conference in Seattle. AAS2024 was an opportunity to catch up with friends and make new ones during the engaging sessions and social events. Attendees got to participate in sessions, film screenings, social receptions, award ceremonies, and business meetings, as well as explore the latest Asian Studies publications, programs, and databases in the Exhibit Hall. Thursday The conference officially kicked off with the First Timer Attendee Orientation mode ..read more

The Association for Asian Studies is pleased to announce that we have received a grant of $90,000 from the Henry Luce Foundation to support the development of two initiatives: “South and Southeast Asian Connectivities across the Asian Studies Network” and the “Global China Dissertation Workshops.” Both programs will provide opportunities for emerging scholars based in Asia. This grant will enhance the Association’s ability to support Asianists of diverse backgrounds and work towards greater inclusivity in the field of Asian Studies. The first component of this project, “Developing South and So ..read more

The Association for Asian Studies is pleased to announce that the 2024 Gosling-Lim Postdoctoral Fellowship in Southeast Asian Studies has been awarded to Dr. Jefferson Lyndon D. Ragragio (University of the Phillippines, Los Baños) for his proposed project, “Mediated Populism: Reformatting Nationalism, Human Rights, and Journalism in the Philippines.” Dr. Ragragio will be based at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Michigan, where he will develop his dissertation about media and populism in the Philippines into a monograph. Dr. Ragragio&nbs ..read more

Christian de Pee is a Professor of History at the University of Michigan and author of Urban Life and Intellectual Crisis in Middle-Period China, 800-1100, which was published by Amsterdam University Press in 2022 and which has received an Honorable Mention for the 2024 AAS Joseph Levenson Prize (Pre-1900). To begin with, please tell us what your book is about. The book argues that during the eleventh century the urban streetscape emerged into writing. Literati of the Song Empire changed the geographic orientation of the literary genres they inherited from the Tang in order to make a place fo ..read more

The Board of Directors of the Association for Asian Studies, AAS Secretariat staff, and I would like to thank individuals and groups who contributed to the 2024 Annual Conference in Seattle. We are thrilled that 3,138 attendees (including 754 students), exhibitors, and staff joined us in Seattle. So many people and organizations helped to make the conference possible, and we are grateful for their time, talent, and assistance. Thanks first to the 2024 Program Committee: Chair Anne Gerritsen and Vice Chair Durba Ghosh; Tina Chen, Hsiao-Wen Cheng, Howard Chiang, and&nbs ..read more