Apply by December 15, 2023 to become a Conference Mentor at AAS 2024 next March!* The AAS Conference Mentor Program connects early career Asianists with advanced scholars, teachers, and professionals to both build their professional network and seek advice and informal guidance within a structured setting.  Mentors will lead an open-ended discussion with a group of no more than nine individuals on a variety of topics. We are now accepting applications from potential mentors willing to devote 60 minutes to group mentoring sessions on a variety of topics. Suggested topics include:  Ge ..read more

The Association for Asian Studies Board of Directors (BOD) met for its Fall 2023 meeting in Ann Arbor, Michigan on October 9 (with one BOD member joining via Zoom). After approving the minutes from its Summer 2023 meeting, the BOD carried out a full day of discussion about current AAS programs and issues. Below, please find a summary of the votes taken by the Board at its meeting. A key concern running throughout the day’s conversations was the state of AAS finances. Over the past decade or more, both operational and program costs have risen, while revenue has stayed flat or declined. As a re ..read more

In August 2023, the Subcommittee on Japanese Rare Books, Committee on Japanese Materials within the AAS Council on East Asian Libraries (CEAL), organized a three-day workshop in collaboration with the National Museum of Asian Art and the Asian Division of the Library of Congress. Supported by the Toshiba International Foundation and AAS, “The 2023 Japanese Rare Book Workshop on Edo Printed Books” provided participants with the opportunity to increase their knowledge of printing culture during the Edo period. Professor Takahiro Sasaki of Shido Bunko, Keio University, led the group of 22 librari ..read more

The AAS Program Committee seeks session chairs for the 2024 Annual Conference. Please consider volunteering as a chair for an Individual Paper Session. Volunteer session opportunities are available only for the in-person conference in Seattle. The Program Committee is responsible for creating sessions for individually submitted papers accepted to the program. Serving as a chair for Program Committee-formed sessions can help establish valuable connections to a new group of scholars that you may not have otherwise met. This opportunity is open to anyone selected to participate on a session, as ..read more

Sharifah Munirah Alatas is a scholar and author whose writings focus on Malaysian politics, civil society, good governance, higher education reform and the future direction of universities. In late 2023, AAS Publications will release Reform and Nation Building: Essays on Socio-Political Transformation in Malaysia, an Asia Shorts collection of articles by Alatas that discuss recent elections, higher education, and prospects for the country’s future. Delving into the far-reaching consequences of corruption, identity politics, failed reforms, and short-sighted attempts to imitate foreign models ..read more

In the spring of 1970, the Association for Asian Studies Board of Directors issued a statement committing the organization to a new expanded emphasis on pre-collegiate education. Moving beyond the annual conferences and journal issues that had characterized the bulk of AAS activity in its first two decades of existence, the Board sought “to promote interest in the scholarly study of Asia” by encouraging the spread of Asian Studies in secondary classrooms. It created a Committee on Secondary Education (now the Committee on Teaching about Asia), convened educators at conferences, and established ..read more

Please Note: Due to an administrative oversight, the names of these student paper prize winners were not posted in 2022. We apologize to all honorees for the delay in publicizing their work! We congratulate all the student paper prize winners who presented at AAS regional conferences in 2022. In recognition of their accomplishments, the Council of Conferences (CoC) has awarded these scholars a free one-year student membership in the AAS. Asian Studies Conference Japan (ASCJ) Junxiao Leng (University of Tokyo), “Isolation, Connection, Isolation: Narrating Traumas in Japan’s Flower Dem ..read more

The Association for Asian Studies is pleased to announce that we will pilot a dissertation workshop at the upcoming 2024 Seattle Annual Conference, thanks to seed funding from the Henry Luce Foundation. To ensure thematic coherence, the workshop will be organized around “Global China: China’s Interactions Across and Beyond Asia.” We thus seek students who are focusing on this theme for the 2024 workshop. The East and Inner Asia Council (EIAC) will be spearheading this effort and taking the lead in selecting the students who will participate.   Please note that while this pilot worksh ..read more

Tania Murray Li teaches at the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto; Pujo Semedi teaches at the Department of Anthropology at Gadjah Mada University. They are the co-authors of Plantation Life: Corporate Occupation in Indonesia’s Oil Palm Zone, published by Duke University Press, awarded Honorable Mention for the 2023 AAS George McT. Kahin Book Award. To begin with, please tell us what your book is about. Our book offers an ethnographic account of the forms of life that emerge in Indonesia’s plantation zone, to generate insights on the workings of global capitalism today. S ..read more

The Association for Asian Studies (AAS) is thrilled to announce the selection of two brand-new conference locations for its 2025 and 2026 Annual Conferences. In an effort to provide diverse and exciting settings for its members, the AAS has chosen Columbus, Ohio as the venue for its 2025 conference, and Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada for its 2026 conference. Columbus 2025 (March 13-16) The selection of Columbus, Ohio, as the 2025 conference location underscores the AAS’s commitment to embracing diversity and supporting member communities. With a strong support system for the LGBTQ+ commu ..read more