The Association for Asian Studies Board of Directors has joined with more than twenty other academic groups and learned societies in co-signing the statement below, originally authored and issued by the American Historical Association (AHA). Approved by AHA Council, May 2024 The American Historical Association, three-fourths of whose members are either faculty, staff, or students at institutions of higher education, deplores recent decisions among college and university administrators to draw on local and state police forces to evict peaceful demonstrators. It is appropriate for universities t ..read more

Nicole Willock is Associate Professor at Old Dominion University and author of Lineages of the Literary: Tibetan Buddhist Polymaths of Socialist China, published by Columbia University Press and winner of the AAS 2024 E. Gene Smith Inner Asia Book Prize. To begin with, please tell us what your book is about. Lineages of the Literary is about how three Tibetan Buddhist scholars became intellectual heroes in the People’s Republic of China (P.R.C) after 1976. Collectively known as the “Three Polymaths,” Tséten Zhabdrung (1910-1985), Mugé Samten (1914-1993), and Dungkar Lozang Trinlé (1927-1997 ..read more

In workshops and industrial spaces across North India, artisans practiced their trades: tailoring and carpentry, lithography, stonemasonry, and electroplating. Throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, these skilled workers adapted to new tools and technologies, saw transmission of knowledge move from family workshops to technical schools, and dealt with the expanding presence of the British colonial state. In response to these new pressures and practices, one community among these craftspeople increasingly asserted a unique relationship to the work its members carried out. “From the ..read more

Joseph W. Esherick is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of California, San Diego and author of Accidental Holy Land: The Communist Revolution in Northwest China, published by University of California Press and winner of the 2024 AAS post-1900 Levenson Press honorary mention. To begin with, please tell us what your book is about. The book is about the origins of the Communist revolution in Northwest China. More specifically, it is a longue durée social history of the origins of the Shaan-Gan-Ning Border Region. With Yan’an as its capital, Shaan-Gan-Ning became China’s “revolution ..read more

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