Description

Association for Asian Studies Recommendation for Discretionary Grant of $90,000 to the Association for Asian Studies to support two initiatives: “Developing South and Southeast Asian Connectivities across the Asian Studies Network,” and the “Global China Dissertation Workshops.”    This request to support travel for Asian scholars to AAS conferences in North America and Asia builds on several prior grants to the Association—for a summer workshop program on emerging fields (2015), a Timor Leste Studies initiative (2016), and launch of the Global Asias initiative (2020)—and to the Social Science Research Council for its partnership with AAS on dissertation workshops (most recent grant in 2018).     Funding for Asian scholars, particularly from underrepresented parts of the region, to attend AAS conferences in North America will complement the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency-sponsored project mentioned in the proposal, which only funds activities in Asia. The presence of these scholars will help build capacity and strengthen intellectual networks between Americans and Asians.      The Global China dissertation workshops will offer another opportunity, not covered under our grant to ACLS, for expanding the scope of China studies by providing junior scholars a mentored forum for exploring new ways of, and sites for, conducting research on China.   Current AAS President Jean Oi, a political scientist at Stanford; Tansen Sen, who directs the Center for Global Asia at NYU-Shanghai and works on China-India history; and Lehigh University’s Shellen Wu, current chair of the East and Inner Asia Council at AAS who works on transnational Asian history, have led workshop planning and design.   The travel grants for the “Connectivities” component, in the amount of $60,000 will cover Asian scholars’ participation at AAS conferences in 2024 and 2025.  Approximately $26,000 remains in the emerging fields grant account due to changes precipitated by the pandemic. AAS proposes to apply this balance toward the first session of the Global China dissertation workshop, to be held at AAS Seattle in March 2024.  The $30,000 remainder of the requested grant will fund the workshop’s second session at AAS Yogyakarta this coming summer.