External links
- Association for Asian Studies
- Association for Asian Studies at the Wayback Machine (archive index)
The Association for Asian Studies (AAS) is a scholarly, non-political and non-profit professional association focusing on Asia and the study of Asia. It is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States.
The Association provides members with an Annual Conference (a large conference of 3,000+ normally based in North America each spring), publications, regional conferences, and other activities.
Shortly after World War I, the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation, gave Mortimer Graves a mandate to develop Chinese studies. [1] Kenneth Scott Latourette would recall in 1955 the "people of the United States and those who led them knew little of the peoples and cultures of the Far East" and that was "in spite of political, commercial and cultural commitments in the region and of events which already were hurrying them on into ever more intimate relations." [2] Graves worked with Arthur W. Hummel, Sr. of the Oriental Division of the Library of Congress, the Institute of Pacific Relations, the Harvard-Yenching Institute, the American Oriental Society, as well as with colleges, universities, and museums. [1] Twenty-eight people attended the first meeting of the planning group, which was held at the Harvard Club in New York in 1928, and further meetings were held over the next decade. In 1936, the group began publishing the Far Eastern Bibliography. On 6 June 1941 the Far Eastern Association was formed and issued The Far Eastern Quarterly as its organ, with Cyrus Peake as Managing Editor. [3] The Quarterly survived the war with the financial help that Kenneth W. Colgrove obtained from Northwestern University. [4] [5]
After the war, an organizational meeting of some 200 people was held at Columbia University on April 2, 1948, following the annual meeting of the American Oriental Society, to which many of the Far Eastern group belonged. The Constitution of the new group was drafted by Edwin O. Reischauer, Woodbridge Bingham, and Earl H. Pritchard. [6] The Association's inaugural president was Arthur W. Hummel, Sr. [4]
In 1956, the organization was renamed to the Association for Asian Studies to expand its scope to cover all areas of Asia, including South and Southeast Asia. [7] Attendance grew from 200 for the organizational meeting in 1948 to 605 at the first annual meeting in 1949 and to 2,434 in 1963. [8]
The organization was further restructured in 1970, when four elective area Councils were formed, representative of each of the four areas of Asia: South Asia (SAC), Southeast Asia (SEAC), China and Inner Asia (CIAC) and Northeast Asia (NEAC). The councils were formed so that each area of Asia could have a proportionate voice in the Association and on the Board of Directors. In 1977, a Council of Conferences (COC) was established both to co-ordinate the regional conferences held by the Association and to discover ways to better serve the needs of Asia studies scholars in various parts of the United States. Area library organizations have been formed for South Asia (CONSALD), South East Asia, and East Asia (CEAL).
World War II brought many academics into the government, some in the active military and some in the Office of War Information or the Office of Strategic Services, both of which were intelligence agencies which used academic disciplines and scholarly forms of analysis. When the war was over, political scientists, historians, and social scientists continued to be concerned with contemporary affairs. The Far Eastern Association reflected an Area studies approach, geographically grounded division of labor, rather than by academic discipline, with the association subdivided into East Asian, Southeast Asian, and South Asian Studies. (In the late 20th century, the field of Central and Inner Asia was added.) The Ford Foundation provided money and co-ordination to area studies centers, which, in turn, supported the AAS. [9]
Some members were critical. Bruce Cumings, writing in the Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars , charged that for the AAS to participate in this way of funding scholarship on Asia led to confusing academic research and government intelligence work. He further argued that the areas studies approach in general emphasized contemporary social science theory, not the classic approaches of Oriental studies, which used philology and studied ancient civilizations. Cumings called that an "implicit Faustian bargain." [10]
In the 1960s, some members agitated for the AAS to express opposition to American involvement in Vietnam. AAS President William Theodore de Bary called for the organization to take a position on the war that was "nonpolitical but not unconcerned." The active opposition to the war was left to the much smaller Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars. [11]
Each spring, the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) holds a four-day conference devoted to planned programs of scholarly papers, roundtable discussions, workshops, and panel sessions on a wide range of issues in research and teaching, and on Asian affairs in general. The 2013 Conference was held in San Diego; Philadelphia (March 27–30, 2014); Chicago (March 26–29, 2015); Seattle (March 31–April 3, 2016); Toronto (March 16–19, 2017); Washington, D.C (March 22–25, 2018).
The AAS administers and awards a number of prizes: [12]
Ananda Kentish Muthu Coomaraswamy was a Ceylonese metaphysician, historian and a philosopher of Indian art who was an early interpreter of Indian culture to the West. In particular, he is described as "the groundbreaking theorist who was largely responsible for introducing ancient Indian art to the West".
Bruce Cumings is an American historian of East Asia, professor, lecturer and author. He is the Gustavus F. and Ann M. Swift Distinguished Service Professor in History, and the former chair of the history department at the University of Chicago. He formerly taught at Northwestern University and the University of Washington. He specializes in modern Korean history and contemporary international relations.
Kenneth Scott Latourette was an American Baptist minister and historian, specialized in Chinese studies, Japanese studies, and the history of Christianity. His formative experiences as a Christian missionary and educator in early 20th-century Imperial China shaped his life's work. Although he did not learn the Chinese language, he became known for his study of the history of China, the history of Japan, his magisterial scholarly surveys on world Christianity, and of American relations with East Asia.
The Journal of Asian Studies is the flagship journal of the Association for Asian Studies, publishing peer-reviewed academic scholarship in the field of Asian studies. With an acceptance rate of approximately 6%, it upholds rigorous standards in the evaluation and publication of scholarly research. Each issue of the Journal of Asian Studies circulates over 8,200 copies, reaching a readership across the academic community and beyond.
Lothar Ledderose is a German professor of the History of Art of Eastern Asia at the University of Heidelberg. A renowned authority in his field, he received the prestigious Balzan Prize in 2005.
James B. Palais was an American historian, Koreanist, and writer. He served as Professor of Korean History at the University of Washington; and he was a key figure in establishing Korean studies in the United States.
Frederic Evans Wakeman Jr. was an American scholar of East Asian history and Professor of History at University of California, Berkeley. He served as president of the American Historical Association and of the Social Science Research Council. Jonathan D. Spence said of Wakeman that he was an evocative writer who chose, "like the novelist he really wanted to be, stories that split into different currents and swept the reader along," adding that he was "quite simply the best modern Chinese historian of the last 30 years."
Lucien André Bianco is a French historian and sinologist specializing in the history of the Chinese peasantry in the twentieth century. He is the author of a reference book on the origins of the Chinese Communist Revolution and has co-edited the book China in the twentieth century. His Peasants without the Party was awarded the Association for Asian Studies Joseph Levenson Book Prize in 2003.
Joseph Richmond Levenson was a scholar of Chinese history and Jane K. Sather Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley.
The Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) is a scholarly society "dedicated to the advancement of knowledge about Central Asia, the Caucasus, Russia, and Eastern Europe in regional and global contexts." The ASEEES supports teaching, research, and publication relating to the peoples and territories within this area.
Thongchai Winichakul, is a Thai historian and researcher of Southeast Asian studies. He is professor emeritus of Southeast Asian history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and a chief senior researcher at the Japanese Institute of Developing Economies. He was the president for the Association for Asian Studies in 2013. He has had a major impact on the concept of Thai nationalism.
John Whitney Hall was an American historian of Japan who specialized in premodern Japanese history. His life work was recognized by the Japanese government, which awarded him the Order of the Sacred Treasure.
Earl H. Pritchard was an American scholar of China and one of the founders of the Association for Asian Studies and served as its president.
Founded in 1981, the American Journalism Historians Association (AJHA) seeks to advance education and research in mass communication history. Through its annual meeting, regional conferences, committees, awards, speakers and publications, members work to raise historical standards and ensure that all scholars and students recognize the vast importance of media history and apply this knowledge to the advancement of society.
Indian Mathematical Society (IMS) is the oldest organization in India devoted to the promotion of study and research in mathematics. The Society was founded in April 1907 by V. Ramaswami Aiyar with its headquarters at Pune. The Society started its activities under the tentatively proposed name Analytic Club and the name was soon changed to Indian Mathematical Club. After the adoption of a new constitution in 1910, the society acquired its present name, namely, the Indian Mathematical Society. The first president of the Society was B. Hanumantha Rao.
The John Whitney Hall Book Prize has been awarded annually since 1994 by the Association for Asian Studies (AAS). Pioneer Japanese studies scholar John Whitney Hall is commemorated in the name of this prize.
The James B. Palais Book Prize has been awarded annually since 2010 by the Association for Asian Studies (AAS). Pioneer Korean studies scholar James Palais is commemorated in the name of this prize.
The Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS) is a scholarly society established in 1974. MELUS publishes a quarterly academic journal, MELUS. The aim of the Society is "to expand the definition of American literature through the study and teaching of Latino American, Native American, African-American, Asian and Pacific American, and ethnically specific Euro-American literary works, their authors, and their cultural contexts".
Patricia Buckley Ebrey is an American art historian and sinologist specializing in cultural and gender issues during the Chinese Song Dynasty. Ebrey obtained her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Chicago in 1968 and her Masters and PhD from Columbia University in 1970 and 1975, respectively. Upon receiving her PhD, Ebrey was hired as visiting assistant professor at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She became an associate professor in 1982 and a full professor three years later. Subsequently, in 1997, she accepted a Professor of History position at the University of Washington, from which she retired in July 2020. She's now Professor Emerita of History at that institution.
Joseph Levenson Book Prize is awarded each year in memory of Joseph R. Levenson by the Association for Asian Studies to two English-language books, one whose main focus is on China before 1900 and the other for works on post-1900 China. According to the association, the prize criterion is whether the book is "the greatest contribution to increasing understanding of the history, culture, society, politics, or economy of China." While the association does not limit the discipline or period of the work, it won't consider anthologies, edited works, and pamphlets. Based on the scholarly interests of Levenson, the association gives special consideration to books that "promote the relevance of scholarship on China to the wider world of intellectual discourse."
