Published: March 14, 2014

The is right around the corner. Held in Philadelphia, the conference will include more than 1,800 Asian studies scholars, including a number from CU Boulder, who work on topics as diverse as the role of family in the visual culture of medieval East Asian Buddhism to masculinities and femininities in the Indonesian Islamic revival. This year’s keynote speakers are Dr. Lung Yingtai, the Minister of Culture of Taiwan, who will present a talk entitled “One of Those Sunny Days – Challenges to a Minister of Culture;” Dr. Thongchai Winichakul, President of AAS, who will present a talk entitled “Asian Studies across Academies;” and Pankaj Mishra, a writer, who will present a talk entitled “Asia in the ‘Post-Western’ World: A View from Outside the Academy.” As the conference that boasts of the largest gathering of Asianists, this year’s AAS annual conference is sure to be a weekend full of high-quality scholarship that challenges the ways scholars view their own and other areas, providing new avenues of research in the rapidly-developing field of Asian studies.

For a full conference program, please click .

Rachel Fleming, a PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology, will participate on a panel entitled “Family, Gender, and Generation across Asia, Part 2: Generation Gaps, New Lifestyles, and Families Navigating Tradition and Modernity,” chaired by Bonnie Tiland of the University of Washington. Fleming’s talk is entitled “Friendships in the Workplace as New Intimate Networks for Professional Women in Bangalore, India.” She will be joined by Michael Chan of Yale University, Esther Horat of the Max-Planck-Institut, and Bonnie Tilland of the University of Washington, as well as a discussang, Srirupa Prasad of the University of Missouri at Columbia.

Keller Kimbrough, Associate Professor of Japanese in the Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations, will serve as a discussant on a roundtable panel entitled “The Future of Japanese Studies in the US – Challenges and Opportunities,” which is chaired by Daniel Botsman of Yale University. Professor Kimbrough will be joined by Mari Noda of Ohio State University, Eiko Maruko Siniawer of Williams College, Duncan Ryuken Williams of the University of Southern California, and Sabine Fruhstuck of the University of California Santa Barbara. This roundtable is sponsored by The Japan Foundation.

Faye Kleeman, Associate Professor of Japanese in the Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations, will chair and serve as a discussant on a panel entitled “The Remembering and Forgetting of ‘Gaichi’: Japanese Postwar Memory of Former Colonies.” She will be joined by Miya Qiong Xie of Harvard University, Hiroko Matsuzaki of the University of California at Santa Barbara, and Satoru Hashimoto of Harvard University.

Terry Kleeman, Associate Professor of Chinese in the Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations, will participate on a panel entitled “Changing Fate: Religious Responses to Destiny in Early Medieval China,” which is chaired by Mark Csikszentmihalyi of the University of California at Berkeley. Professor Kleeman’s talk is entitled “Salvation and Calamity in a Medieval Daoist Sex Rite: The Merging of Pneumas Ritual Reconsidered.” He will be joined by Robert Campany of Vanderbilt University.

Travis Klingberg, PhD Candidate in the Department of Geography, will participate on a panel entitled “Territorial Classification, State Power, and National Identity in China’s Periphery,” chaired by Michael Hathaway of Simon Fraser University. Klingberg’s paper is entitled “On Bodily Knowledge and the Territorialization of Shangri-La.” He will be joined by Jonathan Schlesinger of Indiana University, Xiaobo Su of the University of Oregon, and Afton Clarke-Sather of the University of Deleware.

Ariana Maki, Associate Curator of Asian Art at the CU Art Museum, will chair and serve as a discussant on the panel entitled “Presenting the Past: Contemporary Perpective on Bhutanese Art and Society.” She is presenting a talk entitled “Authenticating Art: Iconography and Identity Construction in 16th-Century Bhutan. She will be joined by Kuenga Wangmo, an independent scholar; Dorji Penjore of Australian National University; and Dendup Chophel of the Centre for Bhutan Studies.

Antje Richter, Assistant Professor of Chinese in the Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations, will present a paper as part of a panel entitled “Between Remembrance and Amnesia: The Making of Memory in Medieval China,” which is chaired by Joe Cutter of Arizona State University. Professor Richter’s paper is entitled “Creating Memory in Medieval Letter Writing.” She will be joined by Christopher Nugent of Williams College, Meow Hui Goh of Ohio State University, and Jessey J.C. Choo of Rutgers University.

Laurel Rasplica Rodd, Professor of Japanese in the Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations, will serve as a discussant on a rountable panel entitled “Collaboration in the Translation of Japanese Literature: Author and Translator Partnerships after the 3.11 Disasters and Beyond.” This roundtable is chaired by Joan Ericson of Colorado College, and Professor Rodd will be joined by Amy Vladeck Heinrich of Colombia University, Stephen B. Snyder of Middlebury College, and Fujiko Suda of the Archaeological Society of Miyagi Prefecture. This panel is sponsored by the American Association of Teachers of Japanese (AATJ) based at CU.

Timothy Weston, Associate Professor in the Department of History and Associate Director of the Center for Asian Studies, will present a paper on a panel entitled “Forging a New Political Culture: Spaces of Intellectual Production in Republican China,” chaired by Wen-hsin Yeh of the University of California at Berkeley. Professor Weston’s paper is entitled “When the Reporter is the Story: The Murder of Journalists in Republican China.” He will be joined by Lisa Claypool of the University of Alberta and Peter G. Zarrow of the University of Connecticut.

Emily Ting Yeh, Associate Professor of the Department of Geography, will present on a panel entitled “Model Villages and Communities – The Politics of Imagined Palce: Genealogies, Part I.” Professor Yeh’s paper is entitlted “‘Going West’ and ‘Going Out’: Models from Elsewhere in Chinese Development.” She will be joined by Michael Ellenberg of Aarhus University, Erin Collins of the University of California at Berkeley, and David Bray at the University of Sydney.

Marcia Yonemoto, Associate Professor in the Department of History, will serve as the discussant on a panel entitled “Reading Heian Writers through the Pleasure Quarters,” chaired by Gergana Ivanova of the University of Cincinnati. Professor Yonemoto will be joined by Joshua S. Mostow of the University of British Columbia, Michael Emmerich of the University of California at Los Angeles, and Ewa Machotka of Leiden University.

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