Current position: Professor

Institution/Affiliation: University of Hawaii-Manoa

Discipline: Government

Area or countries of interest: Philippines, Southeast Asia

Specialization or research interests: Southern Philippine politics, local power, illicit sectors, social histories from the peripheries and borderlands, negative comparisons

Publications

• Co-editor, The Marcos Era: A Reader (Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2022)
• Modern Philippines (ABC-Clio, 2022)
• Co-author, with Donna J. Amoroso, State and Society in the Philippines (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017)

Service to the Profession

• Committee member, AAS A.L. Becker Prize for Southeast Asian Literature in Translation (2021-2022)
• Committee Member, AAS Harry J. Benda Book Prize (2016-2018)
• Member, AAS Southeast Asia Council (2011-2014)

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

The steady decline of Southeast Asian Studies in the United States and its persistent minor presence in the rest of the Global North have been matched by a rise in academic interest in Southeast Asia in the region itself. The days of asking where the Southeast Asian voices are in Southeast Asian Studies are long gone; many of them have found a place in “ASEAN Studies.” The continuing and expanding interest in East Asia on “area studies” has also resulted in several collaborative ties among scholars in the two regions.

Some of our colleagues are already engaged in joint research with regional counterparts. The Association for Asian Studies needs to not only support these initiatives but must also be more institutionally involved in the ongoing conversations in the region. I will commit myself to this project, having been part of these network-building efforts during my ten years in Asia, where these conversations thrived among scholars unburdened by the tyranny of English.

Current position: Professor       

Institution/Affiliation: University of California, Berkeley

Discipline: Environmental Social Science

Area or countries of interest: Southeast Asia, Indonesia

Specialization or research interests: political ecology, forest and agrarian resource politics, small-scale gold mining, agrarian and environmental histories, property and access, territorialization, mobilities, migration, plantations

Publications

• Co-author, with Saturnino M. Borras Jr. et al., “Climate change and agrarian struggles: an invitation to contribute to a JPS Forum,” Journal of Peasant Studies 49 (2022): 1-28.
• “Entangled Territories in Small-scale Gold Mining Frontiers: Labor Practices, Property and Secrets in Indonesian Gold Country.” World Development 101 (2018): 400–416.
• Co-editor, with Christian Lund, New Frontiers of Land Control (Taylor and Francis, 2012)

Service to the Profession

• Chair, UC Berkeley Center for Southeast Asian Studies (2020-2023)
• Editorial Collective, Journal of Peasant Studies  (2009-2023)
• Series Editor, Cornell University Press, “On Land: New Perspectives on Territory, Environment and Development” (2017-present)

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

If elected as Vice President of the AAS, I would work to create pathways to intellectual and on-the-ground collaborations between scholars, scholar activists, and communities in the US and Asia. Given my own research engagements with environmental and agrarian change in Asia, I envision an emphasis on the explicit inclusion of social science and humanities-based knowledges in understanding key changes in the politics of environment. Assessing ourselves as knowledge producers and the sources of the knowledge we produce needs critical, on-going analysis. I hope to see the AAS provide opportunities for interdisciplinary scholarship in at least three ways. First, by encouraging interdisciplinary research between Asian Studies scholars of multiple disciplines and various environmental scientists. Second, by finding ways to expand interdisciplinary research collaborations between scholars and practitioners in Asian and US based institutions. Third, by supporting junior scholars and scholar activists who are using innovative research methods, concepts, and tools to explore histories, resource politics, and environmental change. For each of these pathways, we need to develop mechanisms to both include and foreground the importance of our own area studies skills and contributions. It is time to venture out of the ivory tower.  

I will bring to this endeavor over 40 years of commitment to grounded, critical, ethical research in Southeast Asia. I have studied and written extensively on agrarian and environmental change in the region, based on ethnographic-historical research in four provinces of Indonesia and collaborations with Southeast Asia scholars working in other countries. For the first half of my career, I focused on forest-based transformations and conflicts over access and territory. In the last decade I have expanded my work on the social lives of forests to include research on small-scale mining, the plantationization of forests and agriculture, and the ways resource frontiers and territories affect everyday life, work, and agrarian-industrial environments in SEA. As a political ecologist, I start with contemporary social and socio-environmental relations on the ground and contextualize these understandings in historical trajectories and broader political economies and ecologies.  

Current position: Deputy Director, P. Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for East Asian Art

Institution/Affiliation: Princeton University

Discipline: Art History

Area or countries of interest: China

Specialization or research interests: Portraiture; Buddhist and silk road(s) art

Publications

• Visualizing Dunhuang: The Lo Archive Photographs of the Mogao and Yulin Caves (P.Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for East Asian Art in association with Princeton University Press, 2021).
• “A Photographic Legacy: Dunhuang, Expeditionary Photography, and the Lo Archive.” Dunhuang yanjiu, no. 2 (2017): 48–55.
• “The Language of Portraiture in China.” In A Companion to Chinese Art, eds. Martin Powers and Katherine Tsiang (Wiley-Blackwell, 2016), 136–57.

Service to the Profession

• The China Institute, Gallery Committee (2019–present)
• Managing editor, P.Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Center for East Asian Art (2002–present)
• Treasurer, Board of Directors, James P. Geiss and Margaret Y. Hsu Foundation (2008–2021)

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

AAS creates invaluable opportunities for scholarly exchange, nurturing diverse and vibrant intellectual communities, all the more important in these changing times. With my combined experience over several decades in academia, administration, and publishing, I hope to contribute to AAS by anticipating new opportunities and methods for scholarly engagement, collaboration, research, teaching, and mentoring. I am committed to furthering the role of the arts and humanities in China studies broadly defined, and I would be honored to serve on the East & Inner Asia Council if elected.

Current position: Associate Teaching Professor in Inter-Asia and Transpacific Studies: China Focus

Institution/Affiliation: UC San Diego

Discipline: Literary, Cultural and Film Studies; Comparative Literature

Area or countries of interest: China, Japan, Korea, Sinosphere, and East Asia

Specialization or research interests: My work lies at the intersection of modern Chinese literature, culture and film studies; comparative literature; women’s studies; and interdisciplinary studies in literature and the environment.

Publications

• “Black Night Consciousness and Ecofeminist Poetics in the Works of Zhai Yongming,” Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature 76, no. 1 (Spring 2022): 62-82.
• “From Du Fu to Rilke and Back: Feng Zhi’s Modernist Aesthetics and Poetic Practice,” Chinese Poetic Modernisms (Brill, 2019), 38-56.
• “Ding Ling’s Feminist Writings: New Women in Crisis of Subjectivity,” Routledge Handbook of Modern Chinese Literature (Routledge, 2019), 343-355.

Service to the Profession

• Chair and Elected Member, LLC East Asian Forum Executive Committee at MLA (2016-2021)
• Faculty Delegate at Large, RMMLA Executive Committee (December 2021-present)
• Elected Member of HEP Executive Committee for Part-Time and Contingent Faculty Issues at MLA (2022-present)

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

I would be honored to serve on this council in order to contribute to, strengthen, and uphold the organization’s core mission: to foster education about East Asia; strengthen the cultivation of Asian languages and cultures; and facilitate the exchange of ideas, scholarship, teaching, and learning in diverse disciplines. As a member of the East and Inner Asia Council, I would dedicate myself to continuing the incredible work that the AAS is accomplishing every year. In particular, I would like to help organize each year’s Annual Conference; attract new members from across the United States and around the world to join and participate in AAS; and support the crucial work of the Journal of Asian Studies, the Bibliography of Asian Studies, Education about Asia, and AAS-supported book series. Since the AAS is an important intellectual meeting point for scholars and teachers in many different academic fields and geographic locations, I would endeavor to bring high-profile speakers to the conference, while making it possible for junior faculty and graduate students to attend. At the same time, I would also encourage members in disparate academic fields to engage in fruitful interdisciplinary dialogue, so as to expand the potential of intellectual inquiry and collaboration.

Current position: Professor, Director for Center for Global Migration Studies

Institution/Affiliation: University of Maryland, College Park

Discipline: History, Asian American Studies

Area or countries of interest: China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, U.S.

Specialization or research interests: Migration, Asian American history, modern China, Taiwan studies, U.S. immigration and ethnic history

Publications

• Co-editor with Marcelo Borges and Donna Gabaccia, Cambridge History of Global Migrations, Vol. II (Cambridge University Press, 2023). 
• Asian American History: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2016).
• The Good Immigrants:  How the Yellow Peril Became a Model Minority (Princeton University Press, 2015). 

Service to the Profession

• Vice-President (2014-2019), Representative-at-large (2019-present), International Society for the Study of Chinese Overseas
• President (2018-2021), Vice-President (2015-2018), Executive Board Member (2005-2008, 2011-2014), Immigration and Ethnic History Society
• Executive Board Member (2000-2003, 2013-2016), Association for Asian American Studies

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

As a historian of migration and Asian American studies, I wish to contribute to the AAS’s ongoing efforts to frame Asian studies scholarship more expansively and inclusively through projects such as the AAS-in-Asia conferences and the Global Asias initiative.  I applaud AAS’s efforts to promote meaningful participation by scholars based in Asia in order to better integrate multiple research perspectives and agendas while also promoting significant critiques of the area studies prerogatives that have influenced U.S. scholarship. I would contribute to AAS my extensive experiences of professional leadership of immigration and Asian American studies associations, which prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion objectives; my long involvement with the International Society for the Study of Chinese Overseas, which has sustained an international community of scholars and conference events for 30 years; and a strong commitment to developing institutions that advance these agendas.  

Current position: Associate Professor

Institution/Affiliation: Indiana University

Discipline: Literature and culture

Area or countries of interest: China in particular and East Asia in general

Specialization or research interests: Intersections among literature, culture, and history; gender; spatiality

Publications

• Literati Storytelling in Late Medieval China (University of Washington Press, 2015)
• “Theories of Spatiality and the Study of Medieval China,” Journal of Chinese Literature and Culture 9.1 (2022): 195–224.
• “The Politics of Place-Making in the Records of Buddhist Monasteries in Luoyang,” T’oung Pao: International Journal of Chinese Studies 105 (2019): 43–75.

Service to the Profession

• Co-editor, Brill Studies in the History of Chinese Texts series (2021-present)
• Treasurer, T’ang Studies Society (2019–2027)
• Executive Committee member, American Oriental Society, Western Branch (2016–2019)

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

East and Inner Asia Council plays important roles in building an intellectual community for scholars working on different areas of East and Inner Asia. If elected, I would do my best to contribute to its missions.

Current position: Dean & Chair Professor

Institution/Affiliation: Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Discipline: Political Science

Area or countries of interest: China, East Asia, India

Specialization or research interests: Political economy of China, informal finance and informal institutions, migration and diasporic impact on local development in China and India, authoritarian governance, comparative capitalism.

Publications

• Co-authored with Margaret Pearson and Meg Rithmire, The State and Capitalism in China (Cambridge University Press, 2023).
• Co-edited withSzu-chien Hsu and Chun-chih Chang, Evolutionary Governance in China: State-Society Relations under Authoritarianism (Harvard Asia Center, Harvard University Press, 2021).
• Capitalism without Democracy: The Private Sector in Contemporary China (Cornell University Press, 2007).

Service to the Profession

• International Advisory Board Member, Asia Research Institute (ARI), National University of Singapore (2021-present)
• Advisory Board Member, India-China Institute, New School for Social Research (2020-present)
• Editorial Board Member, China Quarterly (2020-present), China Journal (2023-present)

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

In the contemporary context of mounting geopolitical tensions, resurgence of exclusionary politics, and anti-Asian racism, AAS has a critical role to play in ensuring that scholarly and educational exchanges transcend those barriers. I am particularly concerned about young scholars whose training was disrupted by three years of COVID, as they (mostly) lacked the opportunity to develop their linguistic, fieldwork, and archival skills in the countries that they study. This may have lasting impact on the next generation of Asian studies scholars if institutions such as AAS are not proactive in finding creative ways to maintain communications and interactions with students and researchers based in Asian countries. Ensuring diversity (gender, ethnic origin, citizenship, disciplinary) in AAS’s governance will be key in this process.

Current position: Associate Professor

Institution/Affiliation: Old Dominion University

Discipline: Religious Studies

Area or countries of interest: Tibet, China, Himalayas

Specialization or research interests: Translating from Tibetan and Chinese languages into English, my research explores the intersections between Buddhist modernity, Tibetan literature (especially poetics), and cross-cultural epistemologies.

Publications

• Lineages of the Literary: Tibetan Buddhist Polymaths of Socialist China (Columbia University Press, 2021).
• “Samtha/the Borderlands of Tibetan Translation,” in Living Treasure: Buddhist and Tibetan Studies in Honor of Professor Janet Gyatso, eds. Holly Gayley and Andrew Quintman (Wisdom Publications, 2023), 77-94.
• Co-written with Gedun Rabsal, “‘Avadāna of Silver Flowers:’ A Discussion on Decolonization and Anti-Colonial Translation Practices for Tibetan poetry,” Journal of Tibetan Literature (September 2022).

Service to the Profession

• Co-chair, Tibetan and Himalayan Religions Unit, American Academy of Religion (2017-2023)
• Steering Committee, Tibetan and Himalayan Religions Unit, AAR (2011-17)
• Research and Scholarly Activity Committee, Old Dominion University Faculty Senate (2021-present)

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

I am honored to be nominated to serve on the East and Inner Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies. As a hopeful future member of EIAC, I look forward to working with colleagues to organize our panels at the Annual Conference as well as to administer the academic honors that EIAC awards. Because I have played an active role in organizing conference panels for about fifteen years (first as a graduate student, then as President of the Association for Central Eurasian Studies Students at Indiana University, 2003-2005; then as steering committee member, 2011-2017, and now as co-chair of the Tibetan and Himalayan Religions Unit of the American Academy of Religion), I am acutely aware of how participation in academic conferences serves as a gateway to a successful academic career. I am mindful of creating a line-up of panels that are both academically excellent and also diverse by, for example, mixing junior and senior scholars, and/or considering whether panelists are from different institutions. In administering the academic honors for the East and Inner Asia Council, I look forward to collaborating with colleagues to recognize different types of scholarship from EIAC’s graduate student paper prize, to the book prizes, and the small grants program. I am familiar with techniques on reading across disciplines as a member of Old Dominion University’s Faculty Senate Research and Scholarly Activity Committee, which administers awards to about 12 faculty members across the entire university with summer funding. I would be grateful for the opportunity to apply my experiences and skills in service to the field as a member of the East and Inner Asia Council for 2024-2027.   

Current position: Professor

Institution/Affiliation: Boston University

Discipline: International Relations

Area or countries of interest: China, India, and pan Asia

Specialization or research interests: International relations and comparative development, regional economic integration, foreign investment, transnational migration, China’s Belt and Road, and U.S.-China competition

Publications

• The Belt, Road and Beyond: China’s State-Mobilized Globalization from 1998 to 2018 (Cambridge University Press, 2020).
• Diasporas and Foreign Direct Investment in China and India (Cambridge University Press, 2014).
• The Making of Northeast Asia (Stanford University Press, 2010).

Service to the Profession

• Faculty Board Member and Mentor for China-India Scholarship, Harvard Yenching Institute (2017-2021)
• Regional co-Editor on Asian Politics, Oxford University Press Research Encyclopedia (2019-2024)
• Director of East Asian Studies, Boston University (2010-2014)

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

Scholarly pursuit is an endless endeavor to discover new knowledge and the complexity of reality versus received wisdom. At Princeton (2002-2007), I freely employed sociological, historical, and economic methods to study regional integration in Northeast Asia and the historic opening up of China and India. After joining BU, I have focused on publishing scholarly work that speaks to my real-world passion, promoting genuinely interdisciplinary Asian studies, and teaching undergraduate and graduate students to flourish in a truly global environment. AAS has the opportunity and infrastructure to build a global and multidisciplinary community beyond partisan concerns and geopolitical tensions in Asia Pacific, to which I would love to contribute.

Current position: Professor of Japanese History, Coordinator of International Studies

Institution/Affiliation: University of Wisconsin Stevens Point

Discipline: History

Area or countries of interest: Japan, Okinawa, East Asia

Specialization or research interests: Postcolonial Okinawa, gender and embodiment, modern Japanese cultural history, anthropological study of human movement, performance and peace activism

Publications

• “Locating Culture Beneath the Moss: Heshikiya Chōbin (1700-1734), the Ryukyu Kingdom and 18th Century Japan,” Japan Forum Special Issue “Place, Space, and Time in Early Modern Japan” 31.4 (December 2019): 31-62.
• “Thinking through Movement: Embodied Learning as Feminist Pedagogy for the Social Sciences,” in Ekaterina Levintova and Alison Staudinger, editors, Gender in the Political Science Classroom (Indiana University Press, 2018)
• “SoTL and the Gendered Division of Labor on our Campuses: A Case for More Equity and Change in Professional Values,” in Holly Hassel and Kirsti Cole, editors, Academic Labor Beyond the College Classroom: Working for Our Values (Routledge, 2019)

Service to the Profession

• University of Wisconsin System, Co-Director of the Wisconsin Teaching Fellows and Scholars Program (2021-present)
• Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs, Reviewer/Curator for Conference Panels (2020) and Reviewer for Student Awards (2022)
• University of Wisconsin System Office of Professional Development, Anti-Racist Pedagogies Committee Member

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

I am most excited about developments in the field that emphasize intersectional issues such as embodiment, gender, decolonization, and survivance. In terms of growth, the field of East Asian Studies could be much enriched by more concentrated interdisciplinary research in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). Successful teaching and mentoring for me means applying evidence-based pedagogy combined with culturally specific epistemological approaches that harness high-impact practices to bring cultural history to life for my students. In addition to my local role as the Coordinator of International Studies, I serve as the University of Wisconsin System Co-Director of the Wisconsin Teaching Fellows and Scholars Program. In this position, I co-organize statewide professional development workshops and conferences that emphasize equity-mindedness and social justice—experience that I would bring to NEAC.

Current position: Professor and Director of Asian Studies

Institution/Affiliation: Towson University

Discipline: History

Area or countries of interest: Japan, East Asia

Specialization or research interests: I am a cultural historian of modern Japan broadly interested in war crimes during the Asia-Pacific War. To date my work has focused mainly on the resident Korean community, with my new project moving towards Chinese POWs and laborers in Japan. My scholarship engages with these communities in different ways, from historiography and war crimes trials to popular culture and pedagogy. 

Publications

• Voices of the Korean Minority in Postwar Japan (Routledge, 2019).
• “The Hanaoka Incident and Practices of Local History and Memory Making in Northern Japan,” in Historical Justice and History Education, Matilda Keynes, Henrik Åström Elmersjö, Daniel Lindmark, and Björn Norlin, editors (Palgrave, 2021)
• “Debating History and Memory: Examining the Controversy Surrounding Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking.” Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights 8, no. 1 (2017): 77–99.

Service to the Profession

• Secretary, Mid-Atlantic Region Association for Asian Studies, 2018-present
• Co-organizer, 2016 Mid-Atlantic Region Association for Asian Studies conference
• Manuscript Reviewer for Palgrave Macmillan, University of Hawai’i Press; reviewer for Journal of Asian Studies, Japanese Studies, Journal of Japanese Studies, and others.

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

My scholarly and pedagogical interests intersect different communities and often cross geographical/methodological boundaries. I draw on these interests and skillsets to reach and involve a diverse body of students, many of whom are first generation college students with little to no knowledge about the Asia-Pacific. I have been active with the Mid-Atlantic Region AAS for a decade and have served on the Executive Committee since 2017. I look forward to serving on the NEAC if elected.

Current position: Researcher

Institution/Affiliation: Oriental Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences

Discipline: History

Area or countries of interest: Japan

Specialization or research interests: early modern and modern Japanese history, intellectual and cultural history, history of ideas, identity and nationalism 

Publications

• Imaginative Mapping: Landscape and Japanese Identity in the Tokugawa and Meiji Eras (Harvard University Asia Center, 2019).
• “Art and Politics of the Ezo Landscape: Tani Motokatsu (1778–1840) and 19th–Century Japan,”
• Japan Forum, 31:4 (2019): 532–555.
• “Japan and the Contested Center of 18th–Century East Asia,” Archiv Orientalni Supplementa XII, Imaginaries and Historiographies of Contested Regions: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Transforming Centers and Peripheries in Asian and Middle Eastern Contexts (2020): 29–60.

Service to the Profession

• Head of East Asia Department, Oriental Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences (2021-present)
• Member, Japan Review International Advisory Board, International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto Japan (2022-present)
• Assistant Editor, East Asia, Archiv Orientální, Oriental Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

I think the most exciting developments in East Asian Studies are the increasing opportunities for scholars in different parts of the world to work together in teaching and research, to attend conferences and workshops on different continents, and to promote high-level research exchange. These experiences enable academics to deliver successful teaching by drawing on many different research developments and put them in a position to help students seek advice from scholars all around the world. I would hope to bring to NEAC the different perspectives I have developed by working with scholars in Europe, the U.S., and Asia. 

Current position: Associate Professor

Institution/Affiliation: King’s University College at the University of Western Ontario

Discipline: History

Area or countries of interest: Korea

Specialization or research interests: Social and Cultural History of Late Choson Korea

Publications

• Turning Toward Edification: Foreigners in Chosŏn Korea (University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2020).
• “Lies, Rumours and Sino-Korean Relations : The Pseudo-Fujianese Incident of 1687.” Acta Koreana 19, no. 2 (2016): 1–29.
• “Ruling Ideology and Marginal Subjects: Ming Loyalism and Foreign Lineages in Late Chosŏn Korea.” Journal of Early Modern History 15 no. 6 (2011): 477–505.

Service to the Profession

• Member, Board for Bochumer Jahrbuch zur Ostasienforschung (2016-2019)
• Moderator, Koreanists and Korea before 1900 scholarly Facebook pages (2019-present)
• Reviewer, Journal of Korean Studies, Acta Koreana, Seoul Journal of Korean Studies, Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies, International Journal of Korean History, Journal of Asian Studies, etc.

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

Other than a great deal of article and book reviewing, and a certain amount of conference organization, most of my service duties have been within my own institution. Nevertheless, I recognize that the AAS plays an important role especially for graduate students and junior scholars, and I hope to make a positive contribution.

Current position: Professor of Sociology, Director of the Center for Asian and Pacific Studies

Institution/Affiliation: San Diego State University

Discipline: Sociology

Area or countries of interest: Korea

Specialization or research interests: marriage immigration to South Korea

Publications

• Elusive Belonging: Marriage Immigrants and “Multiculturalism” in Rural South Korea (University of Hawai’i Press, 2018).
• Co-editor, with Hyeyoung Woo, Redefining Multicultural Families in South Korea: Reflections and Future Directions (Rutgers University Press, 2022)
•  “Citizenship Projects for Marriage Migrants in South Korea: Intersecting Motherhood with Ethnicity and Class.” Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State & Society, 20, no. 4 (2013): 455-481

Service to the Profession

• President and conference organizer, Association for Korean Sociologists in America (2017-2020)
• Council member (elected), Asia & Asian America Section, American Sociological Association (2017-2019)
• Member (elected), Publications committee, Sociologists for Women in Society

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

As I am studying immigrants in South Korea (as well as Korean immigrants in the United States), I am most excited about transnational perspectives and studying minorities in Asia. Having moved to the United States as a first-generation international student, I benefitted a lot from generous mentoring of my advisors, mentors, and peers, and I have always taken teaching and mentoring under-represented minority students and international scholars seriously. I found it most useful to work with students and junior faculty to try to learn about them and explore solutions and paths together. I served as the department chair of sociology (2018-2023) and am the director of the Center for Asian and Pacific Studies (2022-present) at San Diego State University. I have extensive experiences of serving on various editorial boards, committees, and leadership roles.

Current position: Associate Professor

Institution/Affiliation: Rhode Island School of Design

Discipline: Art History

Area or countries of interest: Northeast Asia, Korea

Specialization or research interests: Modern and contemporary Korean art, photography, and visual culture; race and ethnicity; gender and sexuality

Publications

• Shooting for Change: Korean Photography after the War (Duke University Press, forthcoming 2024)
• “Drawing on Repair: Kang Seung Lee and Ibanjiha’s Transpacific Queer of Colour Critique,” Burlington Contemporary Journal, no. 8 (June 2023)
• “From Traveling Images to Traveling Bodies: Korean War Orphans in Hollywood and the Rhetoric of Interracial Adoption,” PhotoResearcher no. 30 (Fall 2018): 63-77.

Service to the Profession

• Co-organizer, programmer, and curator: Queer/Feminist/Praxis: Intersections of Performance, Visual Arts, and Activism in Korea and the Korean Diaspora (2021)
• Museum Director’s Search Committee, RISD Museum (2020-21)
• Faculty Committee on Master of Arts in Global Arts and Culture, Rhode Island School of Design (2016-19)

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

Intergenerational interest in transdisciplinary dialogues and collaborations, and the commitment to critical trans-Asia studies and self-reflections on epistemic practices toward decolonizing research and teaching, are to my mind the most enriching and invigorating recent developments in East Asian Studies. Furthermore, engagement with non-East Asianists, especially during the pandemic-related surge in anti-Asian racism and ongoing anti-Black violence, has forged meaningful relationships across the field.

I also find AAS a great source of inspiration for successful teaching, which begins from taking the time to listen to our students then mentoring them to recognize the power of critical thinking and active listening, ultimately urging them to synthesize knowledge, creativity, and experience to continue to pursue transformative knowledge. I am committed to enhancing the exciting developments in East Asian Studies and foster opportunities to integrate them with teaching and mentoring.

My organizational and administrative experience includes, among many others, serving on a committee for establishing an MA program in Global Arts and Culture at Rhode Island School of Design, serving as the Concentration Coordinator for Theory and History of Art and Design from 2017 to 2021 – which entailed directing an inter-departmental art history education for both undergraduate and graduate student – and co-organizing a three-week virtual international conference, Queer/Feminist/Praxis: Intersections of Performance, Visual Arts, and Activism in Korea and the Korean Diaspora. In April 2023, I co-organized an in-person conference, Photography, Temporality, and Decolonial Imaginations in Global Asias.

Current position: Associate Professor

Institution/Affiliation: University of Toronto

Discipline: Ethnomusicology

Area or countries of interest: Japan, Korea

Specialization or research interests: Korea and Japan, sound, music, traumatic experience, women’s sonic and musical cultures, the voice, modernity, ethnographic research methods and fieldwork ethics

Publications

• Quietude: A Musical Anthropology of “Korea’s Hiroshima” (Oxford University Press, 2022)
• Hearts of Pine: Songs in the Lives of Three Korean Survivors of the Japanese “Comfort Women” (Oxford University Press, 2012)
• “Music and Dance in Korean Experiences of the Japanese Military ‘Comfort Women’ System: A Case Study in the Performing Arts, War and Sexual Violence.” Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture 18 (November 2014): 1-23.

Service to the Profession

• AAS Annual Conference Program Committee (2018-2020)
• Editorial Board, Women and Music (2017-2020)
• Research Committee, University of Toronto Faculty of Music (2009-present)

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

I aim first and foremost to promote ground-breaking research in Northeast Asian studies. I believe the best way to do that is to 1) work to assure that grants, scholarships, and other awards are conceived, advertised, and administered in the interests of equity and accessibility, allowing for the diversity of perspectives that our field deserves; 2) work for diverse representation on the Council and the committees it oversees; and 3) make sure that the AAS is adequately informed about issues of concern to Northeast Asian studies scholars and trends in our respective fields. I am particularly committed to issues of research ethics and reciprocity with those whom we study. I have spent the last two decades of overseeing grants, scholarships, and other awards, designing committees, and organizing conferences, and will bring that experience to the Council. 

Current position: Associate Professor

Institution/Affiliation: Rutgers University, New Brunswick

Discipline: South Asian Studies and Comparative Literature

Area or countries of interest: South Asia

Specialization or research interests: Multilingual Indian modernisms; Indo-Caribbean literature; comparative literature and postcolonial Studies; translation studies; book history and print culture in South Asia; Urban Studies.

Publications

• Bombay Modern: Arun Kolatkar and Bilingual Literary Culture (Northwestern University Press, 2016; Rpt. Speaking Tiger Publications, Delhi, 2017)
• Co-editor, with Francesca Orsini, “Postcolonial Archives,” special issue of South Asia: A Journal of South Asian Studies 45.2 (2022)
• Co-editor, with Ulka Anjaria, The Oxford Handbook of Modern Indian Literatures (Oxford University Press, 2024)

Service to the Profession

• Co-editor, Modernism/modernity (2023-2027)
• Editorial board, Modernist Archives Series, Bloomsbury (2023-present)
• Creator (with Bronwen Bledsoe) of “The Bombay Poets Archive” at Cornell University (2017-present)

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

As a member of the South Asia Council, I will bring a focus on collaboration, an interest in interdisciplinarity, and a practice of multilingual scholarship. AAS provides a unique space for imagining a kind of South Asian Studies that is based in regional diversity (with regards to the dominant and peripheral cultures/spaces within India but equally important, beyond India in South Asia as whole), and in global diversity (with regards to scholarly involvement in AAS by students and scholars from places beyond the U.S.). Having held administrative offices at Rutgers in various capacities and having held done extensive editorial work, I continue to provide mentoring for graduate students and junior faculty (especially for publication and professionalization) and this will extend to my work at AAS as well.

Current position: Professor

Institution/Affiliation: Simmons University

Discipline: Sociology

Area or countries of interest: South Asia, South Asian diaspora

Specialization or research interests: Sexuality, gender, state, nation, death and migration

Publications

• “The Uses of Mourning,” introduction to special issue on Feminist Mournings in Meridians: feminisms, race, transnationalism 21, no. 2 (2022)
• “The Forgotten Lives of Death: Remembering Du Bois, Martineau and Wells.” American Sociologist 52 (2021)
• Sexual States: Governance and the Struggle over the Antisodomy Law in India (Duke University Press, 2016)

Service to the Profession

• W.E.B. Du Bois Award Committee, American Sociological Association (2022-2025)
• Editorial Board, SIGNS (2014-present)
• Program Committee and Steering Committee, “Sexualities, Race, and Empire: Resistance in an Uncertain Time,” Sociology of Sexualities Preconference, American Sociological Association, Drexel University, August 2018

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

I am honored to be a candidate for the South Asia Council. If elected, I would strive to make sure that South Asia and the South Asian diaspora are well represented in AAS and beyond. I am committed to an inclusive and collaborative approach to governance. My research, scholarship and advocacy are powered by postcolonial feminist and queer perspectives that shine a light on issues of sexuality, gender, race, religion, migration, and death in South Asia and its diasporas.

Current position: Associate Professor

Institution/Affiliation: Lahore University of Management Sciences

Discipline: History

Area or countries of interest: South Asia, South East Asia

Specialization or research interests: I specialize in the social and intellectual history of modern South Asia, and I have worked on leftist internationalism in colonial and post-colonial South Asia.

Publications

• Revolutionary Pasts: Communist Internationalism in Colonial India (Cambridge University Press, 2020); Pakistan Edition: Folio Books, 2021; India Edition: Tulika Books, 2022
• Co-editor, with F Roy and B Zachariah, The Internationalist Moment: South Asia, Worlds, and World Views 1917–39 (Sage, 2014)
• “Dispatches from Havana: The Cold War, Afro-Asian Solidarities, and Culture Wars in Pakistan” Journal of World History 30, no. 1/2 (2019)

Service to the Profession

• Associate Editor, Itinerario
• Member, International Advisory Board, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society
• Member, Editorial Board, Critical Pakistan Studies

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

As a scholar based in Pakistan, my first priority is to focus on involving more scholars from outside North America and Europe. I will work to include their concerns and issues in AAS governance and decision-making. I am especially interested in working with scholars at risk and scholars from historically underrepresented and marginalized regions. I am also interested in developing and strengthening scholarly connections between South Asia and South East/East Asia. Finally, I am eager to support and further develop AAS-in-Asia programming.

Current position: Associate Professor

Institution/Affiliation: University of Pennsylvania

Discipline: Religious Studies

Area or countries of interest: India, Pakistan

Specialization or research interests: Modern South Asian social and cultural history, race and ethnicity, Islam, gender and sexuality

Publications

• Printing the Urdu Public: Muslims, Newspapers, and Urban Life 1900-1947 (Oxford University Press, 2021)
• “Becoming Elizabeth: The Transformation of a Bihari Mughal into an English Lady, 1758-1822.” American Historical Review (March 2023)
• “Gendered Nationalism and Material Texts: An Urdu Women’s Periodical in 1960s Pakistan.” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies 45:2 (2022): 285-302.

Service to the Profession

• American Lectures in the History of Religion National Programming Committee (2021-present)
• Andrew W. Mellon Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography National Programming Committee Chair, organizer of annual meeting (2022-present)
• Assistant Graduate Chair, Department of Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

I look forward to supporting an expanding emphasis on South Asian-specific research topics in the Association for Asian Studies. I hope to support the developing of AAS-in-Asia conferences to challenge the centrality of North American institutions and emphasize South Asian specific institutions of higher education as research centers.

Current position: Full Professor

Institution/Affiliation: SUNY Brockport

Discipline: Ethnomusicology

Area or countries of interest: South Asia

Specialization or research interests: South Asian popular, classical, folk, and film; music education pedagogy and teacher training; children’s music in South Asia; South Asian media and performance, ethnomusicology

Publications

• Popular Music in Contemporary India (Routledge, 2019)
• “The Vocal Narratives of Lata Mangeshkar: Gender, Politics, and Nation in India,” in Social Voices: The Cultural Politics of Singers Around the Globe, ed. Levi Gibbs (University of Illinois Press, 2023)
• “Celluloid Love Songs: Musical Modus Operandi and the Dramatic Aesthetics of Romantic Hindi Film” Popular Music Journal 27, no. 3 (2008)

Service to the Profession

• President, New York Conference on Asian Studies (2022-present)
• Series editor, Bloomsbury Press 33 1/3 South Asia: Popular Music Book Series (2020-present)
• Executive Director, Western Music Education Association, Delhi, India

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

AAS is a seminal institution with a legacy of inspirational scholars and leadership. As a member of the South Asia Council, it would be my privilege to represent the organization—contributing an interdisciplinary, arts-enthused perspective tempered with a penchant for organizing and logistics. Overcoming organizational challenges and executing visionary goals are often incompatible, but I believe a measured and dynamic approach is possible.

Current position: Associate Professor

Institution/Affiliation: Franklin and Marshall College

Discipline: Religious Studies

Area or countries of interest: South Asia: India, Afghanistan, Pakistan

Specialization or research interests: Early modern and modern South Asian Islam

Publications

• Perilous Intimacies: Debating Hindu-Muslim Friendship after Empire (Columbia University Press, 2023)
• Defending Muhammad in Modernity (University of Notre Dame Press, 2020)
• Imagining the Public in Modern South Asia (with Barton Scott and Brannon Ingram) (Routledge, 2016)

Service to the Profession

• Unit Chair South Asian Religions, American Academy of Religion
• Lead U.S. Faculty, Madrasa Discourses Program, Templeton Foundation Project
• Editorial Board, ReOrient: Critical Muslim Studies Journal

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

I would be keen to mobilize AAS as a space where important new scholarship and intellectual trends in South Asian Studies, especially generated by scholars situated in South Asia, are showcased, discussed, and debated. AAS also offers a potentially useful venue for highlighting scholarship in the humanities and the social sciences that questions and disrupts contemporary territorially bound conceptions of South Asia, and that also centers often peripheral and less represented geographical areas such as Afghanistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Kashmir. Generating programming and other opportunities for such possibilities to materialize will be among my priorities.

Current position: Lecturer

Institution/Affiliation: University of Sydney

Discipline: Anthropology

Area or countries of interest: Indonesia

Specialization or research interests: Environmental anthropology; plantation studies; environmental humanities; race and indigeneity; food, health, and nutrition

Publications

• In the Shadow of the Palms: More-Than-Human Becomings in West Papua (Duke University Press, 2022)
• Co-editor, with Karin Bolender and Eben Kirksey, The Promise of Multispecies Justice (Duke University Press, 2022)
•  “We Are (Not) Monkeys: Contested Cosmopolitical Symbols in West Papua.” American Ethnologist 48, no. 3 (2021): 225–230.

Service to the Profession

• Secretary, Executive Committee, Australian Anthropological Society (2020–2023)
• Director, Australia Pacific Observatory, Humanities for the Environment (2022–present)
• Editorial Board Member, Cultural Anthropology (2022–2025)

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

Intellectual generosity, decolonial ethics, and collaborative engagement form the core of my vision for AAS leadership and governance. Should I be elected as a member of the AAS Southeast Asia Council, I will commit to fostering and enhancing opportunities for critical, creative, and collegial knowledge exchange across the AAS community’s junior and senior scholars, as well as with the Association’s diverse body of postgraduate members. I will further endeavor to develop the AAS’ transnational linkages to academic, industry, government, and not-for-profit sectors, in an effort to enhance the Association’s meaningful engagement with pressing and timely issues unfolding across Southeast Asia—from environmental and economic concerns, to political and cultural dynamics. I also look forward to contributing to the career development initiatives of the AAS, including through the development of mentoring schemes and workshops for graduates and early career researchers in the realms of publishing, applications, public speaking, and news and media engagement.

Current position: Associate Professor

Institution/Affiliation: California State University, Fullerton

Discipline: Anthropology

Area or countries of interest: Southeast Asia (Vietnam)

Specialization or research interests: environment, Vietnam, Southeast Asia, transnational commodities and consumption, bureaucracy, multispecies ethnography, citizen/community science, critical pedagogy and mentorship, teaching for social justice

Publications

• “Biopolitics in the Vietnamese Coffee Industry,” Journal of Vietnamese Studies 18, no. 1-2 (2023): 143-172
• “Complicated Webs: Risk and Uncertainty in the Vietnamese Coffee Industry,” PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 44, no. 1 (2021): 75-90
• “What’s in a Wet Market? Critical Food Studies and Anthropology of Asia During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” in Teaching About Asia in a Time of Pandemic, ed. David Kenley (Association for Asian Studies, 2020)

Service to the Profession

• Multimedia Editor, Journal of Vietnamese Studies (2018-2023)
• Executive Committee Member, Vietnamese Studies Group (2021-present)
• President, Southwestern Anthropological Association (2018-2019)

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

As a member of the Southeast Asia Council, I will actively support multimodal approaches to advancing Asian Studies in line with the AAS mission and the organization’s core values to support diversity, equity, and inclusion. My vision for AAS leadership and governance is to foster a space of inclusion and mentorship that embraces and facilitates diverse membership and access to participation in Association activities, especially among colleagues in contingent academic positions and within Southeast Asia. I believe the future of scholarship and teaching about and within Asia depends on enhanced inclusivity efforts, where diversity manifests in our many expressions of ethnicity, race, gender, sexuality, class, and institutional backgrounds. I seek to represent and support diverse, interdisciplinary voices and the range of institutional backgrounds and geographic spaces Asian Studies scholars work within—from elite research institutions to public teaching institutions, many of which are Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions and Hispanic Serving Institutions, and provincial universities within Asia. 

Current position: Assistant Professor of Anthropology and International Studies

Institution/Affiliation: University of Wisconsin-Madison

Discipline: Anthropology

Area or countries of interest: Southeast Asia (Indonesia)

Specialization or research interests: Political anthropology, race and identities, colonialism, digital media

Publications

• “Freeport and the States: Politics of Corporation and Contemporary Colonialism in West Papua” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 63, no. 4 (2021), 881-910.
• “#Papuanlivesmatter: Black Consciousness and Political Movements in West Papua.” Critical Asian Studies (2021).
• “Pig Feasts Democracy: Direct Local Elections and the Making of a Plural Political Order in West Papua,” American Ethnologist (forthcoming)

Service to the Profession

• Editorial Board Member, American Ethnologist (2022-2026)
• Reviewer, Critical Asian Studies
• Steering Committee at the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

If elected to the Southeast Asia Council, I would like to continue and expand the Council’s work in strengthening Southeast Asian Studies’ important role within the AAS. Secondly, I would strive to increase the diversity of the Council by promoting and involving “non-traditional” scholars and students and their scholarship in the Association’s activities. (“Non-traditional” can refer broadly to students who in the past were conventionally perceived to be not interested in the region). Finally, I am committed to building an academic community that is engaged with the larger societal issues and the changing landscape of the academic job market.

Current position: Professor

Institution/Affiliation: University of Hawaii at Manoa

Discipline: Geography and Environment

Area or countries of interest: United States

Specialization or research interests: Political ecology in Southeast Asia

Publications

• With Farnan, R. A. & Loong, S. “Sovereign anxiety in Myanmar: An emotional geopolitics of China’s Belt and Road Initiative,” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 48, no. 1 (2023): 132-148.
• With Szadziewski, H. & Murton, G., “Territorialization on tour: the tourist gaze along the silk road economic belt in Kashgar, China,” Geoforum 128 (2022): 135-147.
• With Evrard, O., “Chronopolitics of crisis: A historical political ecology of seasonal air pollution in northern Thailand,” Geoforum 124 (2021): 400-408.

Service to the Profession

• Director, Political Ecology Working Group, University of Hawaii at Manoa (2019-present)
• Chair, American Association of Geographers Tourism, Recreation and Sport Specialty Group (2020-2023)
• Executive Committee, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of Hawaii at Manoa (2018-present)

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

As a Southeast Asia Council member, I would look forward to working with the membership to develop new pathways for involvement in the group both at the Annual Conference and beyond. I would also seek to recruit new members from underrepresented groups and scholars studying underrepresented regions and topics. Finally, I would establish virtual and in-person social spaces for members to share their fieldwork, research, and publication experiences to facilitate new forms of community building within the AAS for SEA-focused scholars.

Current position: Senior Lecturer

Institution/Affiliation: National University of Singapore

Discipline: Sociology

Area or countries of interest: Southeast Asia

Specialization or research interests: Sociology of crime, deviance, and human rights; LGBT rights in Southeast Asia; criminal laws at the intersection of race and gender

Publications

• Co-editor with Pablo Ciocchini, Criminal Legalities and Minorities in the Global South: Rights and Resistance in a Decolonial World (Palgrave, 2023)
• Co-editor with Crystal Abidin, “Racial Harmony and Sexual Violence: Uneven Regulation and Legal Protection Gaps for Influencers in Singapore,” Policy & Internet 14, no. 3 (2022): 1-21
• “Challenging antisodomy laws in Singapore and the former British colonies of ASEAN,” Journal of Human Rights 20, no. 2 (2021): 211-222

Service to the Profession

• AAS Harry Benda Book Prize Committee (2022); Asian Law and Society Association Book Prize Committee (2023)
• Associate Editor, Sociology Compass (2022-2024)
• Associate Editor, Philippine Sociological Review (2022-2024)

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

I have dedicated my career to providing venues for young and up-and-coming scholars from the Global South to disseminate and promote their work. Over the years, I have organized several workshops and conferences, edited books and special issues, and co-organized an international research collaborative for the Law and Society Association (LSA), helping to support Global South scholars every year since 2016 to attend the LSA Annual Meeting. I’d like to bring my experience and dedication to the AAS, and ensure that scholars and ideas from Southeast Asia continue to play a strong role in shaping its leadership and governance.   

Current position: Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies

Institution/Affiliation: Harvard Divinity School

Discipline: History

Area or countries of interest: Burma, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore, Yemen

Specialization or research interests: History of Religion, Labor History, Environmental History, Islamic Studies, Indian Ocean Studies

Publications

• Miracles and Material Life: Rice, Ore, Traps and Guns in Islamic Malaya (Cambridge University Press, 2020).
• “Exilic Journeys and Lives: Paths Leading to a Mughal Grave in Rangoon,” The Indian Economic and Social History Review 59, no. 2 (2022)
• Co-editor, with R. Michael Feener, Islamic Connections: Muslim Societies in South and Southeast Asia (Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2009).

Service to the Profession

• Member, American Academy of Religion Publications Committee (2022-2026)
• Member, Harvard University Asia Center Council (Fall 2020; Spring 2021; Fall 2021; Fall 2023)
• Member, Harvard University Committee on the Study of Religion (Fall 2020; Spring 2021; Fall 2021; Fall 2023)

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

As a historian of Islam in Southeast Asia from the region, I am well aware of how Southeast Asia is marginalized in academic and popular conversations concerning global Islam. I hope, as such, to contribute to the efforts of the Southeast Asia Council to re-center Southeast Asia in the invaluable scholarly discussions that ensue at AAS. I am also particularly concerned with providing a level of visibility to junior scholars of Southeast Asia, and further developing spaces for conversations between Southeast Asianists at different stages of their careers from across disciplines, within the AAS and beyond. Through my own research, I strive to emphasize the importance of studying the Malay world and Java, while remaining conscious of Malay and Javanese connections to South Asia, Europe, and the Americas. In my commitment to the Council, I will also seek to enhance the steps taken to build networks with scholars and institutions in Southeast Asia.

Current position: Assistant Professor

Institution/Affiliation: California State University, Long Beach

Discipline: Asian and Asian American Studies

Area or countries of interest: Southeast Asia

Specialization or research interests: Religious, linguistic, and musical practices of Cambodian diasporas

Publications

• “Khmer Theravada Buddhism,” in Asian American Religious Cultures Volume Two, editors Jonathan H.X. Lee, Fumitaka Matsuoka, Edmond Yee, and Ronald Nakasone (ABC-CLIO, 2015)               
• “Performances of Cambodian American Rock Music: Radical Kinship as Method”  (Under Review)
• “Making a Southeast Asian Religious Polity from the Margins: Cambodian American Buddhist Adaptations of Theravāda Buddhist Practices” (Under Review)

Service to the Profession

• Site Co-Chair, Annual Association for Asian American Studies Conference (2022-23)
• Advisory Board Member, Long Beach Cambodian American Cultural Center, councilmember Suely Saro (2022-23)
• Fulbright campus interview committee member, University of California, Riverside (2021-23)

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

I am excited about the prospect of collaborating on the shared vision of including more scholars of Southeast Asian Studies and its diasporas within AAS. 

Current position: Assistant Professor of Politics and Public Affairs

Institution/Affiliation: Denison University

Discipline: Political Science – Comparative Politics

Area or countries of interest: Vietnam, China, Cambodia, Southeast Asia

Specialization or research interests: Authoritarian politics, repression and responsiveness, social resistance, state formation, and agrarian politics in Vietnam, China, Cambodia, and Southeast Asia 

Publications

• Co-editor, with Tuong Vu, The Dragon’s Underbelly: Dynamics and Dilemmas in Vietnam’s Economy and Politics (ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, 2023)
• “Opposition Repertoires Under Authoritarian Rule: Vietnam’s 2016 Self-Nomination Movement,” Journal of East Asian Studies 21, no. 1 (2021): 117-139.
• Co-author, with Juan Wang, “Law For What? Ideas and Social Control in China and Vietnam,” Problems of Post-Communism 68, no. 3 (2020): 202-215.

Service to the Profession

• Program Chair, American Political Science Association Southeast Asia Politics Related Group (2023-2025)
• Committee Member, Denison Forward, Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Antiracism at Denison University (2023-2024)
• Organizing Committee Member, Canadian Council for Southeast Asian Studies 2019 Conference on “Power in Southeast Asia.”

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

Advancing the rights, visibility, and inclusion of marginalized and oppressed groups across different contexts has been integral to all my work as a scholar, a teacher, and an activist of Southeast Asia. I would further advance this goal as a SEAC member by generating new space for wider perspectives and diversity in Southeast Asia Studies, and by bridging divides across disciplines, borders and regions, and hierarchy within the profession. Second, at a time in which Southeast Asia is garnering greater interests for various reasons, it is all the more important to foster opportunities for meaningful engagements with Southeast Asia through deeply nuanced understanding. I would seek through these opportunities to recognize and reassert the importance of Southeast Asia Studies in its own terms, not solely in terms of geopolitical interests or great power competition and rivalry. Finally, an endeavor to advance rigorous research, teaching, and engagements related to Southeast Asia should be keenly concerned with social justice issues. I would actively serve on the SEAC to promote channels for substantive academic and public policy dialogues on pressing issues that directly bear on people’s lives and interests at the very grassroots of the region.

Current position: Associate Professor

Institution/Affiliation: Sophia University

Discipline: History

Area or countries of interest: China, Japan

Specialization or research interests: Modern Chinese History, Japanese Colonialism, Urban History, Food Studies

Publications

• Lead author, with James Farrer, David Wank, Mônica Carvalho, Lenka Vyletalova, and Chuanfei Wang, “Japantown Restaurants: From Community Spaces to Touristic Imaginaries,” in James Farrer and David L. Wank eds., The Global Japanese Restaurant: Mobilities, Imaginaries and Politics (University of Hawai’i Press, 2023): 67-116.
• “Martyrs, Military Heroes and Massacre Victims: The Complex Memorial Terrain of Lushun, 1894-present” in Tina Burrett and J. Kingston, eds., Routledge Handbook of Trauma in East Asia (Routledge, 2023): 224-236.
• “Sino-Soviet City: Dalian Between Socialist Worlds, 1945-1955” Journal of Urban History 44, no.1 (January 2018): 9-25.

Service to the Profession

• Secretary, Asian Studies Conference Japan
• Webmaster, Asian Studies Conference Japan
• Executive Committee Member, Asian Studies Conference Japan

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

I am a specialist in Chinese history, and have been an Asian Studies Conference Japan executive committee member for over a decade. As ASCJ Council of Conferences representative I would like to help our regional conference maintain its size, scope, and quality as we recover from several years of cancellation due to pandemic travel restrictions. I would like to continue to diversify our conference in terms of participants and geographic and temporal coverage. Our conference brings together from all career levels, and I am especially keen to continue to expand our resources for junior scholars to present their work in a welcoming, professional environment.

Current position: Associate Professor

Institution/Affiliation: National Institute of Japanese Literature

Discipline: Japanese Literature

Area or countries of interest: Japan, China, Korea, Vietnam

Specialization or research interests: Edo- and Meiji-period Japanese Sinitic literature and related fields (such as intellectual history, art history, and political history)

Publications

• Shibun to keisei: bakufu jushin no juhasseiki 詩文と経世 ― 幕府儒臣の十八世紀  (University of Nagoya Press, 2021)
• “Nakamura Ranrin ‘Gakuzanroku’ ni mirareru Seiyo tenmongaku no chishiki: kosho zuihitsu no engen o tadoru” 中村蘭林『学山録』に見られる西洋天文学の知識 ― 考証随筆の淵源をたどる, Nihon bungaku 日本文学 71:7 (2022), 36-46
• “Edo jidai no kanshibun to kansensho” 江戸時代の漢詩文と感染症. in Robert Campbell, ed., Nihon koten to kansensho 日本古典と感染症 (KADOKAWA, 2021), 154-176

Service to the Profession

• ASCJ Executive Committee Member (2019-present)
• Monumenta Nipponica Advisory Board Member (2021-present)
• Wakan Hikaku Bungakukai Executive Committee Member (2021-present)

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

By communicating and collaborating with representatives from other regional conferences, I would like to increase opportunities for scholars, especially graduate students, based in Japan to interact with scholars based in North America. As a researcher of 17th to19th-century Japan and Northeast Asia, I also hope to ensure that scholars specializing in pre-1900 Asia are receiving enough support and have access to research materials in today’s rather presentist climate.

Current position: Professor

Institution/Affiliation: Elizabethtown College

Discipline: Japanese and Asian Studies

Area or countries of interest: Japan and India

Specialization or research interests: Japanese language pedagogy and Japanese language ideology; Japanese popular culture; Japanese cultural history; East Asian International Relations; Women’s Studies

Publications

• “Language Ideology and its Manifestations: Exploring Implications for Japanese Language Teaching,” in Diversity, Inclusion, and Professionalism in Japanese Language Education: Special Issue of AATJ Journal Japanese Language and Literature (Fall 2020)
• “Calcutta in Colonial Transition”: Review article for special issue of International Quarterly of Asian Studies 50, No. 3-4 (December 2019)
• “Imagining ‘Home’: Discovering Multiples Selves and Homes through Travel,” in Gabriel Ricci, ed., Travel, Tourism and Identity: Culture and Civilization Vol.7 (Transaction Publishers, 2015)

Service to the Profession

• President, MARAAS (2019-2020)
• Vice President, MARAAS (2018-19)
• Program Chair, 51st Annual Mid-Atlantic Regional Association for Asian Studies conference (Fall 2023)

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

I am interested in strengthening AAS’s vision of advocacy for the promotion of the study of Asian cultures in small, liberal arts institutions, especially where the humanities are facing threats from the STEM fields. I would like to promote inter-institutional collaborations in the field of study abroad programs to Asian countries in order to cultivate programmatic support when resources are tight. I would like to promote faculty interactions through conferences. Finally, I would like to promote greater equity and inclusion for underrepresented groups in the field of Asian Studies.

Current position: Assistant Professor

Institution/Affiliation: Indiana State University

Discipline: History

Area or countries of interest: Southeast Asia, Thailand

Specialization or research interests: Thai urban history, colonial urbanism, sacred space in Southeast Asia, urban heritage

Publications

• Chiang Mai between Empire and the Thai Nation: A City in the Colonial Margins (Amsterdam University Press, 2023)
• “Local Identity, National Politics, and World Heritage in Northern Thailand,” Kyoto Review of Southeast Asia, no. 27 (February 28, 2020).
• “Networks Beyond the Nation: Urban Histories of Northern Thailand and Beyond,” in Routledge Handbook of Urbanization in Southeast Asia (Routledge, 2018)

Service to the Profession

• President, Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs (2022-23)
• Program Chair, Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs (2020)
• Board Member, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia Studies Group (2014-16)

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

As COC representative for MCAA, I will work to support regional conferences however I can, and to increase cooperation and coordination between MCAA and AAS. I strongly believe in supporting and growing the regional conferences as a pathway into the AAS for young scholars and students, and as an opportunity to enrich Asian studies at both large and smaller institutions across the Midwest.

Current position: Researcher and PhD Candidate

Institution/Affiliation: The University of Tokyo

Discipline: International Relations

Area or countries of interest: Japan, East Asia, Southeast Asia

Specialization or research interests: Japan, labor migration, youth empowerment in East Asia, gender equality, human rights, governance

Publications

• “Women Transforming the Digital World: Safer and Inclusive with Prosperity for All” (13 April 2023)
• “W7 Japan 2023 Communique: Feminist Demands for Building an Equal, Just, and Peaceful Future” (13 April 2023)
• Co-author, with Felipe Honorato and Oscar Martinez, “Impacts of Political Discourse on Vulnerable Migrant and Refugee Communities: Comparative Media Analysis in Brazil, Mexico and Japan,” Journal for Human Security Studies 10, Special Issue (2021): 25-145.

Service to the Profession

• U.S. Delegate to the Women20 (W20) Engagement Group; G20 India 2023 (2023-present)
• Women7 (W7) Japan Advisor and Coordinator on Women’s Empowerment, Meaningful Participation, and Leadership; G7 Japan 2023 (2023-present)
• Founder & Managing Director, Young Professionals in Foreign Policy (YPFP) Tokyo (2021-present)

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

If selected for the Diversity and Equity Committee, I would use my networks to meaningfully expand AAS’s network and efforts to support young scholars, especially those based in East and Southeast Asian institutions. Additionally, I would like to support deepening AAS partnerships with Asia-based networks to build a more transparent consortium of peers for potential knowledge exchange and research collaboration. Finally, I would recommend that AAS support diversity and equity through an intersectional lens and establish a series of workshops aimed at reducing bias and intercultural competency in understanding the complexities and challenges facing different communities in Asia and those studying and teaching about Asia from other regions, including the United States.

Current position: PhD Candidate

Institution/Affiliation: University of Michigan

Discipline: History

Area or countries of interest: Southeast Asia, South Asia

Specialization or research interests: Modern Southeast Asian and South Asian History; Environmental History, History of Capitalism, Legal History

Publication

• “From the Allegheny to the Irrawaddy: American Oil Drillers in Colonial Burma.” Journal of Energy History/Revue d’Histoire de l’Énergie, No. 9 (December 2022).
• “Global Circulation of Low-End Expertise: Knowledge, Hierarchy, and Labor Migration in a Burmese Oilfield.” History of Science 61, no. 4 (forthcoming, December 2023)

Service to the Profession

• Member, Graduate Student Outreach Committee, American Society for Legal History (2021-24)
• Chair, Graduate Student Advisory Council and Co-Chair of the Language Exchange Committee, Consortium of Graduate Education and Training in Southeast Asian Studies (GETSEA) (2021-23)

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

I would like to run for the graduate member on the AAS Diversity and Equity Committee to advocate for graduate student interests with my experience and perspective. As a person of East Asian origin whose work lies at the intersection of Southeast Asian Studies and South Asian Studies, I have extensive professional and personal experience with the challenges of graduate students in different sub-fields of Asian Studies. I have also experienced various kinds of higher education institutions (public, private, liberal arts, etc.) and I hope my previous experience will prepare me well for my service to the Diversity and Equity Committee as well as our graduate student community in Asian Studies.

Current position: PhD Candidate

Institution/Affiliation: University of Toronto

Discipline: Women and Gender Studies; Sociology

Area or countries of interest: East Asia, especially China; Asian diaspora in Canada

Specialization or research interests: LGBTQ+ communities, culture, history and activism in China; labor and sexuality; Marxism and Post-colonial studies; Asian queer diaspora studies in Canada

Publications

• “Divine Queer Sorrow, or Beyond Mythical Reparation.” TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies 46 (2023): 260-279.
• “Critical Socialist Feminism in China: xingbie (gender), the State and Community-based Socialism.” Rethinking Marxism 34, no.4 (2022): 519-537.
• “Graduated In/visibility: reflections on Ku’er activism in (post)socialist China.” QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking 6, no.3 (2019): 56-75.

Service to the Profession

• Executive Committee Member, Canadian Socialist Studies Association (2019-2021)
• Chairperson, Queer of Colour Caucus, National Women’s Studies Association (2019-2020)
• Communication Officer, Canadian Society of Sexuality Studies (2019-2020)

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

As a student member of the Diversity and Equity Committee, I will advance and advocate for more graduate student representation in AAS, making sure that young scholars like myself have adequate support within the association. Apart from keeping the committee running smoothly, I will further champion the presence of queer studies, scholars, and topics within the association’s annual conferences and other programs. I will also continue to advocate for other disenfranchised groups within Asian studies in my role as a committee member. As an international student, I will advise AAS to make financial and institutional spaces for more scholars based in Asian countries.

Current position: Assistant Professor

Institution/Affiliation: University of California, Santa Cruz

Discipline: History of Art and Visual Cultures

Area or countries of interest: Tibet, China, Asia Pacific

Specialization or research interests: 20th and 21st century Tibetan and Chinese art; constructions of race, ethnicity, and gender; art of Asian diaspora; mental health and disability studies; decolonizing methodologies and pedagogies

Publications

• “Between Concealment and Revelation: Empress Dowager Cixi’s Experiments with Representation,” Archives of Asian Art, 72.1 (Spring 2022): 97-127.
• “Beyond the Brush: Wesley Tongson’s Experimental Ink Paintings,” Orientations 53.1 (Jan/Feb 2022): 69-77.
• “Labor and Art During the Cultural Revolution: An Analysis of the Sculptural Installation Wrath of the Serfs,” Journal of Chinese Contemporary Art, Special Edition on the Cultural Revolution, 4.2 & 3 (2017): 243-268.

Service to the Profession

• Vice-Chair, Diaspora Asian Art Network, CAA (March 2023-present)
• Faculty of Color Caucus, Davidson College (2018-2022)
• Reviewer, Archives of Asian Art (2019-2021)

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

My vision for this position on the Diversity and Equity Committee is to support scholars whose works break disciplinary, cultural, and geographical boundaries that are remnants of colonial pasts. Recently, members of AAS have strived to look beyond the traditional geographical boundaries of “Asia” and what is counted as “Asian.” I will continue to contribute to these efforts by advocating for publication of cross-regional and cross-disciplinary scholarship that examines vital contemporary issues such as race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality, migration and diaspora, mental health, and disability rights. Moreover, if elected as a member of the DEC, I will work towards creating an active and consistent mentorship program to support scholars from groups who have been historically marginalized and who face specific challenges in the tenure and promotion process.

Current position: Assistant Professor

Institution/Affiliation: Davidson College

Discipline: History

Area or countries of interest: China, Tibet, East Asia

Specialization or research interests: Ethnic politics, memory, and the construction of historical narratives in Tibet under Chinese Communist Party rule

Publications

• “Historical Amnesia in Gyalthang: The Legacy of Tibetan Participation in the Cultural Revolution,” in Conflicting Memories: Tibetan History under Mao Retold, edited by Robert Barnett, Benno Weiner, and Françoise Robin (Brill, 2020)
• “Harnessing the Power of the Khampa Elites: Political Persuasion and the Consolidation of Communist Party Rule in Gyelthang,” in Frontier Tibet: Patterns of Change in the Sino-Tibetan Borderlands, edited by Stéphane Gros (Amsterdam University Press, 2019)
• Book Review: “The Chinese Revolution on the Tibetan Frontier,” by Benno Weiner. Published in The China Quarterly 1-2 (2023)

Service to the Profession

• Manuscript Reviewer, Twentieth Century China, University of California Press (2018-2022)
• Editorial Assistant, Journal of Contemporary Asia (2011)
• Logistics Coordinator, Southeast Regional Conference of the Association for Asian Studies (2010-2011)

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

My vision for AAS leadership and governance is focused on expanding and strengthening diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Black, Latinx, and Indigenous students and scholars are disproportionately underrepresented in the field of Asian Studies. Moreover, comprehensive programs aimed at recruiting, advocating on behalf of, and retaining Black, Latinx, and Indigenous faculty in Asian Studies remain underfunded or insufficiently supported. I am committed to spearheading new initiatives designed to address these systemic inequalities. I advise the AAS to promote organized conference panels, roundtables, and public scholarship focused on interdisciplinary dialogues between Asian Studies, Afro-Asian Studies, Indigenous Studies, and Asian American Studies. In addition, to create more inclusive pathways to careers in Asian Studies, I propose establishing mentorship workshops and increasing AAS conference travel support for Black, Latinx, and Indigenous undergraduate students, graduate students, and early career scholars. Finally, I advocate making structural changes and implementing additional accommodations to make in-person and virtual conferences more inclusive, accessible, and equitable for scholars from all backgrounds, including scholars with disabilities and parents of young children.

Current position: Associate Professor

Institution/Affiliation: Ramapo College of New Jersey

Discipline: Communication

Area or countries of interest: Korea, East Asia

Specialization or research interests: Race, alterity, and South Korean media culture; transnational reception of Korean popular culture (Hallyu)

Publications

• Co-author, with Seong Jae Min, Navigating White News: Asian American Journalists at Work (Rutgers University Press, 2023)
• Editor, Mediating the South Korean Other: Representations and Discourses of Difference in the Post/Neocolonial Nation-State (University of Michigan Press, 2022)
• Whitewashing the Movies: Asian Erasure and White Subjectivity in U.S. Film Culture (Rutgers University Press, 2022)

Service to the Profession

• I.D.E.A. Committee (International Communication Association)
• Chair, Asian/Pacific American Caucus (National Communication Association)
• Fulbright Alumni Ambassador

Statement of Vision for AAS Leadership and Governance

My vision is to continue to move AAS toward a diverse, inclusive, and equitable membership that moves toward a richer understanding of difference within Asian spaces, including the nations and communities we study as well as the intellectual spaces we occupy. I practice a collaborative leadership style that emphasizes shared governance and responsibility, which does not shy away from challenging embedded structures and discourses of domination. My hope is to contribute toward building a space that is more inclusive of people’s different lived experiences, that broadens the fields that contribute to the interdisciplinary of Asian Studies, and that highlights and positions indigenous scholars of the nations we study to have more seats at the table and more voice in representing their own communities.

The role of Treasurer replaces that of the Chair of the Finance Committee. The Treasurer will oversee the Finance Committee (FC) and its subcommittees and serve on the Board of Directors.

The Association for Asian Studies (AAS) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit with several thousand members, a wide array of activities, substantial annual budget, and considerable financial assets. The Board of Directors has the ultimate responsibility for financial matters. The Executive Director (ED) oversees Association programs and operations and works with the AAS BOD to ensure transparent and equitable leadership of the organization. The Director of Financial Operations manages and oversees AAS financial operations.

In order to improve overall financial management and facilitate the flow of timely and readily comprehensible financial information to the BOD, we hereby create a new position of Treasurer. The Board of Directors will appoint a Treasurer for an initial 2-year term. Following this initial term, the Treasurer shall be nominated by the Finance Committee and elected by the BOD for a four-year term. The tenure of the Treasurer’s term may ordinarily be extended for one additional four-year term with BOD approval.

The Treasurer ideally should have experience in one or more of the following areas: business, accounting, management, finance, portfolio management, economics, and non-profits. However, such experience is not a requirement. Someone committed and good at catching problems in budgets and thinking through financial issues also would be appropriate, working closely with the with AAS Director of Financial Operations (DFO) and the Finance Committee in oversight of three areas: AAS budget, AAS investments, and AAS annual audit.

Responsibility for keeping the Finance Committee and BOD fully informed about AAS finances will rest with the Treasurer, current President, Vice President, and the AAS Executive Director and the Director of Financial Operations.

The Treasurer shall be a voting member of the BOD and Chairperson of the FC. The FC is responsible for advising the BOD on all financial matters pertaining to the FC, which include (but are not limited to):

• Oversight of all financial matters of the Association, including financial documentation and decisions made by the Executive Director and Director of Financial Operations.
• Selecting Chair and members of the Investment Subcommittee.
• Selecting Chair and members of the Budget Subcommittee.
• Oversight of Audit Subcommittee by the Treasurer, who will serve as an Ex-officio member. The Audit Subcommittee shall have its own guidelines and report directly to the BOD.
• Reporting—with the support of the President, Vice President, Executive Director, and Director of Financial Operations—and advising on financial matters to the BOD

In summer 2023, the AAS Board of Directors approved a revised Finance Committee Charter. The Board of Directors recommends the following proposed changes to the Finance Committee details in section 9 of the AAS bylaws:

Current:

9. Finance Committee

The Finance Committee shall consist of the Vice-President, the Executive Director, and other members to be appointed by the Board of Directors. The terms of office shall be staggered and one of the appointed members shall be chair. The Chief Financial Officer of the Association shall be the secretary of the Committee without a vote. The Finance Committee shall review the budget of the Association and all of the Association’s investments and shall advise the Board of Directors annually on the financial condition of the Association.

Proposed Change:

9. Finance Committee

The Finance Committee, under the leadership of the Treasurer, provides short- and long-term financial oversight for the Association for Asian Studies, Inc. including, but not limited to: oversight of budgeting and financial planning, financial reporting, and the creation and monitoring of internal controls and accountability policies and practices.

The Finance Committee shall consist of the three following subcommittees:

BUDGET SUBCOMMITTEE

The Budget Subcommittee (BSC) shall have its own, separate guidelines and will review budget materials and assist in the preparation of summary presentations focused on major issues in advance of Board meetings – particularly the fall meeting, in which the Board considers and approves the preliminary budget for the following calendar year. The Budget Subcommittee will review the budget proposed by the ED and DFO and make its recommendation to the FC. The FC will again review it and make its recommendation to the BOD. The ED and DFO will provide the BSC with quarterly financial reports that include budget-to-actual results.

INVESTMENT SUBCOMMITTEE

The Investment Subcommittee (ISC) operates on the basis of the AAS Investment Policy Statement. The ISC may recommend external investment advisors. Alternatively, it may formulate and recommend investment strategies appropriate to the long-term financial health of AAS as a non-profit organization. The Subcommittee must conduct a review of the Investment Policy Statement every five years, at least, or more often if something occurs that demands exigency, and shall either confirm the existing Statement or recommend changes to the BOD.

AUDIT SUBCOMMITTEE

To maintain its independence, the Audit Subcommittee (ASC) shall operate independently, with its own guidelines, and report directly to the BOD.

It should establish its own direct communications with the independent auditors (without the direct involvement of any AAS employees) at its discretion. It is charged with reviewing preliminary audited financial reports and making its recommendation to the BOD. The Audit Subcommittee shall, at least every three years, recommend to the BOD whether to retain its current external financial auditors or seek out and evaluate other auditors. The Chair and members of the ASC are appointed by the BOD for staggered three-year terms and may be reappointed by the BOD for no more than two additional three-year terms. Under no conditions may a Chair or member of the ASC serve more than three terms. The Chair of the FC participates as an ex-officio member of the ASC. At least one member of the ASC must have financial audit experience. Other members of this subcommittee should ordinarily have prior experience with financial audits. Finance Committee members shall be appointed by the BOD for a four-year term, which may be extended by the BOD for no more than one additional four-year term. Said terms shall be staggered to ensure maintenance of institutional memory. Members of the FC will ordinarily have experience in such areas as business, accounting, management, finance, portfolio management, economics, and non-profits. It is highly desirable for the FC to include individuals with substantial work experience in the financial sector. In addition to the appointed members of the FC, the FC body and meetings should include the current President, Vice President, the Executive Director, and the Director of Financial Operations.

Currently, there is no clause within the AAS bylaws that provides for removal of a representative should they fail to complete their duties as expected. The BOD recommends addition of the following clause to the AAS bylaws:

23. Removing Board Members and Council and Committee Representatives

Failure to perform the duties and responsibilities as a representative on the Board of Directors and/or within a council or committee may constitute cause for removal prior to term expiration by the action of two-thirds (2/3) of the Board of Directors or respective council or committee. Failure to perform includes negligence of basic responsibilities, violation of AAS policies and other unethical behavior, creating an environment of disrespect and disfunction within the organization, and any other behaviors that can cause AAS to incur unnecessary liability.