Results for category: President’s Column

Pushed and Prodded to a Career Highlight

As I write this, the first virtual AAS Annual Conference is still going on. It has been a strangely floating experience for me, with heights of exhilaration (music!) as well as deep poignancy for the contact that cannot be. A big thank you to the AAS Secretariat staff, who pulled this off with energy, commitment, […]

Picture of a compass

Charting Shared Futures

Greetings from Honolulu where there have been recent snow sightings on the peaks of Mauna Kea, Mauna Loa, and Haleakala! For us, this calls for the annual donning of socks and sweatshirts, cherished because it is inevitably short-lived. The AAS Board of Directors just completed its day-long retreat to tackle thorny issues of governance under […]

Image of "Happy New Year" written in the sand

Creating New Hybrid Futures Together in 2021

To all, Shinnen akemashite omedetou gozaimasu! Happy Year of the Ox! I write this on New Year’s Day, although I know that it will not be posted until a few days later. In Honolulu, the weather is a cool 73 degrees, breezy, and a little rainy, which is good for washing away the red-paper remains […]

President’s Column: Reflections on Leadership and Compassion

Greetings to all from across the Pacific! Autumn is only a concept in Hawai`i, since our temperatures do not fall and neither do our leaves. We sweat through Halloween and keep our beach towels on the clothesline for ready use. This fall, however, was momentous because of the U.S. Presidential election. The many firsts of […]

On the Inevitable Politics of Our Lives and Institutions

It has been fifty years since the Journal of Asian Studies published William Theodore de Bary’s by now iconic presidential address, “The Association for Asian Studies: Nonpolitical but not Unconcerned” (Aug. 1970, vol. 29, no. 4, pp. 751-759). De Bary spoke in the context of very different, but not unrelated, times, marked by debates over […]

Sheltering in Place with Asian Studies

Warm greetings from Honolulu! Our pandemic lives filled with numbers define us and the places in which we live. Hawai`i: 643 cases confirmed, 589 recovered, 17 deaths. Sheltering in place and keeping tourists out have produced these optimistic results. Nevertheless, the pandemic globally has brought with it much pain, misery, loss of life, loss of […]

Asian Studies in a Time of Pandemic

Greetings from lush Manoa Valley in sunny Honolulu! It is a strange time to become AAS President with the cancellation of our Boston conference and the realization of just how important these meetings are in renewing our friendships and ties to each other. We all feel the loss deeply. Many thanks to those who generously […]

Academic Exchanges in a Time of Conflictual Geopolitics

In my September President’s Column I wrote about the impact of geopolitics on international scholarly exchanges and on conditions of higher education, particularly in the humanities and social sciences. Indeed, from the perspective of AAS this problem has intensified. I am referring of course to the protests and shutdown of universities in Hong Kong, where […]

Thoughts on the Future of AAS-in-Asia

With this first blog of my Presidential tenure, I would like to express my gratitude for your support and confidence in electing me to this position. Coming into the Presidency of the Association in these deeply troubled geo-political times has been very challenging, and I will need your support and participation more than ever. What […]

The AAS Secretariat is closed on Monday, May 29 in observance of the Memorial Day holiday