With the support of a generous grant from the Henry Luce Foundation, “Emerging Fields” is a multi-year initiative to promote new and under-represented topics in Asian Studies. Each theme is the focus of a three-year cycle, consisting of a small planning meeting (year one), larger workshop for early career scholars (year two), and a designated panel at the AAS Annual Conference (year three). Previous “Emerging Fields” themes have been:
- Economic History (2016-2018)
- Asia and the Anthropocene (2017-2019)
- Law, Society, and Justice in Asia (2018-2020)
Technology in Asia
The fourth workshop in the AAS “Emerging Fields in Asian Studies” initiative was launched on October 17-18, 2019 with a planning meeting at the School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences (EHESS), Paris. The theme for this cycle of the initiative is “Technology in Asia,” and the co-conveners of the planning meeting were Aleksandra Kobiljski (EHESS) and Francesca Bray (University of Edinburgh).
“Technology in Asia” seeks to highlight the richness and diversity of current research on technology in Asia and its contribution to the field of Asian Studies. A focus on technology, interfacing with themes including techno-science, biotech, environmental technology, and medical technologies, brings together emerging trends in the fields of history, sociology, and anthropology of technology, as well as in Science, Technology, and Society (STS). Asia is emerging in technology studies, and technology is emerging in Asian Studies; the workshop’s goal is to build bridges and open new sight lines on both sides.
Participants in the planning meeting were: Eugenia Lean (Columbia University), Annapurna Mamidipudi (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science), Suzanne Moon (Technology & Culture ), Carla Nappi (University of Pittsburgh), Aparajith Ramnath (University of Ahmedabad), and Dagmar Schäfer (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science).
“Technology in Asia” Workshop Call for Proposals
January 14, 2022: The Call for Proposals for the “Technology in Asia” workshop is now available. All proposals must be submitted by Monday, February 14, 2022. The workshop will be held online, hosted by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University, May 13-15, 2022. READ FULL CALL FOR PROPOSALS