January 2020 AAS Member News & Notes

Nominate yourself or a colleague for the 2020 Hamako Ito Chaplin Memorial Award for Excellence in Japanese Language Teaching. This annual prize honors an outstanding graduate student or instructor teaching Japanese at the college level and carries with it a $1,000 award. All nomination materials are due to Selection Committee Chair Priya Ananth by January 31, 2020.

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The AAS is pleased to be among the sponsors of an upcoming tour of Indiana and Michigan by the Seoul National University New Music Ensemble. On January 16 the SNU musicians will perform at Indiana University; on January 17 AAS Executive Director Hilary Finchum-Sung and SNU Professor Ji-young Yi will speak at Indiana on “Contemporary Trends in Traditional Music in Korea.” The group will then travel to Ann Arbor, Michigan for two events at the University of Michigan: “Silk, Bamboo, and Wood: The Resonance of Korean Tradition” (January 18) and a performance (January 19). Finally, Michigan State University will host the ensemble for a performance on January 21.

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AAS Members are invited to apply to the Small Grants programs offered by our Northeast Asia Council and China & Inner Asia Council; the deadline is February 1 at 5:00pm Eastern Time. Grant funds are available to support activities such as short-term research, conference/workshop organization, and the development of specialist newsletters/websites. Please see the relevant grant pages for complete information about eligible projects and how to apply.

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The AAS seeks applicants for the position of Editor of the Journal of Asian Studies. Candidates are asked to submit their applications by February 15, 2020; interviews will be conducted at the 2020 Annual Conference in Boston. The Editor’s term will officially begin on July 1, 2021, following a six-month transition period to facilitate a smooth handoff of the journal.

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We are also accepting applications for the spring round of AAS First Book Subvention Grants. All applications must come from a publisher on behalf of the AAS Member author, and we now require two reader report summaries (up to 300 words each) as part of the application package. The deadline for submission is March 1; more information can be found at the link above.

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Students presenting at the Annual Conference in Boston should check out the requirements for our graduate student paper prizes. Each Area Council will select outstanding work presented in Boston and honor the author(s) at our 2021 conference in Seattle. All paper prize submissions are due on Sunday, March 22—the final day of AAS 2020. Requirements for submissions vary by council, so please make sure to consult the instructions for your prize competition.

Regional Conferences

The Southeast Conference of the AAS will hold its annual meeting January 17-19, 2020 at New College of Florida in Sarasota.

Asian Studies on the Pacific Coast has opened the call for proposals for its June 2020 conference at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, which will feature the theme “Asia: Our Global Future.” The proposal submission deadline is February 29, 2020.

Deceased Asianists

Bruce Jacobs, Emeritus Professor of Chinese Studies at Monash University and scholar of Taiwan. Obituary by Mark Harrison via the Asian Studies Association of Australia.

Tai-loi Ma, Emeritus Director of the Princeton University East Asian Library. Obituary by Martin Heijdra via H-Asia.

Yasuko Makino, Japanese bibliographer at Princeton University. Obituary via H-Japan.

We welcome submissions for the AAS Member News & Notes column, so please forward material for consideration to mcunningham@asianstudies.org. Please note that we do not publish book announcements in this space; new books by AAS Members will be announced on the association’s Twitter feed (@AASAsianStudies) and Facebook page (@AASAsianStudies).