AAS Digital Dialogues are online webinars on issues related to professional development and the field of Asian Studies. We have had some amazing conversations already: take a look at our sessions on “Asian Studies and Black Lives Matter” and “AAS Governance and You”, for example.

We welcome scholars and practitioners in Asian Studies to suggest new proposals for Digital Dialogue sessions and invite you to submit ideas for consideration at any time. Here are some guidelines to keep in mind when putting together your session proposal:

• Digital Dialogue webinars focus on professionalization, current events, or trends in the broader field of Asian Studies.
• Digital Dialogues generally take the form of roundtable discussion, with 3-4 discussants and a moderator (there will also be an AAS staff member running event technology, and they can serve as moderator if preferred). Workshop proposals are also welcome. Any formal presentations should be brief—ideally, each participant would make opening remarks of no more than 5-7 minutes. The bulk of the session time should be focused on discussion among participants and responding to questions submitted by the audience.
• Digital Dialogues are scheduled for 60-75 minutes, which means concrete, focused topics are much more effective. “How to prepare a book proposal” is just right for a Digital Dialogue (in fact, you can watch a video of our session on that topic here), but there won’t be enough time to discuss, for example, “How to publish your first book.”
• As is true for our Annual Conference, a strong Digital Dialogue proposal shows diversity in gender, ethnicity, and institutional balance, with a combination of junior and senior scholars. If your proposed topic focuses on professionalization or any “state of the field” issue, it should also include speakers who study different regions of Asia (as delineated by our four region-based Area Councils).
• A Digital Dialogue is not a conference session; if your idea focuses on discussing research, it’s more appropriate to submit that to either our Annual Conference or one of the nine AAS regional conferences.
• We schedule Digital Dialogues on an ongoing basis, usually working 6-8 weeks in advance of the session date. We also try to vary our session topics, so accepted proposals will not necessarily be scheduled in the order they were received. If you have a specific scheduling request (an event anniversary date, for example), please note that on your proposal.
• We publicize Digital Dialogue sessions on our website and social media channels, as well as through email announcements to AAS members. Digital Dialogue sessions are recorded and posted on our website and Vimeo channel for public viewing.

We are available for consultations! If you have questions, or an idea that’s not yet a full proposal that you’d like to talk through, please contact AAS Digital Media Manager Maura Elizabeth Cunningham, mcunningham@asianstudies.org.

If you’re ready to submit your idea, please put together a short Digital Dialogue proposal that includes: a session title, a session abstract of approximately 250 words, the names of all participants, and brief (approximately 150 words) bios of each. Submit your proposal in a Word document using the form here:

Thank you for your interest in proposing an AAS Digital Dialogue!