Congratulations to AAS Members Junting Huang (Cornell University), who was awarded a Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship; David A. Pietz (University of Arizona), a member of the Carnegie Fellows Class of 2020; and Louise Young (University of Wisconsin-Madison), elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
All AAS Book Prizes are now accepting submissions for their 2021 competitions. Please note that we have standardized submission procedures across all book prize competitions, and all nominations must be submitted by June 30. Only presses may nominate titles for consideration; if you’re the author of a book and would like to see it nominated, please contact your publisher to discuss this.
Regional Conferences
AAS regional conferences scheduled for Fall 2020 are tentatively proceeding as planned. Please consult the individual conference websites for updates.
The New York Conference on Asian Studies has extended its Call for Proposals deadline to May 15, with its 2020 meeting, organized by the College at Brockport SUNY, scheduled for September 11-12.
The New England Conference of the AAS is now accepting proposals for its October 17 meeting at the University of Vermont. All individual paper, organized panel, and roundtable discussion proposals must be submitted by June 5.
The Southwest Conference on Asian Studies will hold its 2020 meeting at Texas State University in San Marcos, October 23-24. The Call for Proposals is now open, with a submission deadline of June 30.
Indiana University will host the Midwest Conference on Asian Affairs, October 16-18 and is now accepting proposal submissions.
Deceased Asianists
Sue-Je Gage, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Ithaca College. Obituary via The Ithacan.
Sarah Nelson (1931-2020), Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, University of Denver; expert in the archaeology of Korea and northeast China. Obituary via Denver Post.
Douglas R. Reynolds, professor emeritus in history at Georgia State University in Atlanta and author of two highly respected books on Chinese-Japanese cultural relations in the late Qing period, died March 11, 2020, in hospice in Atlanta.
Doug Reynolds joined the history faculty at Georgia State University in autumn 1980, and remained there until retiring in August 2018 to focus his efforts on cataloging and analyzing the vast collection of Mao badges he began purchasing in China in 1993. The collection became his last serious research interest over the past ten years, as he moved toward a systematic understanding of this phenomenon in Cultural Revolution China.
Professor Reynolds’ research interests developed through residences and intensive language study in both China (at first, Taiwan) and Japan. The effects of political/diplomatic conditions at the time (still before 1979) especially benefited his evolving research interests. The ultimate benefit was the two books referred to above. The first, China, 1899-1912: The Xinzheng Revolution and Japan (1993), revealed positive influences from Japan as China under Empress Dowager Cixi undertook administrative reforms in her waning years. The book won the To-A Dobun Shoin Memorial Prize in Japan in 1996. A Chinese translation was published in 2010.
Reynolds’ second book, East Meets East: Chinese Discover the Modern World in Japan, 1854-1898, published by AAS in 2014, broke new ground in research on capable younger Chinese scholars who visited Japan as observers during the period of the subtitle. These individuals became a cadre of open-minded reformers who often recommended far more enlightened reforms than their conservative superiors.
Professor Reynolds also won prizes for some of his published articles, including “A Golden Decade: Japan-China Relations, 1898-1907,” which was awarded the 1988 Modern Sino-Japanese Relations Prize of the Association for Asian Studies.
Doug Reynolds’ contributions to the field of China studies grew out of his unending curiosity, deep love of languages, and decades of persistence. His death resulted from complications associated with prostate cancer. He had rallied multiple times over the past several years, before passing away peacefully with family by his side. Family, friends, students, and colleagues will remember him for his lively spirit, sense of humor, and generosity.
—Submitted by Ed Krebs