I wish all EAA readers who are fortunate enough to have the chance, a joyous, peaceful, and reflective holiday season. The special section “Teaching Asia’s Giants: India” commences with four solicited essays that build upon, beginning with Carol Gluck’s original essay “Top Ten Things to Know About Japan in the late 1990s,” a number of “Top Ten Things” essays we’ve published throughout the years.
At the risk of using a term that has reached the point it perhaps has no specific definition, the idea was hatched because India, is one the most diverse major nation on the planet. Instead of having one author introduce India to non-specialists and students we invited four scholars in different fields who can justly claim the title “public intellectual,” to write individual essays on what they consider the most basic information about India in the twenty-first century every reader should consider. Those readers who are proponents of viewpoint diversity will especially savor the experience of reading Itty Abraham, Nimish Adhia (assisted by two graduate students), Coonoor Kripalani, and Arvind Sharma. Even when the authors make similar or even identical assertions in several essays, the often-different rationales for including similar points are thought provoking as well.
Four more focused feature articles complement the general essays. Jinah Kim and Todd Lewis in “Understanding India’s Religious Art” nicely integrate images and narrative to add to reader understanding of the article’s title. Daniel Jasper’s “Studying Indian Secularism to Understand the US” should assist readers in more clearly comprehending secularism in the US through considering India’s different approach, (perhaps until recently) to the question of state and religion.
Is it even possible for basic understanding of India’s history and culture to occur without gaining a sense of the impact on everyday life of 121 mother tongue languages and twenty-two official languages? Jessica Chandras in “Multilingualism in India” offers an excellent introduction to the phenomenon. Groton School master-teacher and long-time EAA editorial board member and contributor Tommy Lamont focuses upon domestic policy in part 1 of “Making China and India Great Again” a two-part comparative essay written specifically for instructors and students. Watch for part 2 in Spring 2021.
The special section continues in EAA resources, with Steven Jackson’s teaching resources essay “How to Measure a Giant?” that is a useful introductory guide to GDP as a tool to better understand India and China, and Brian Caton’s review essay of The Indian Rebellion: 1857–1859.
Please visit the Winter EAA online supplements for Jayati Bhattacharya’s feature article, “Ties that Bind, India and Southeast Asia Connectivities” that provides yet another unique perspective on India’s historic impact, and for the EAA Facts about Asia column, “India’s Thriving Technology Industry.”
The non-thematic EAA Resources section begins with an interview with David Kenley, Guest Editor of the AAS Asia Shorts and EAA digital and print book collaboration Teaching Asia in a Time of Pandemic. Readers not aware of this recent publication can access the digital version for no charge.
The resources section also includes our annual interview with the winners of the 2020 AAS Franklin Buchanan Prizes: the developers of the curated film series, “The Global Environmental Justice Collection (Focus on Asia/Spotlight on North America)” as well as an essay review by an award-winning AP Human Geography teacher of one of the most acclaimed films in the series. Ronald Suleski’s Teaching Resources Essay “A Confucian Classroom in Qing China” is a delightful combination of detective story, memoir, and depiction of education in traditional China. Many EAA readers use Key Issues in Asian Studies (KIAS) in their classrooms and should find Ronald Green, the most recently published KIAS author’s short essay, “The Many Manifestations of Shintō” of interest.
The spring 2021 special section is “Asia’s Environments: National, Regional, and Global Perspectives.” The fall 2021 special section is “Engaging Asia: Film, Documentaries, and Television” and the deadline for initial receipt of manuscripts is May 20, 2021. For information on two additional planned special sections, as well as author guidelines, please visit the EAA website: https://www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/. Nonthematic manuscripts are also considered for each issue.
Please encourage friends and colleagues who prefer EAA print copies to subscribe by visiting the EAA website. If you have not already done so, visit the EAA website for access to over 1,500 archived articles and more extensive features that highlight both EAA news and other Asia-related opportunities, resources, and programs. Subscribe to our monthly e-newsletter, the EAA Digest, for regular updates on EAA and exclusive content on using EAA articles and additional recommended Asia-related resources at https://tinyurl.com/y38pxf3z. Beginning with our July 2020 Digest, we launched EAA Teaching Case Studies, an online series published in our newsletter and on our website where educators highlight the ways they use EAA articles in their courses. If you have a case study you wish to share on how you use EAA in your classes, please do so at https://bit.ly/EAACaseStudy.
Cordially,
Lucien Ellington
Editor: Education About Asia
Send formal EAA submissions to:
Jeffrey Melnik
Managing Editor, Education About Asia
261 CSOB, Dept. 2222
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Chattanooga, TN 37403
Phone: (423) 425-2118
Fax: (423) 425-5441
Email: edast@utc.edu
(Please also copy the editor at Lucien-Ellington@utc.edu)