Laurel Kendall served as President of the Association for Asian Studies in 2016-17 and is Curator of Asian Ethnology and Acting Curator of African and Pacific Ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York. Kendall also chairs the AMNH’s Division of Anthropology and is Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the Weatherhead […]
AAS Publications has recently released the latest title in its Asia Past & Present monograph series. In The Fifty Years That Changed Chinese Religion, 1898–1948, Paul R. Katz (Academia Sinica) and Vincent Goossaert (EPHE, PSL [Paris]) examine a time of significant political and social upheaval in China and demonstrate how religious life was also transformed […]
Charlene Makley is Professor of Anthropology at Reed College and author of The Battle for Fortune: State-Led Development, Personhood, and Power Among Tibetans in China (2018), published by Cornell University Press and Weatherhead East Asian Institute and Honorable Mention winner for the 2020 AAS E. Gene Smith Book Prize in Inner Asian Studies. Listen to […]
Max Oidtmann is Associate Professor of Asian History at Georgetown University Qatar and author of Forging the Golden Urn: The Qing Empire and the Politics of Reincarnation in Tibet, published by Columbia University Press and winner of the 2020 AAS E. Gene Smith Inner Asia Book Prize. To begin with, please tell us what your […]
Ananya Chakravarti is Associate Professor of History, Georgetown University and author of The Empire of Apostles: Religion, Accommodatio and the Imagination of Empire in Early Modern Brazil and India, published by Oxford University Press and recipient of an honorable mention for the 2020 AAS Bernard S. Cohn Book Prize. To begin with, please tell us […]
By Bart Klem Bart Klem is Senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne. In 2011, his article, “Islam, Politics and Violence in Eastern Sri Lanka,” was published in the Journal of Asian Studies. In the #AsiaNow post below, written shortly after the Easter Sunday bombings of several churches and hotels in Sri Lanka, Klem explains […]
James Rush is Professor of History at Arizona State University and author of Hamka’s Great Story: A Master Writer’s Vision of Islam for Modern Indonesia, published by the University of Wisconsin Press and awarded Honorable Mention for the 2019 AAS George McT. Kahin Book Prize. To begin with, please tell us what your book is […]
Bryan D. Lowe is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at Vanderbilt University and author of Ritualized Writing: Buddhist Practice and Scriptural Cultures in Ancient Japan, published by University of Hawai’i Press and the Kuroda Institute for the Study of Buddhism and winner of the 2019 AAS John Whitney Hall Book Prize. […]
By David G. Atwill At dusk one evening in June 2012, I found myself staring up at the imposing main gate of Lhasa’s Grand Mosque. I had waited four years to procure the proper travel permit necessary for me to visit Lhasa and witness firsthand the people, places, and spaces I’d previously only been able […]
Thomas Patton is Assistant Professor in the Department of Asian and International Studies, and Associate Director of the Southeast Asia Research Centre, at the City University of Hong Kong. A scholar of religious studies, Patton is a specialist in Buddhism in Southeast Asia—specifically Myanmar—and has been a member of the AAS since 2005. Why did […]
Daniel A. Hirshberg is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Mary Washington and author of Remembering the Lotus-Born: Padmasambhava in the History of Tibet’s Golden Age, published by Wisdom Publications and winner of Honorable Mention for the 2018 AAS E. Gene Smith Book Prize. To begin with, please tell us what your […]
Cynthia Talbot is Professor of History & Asian Studies at the University Of Texas at Austin and author of The Last Hindu Emperor: Prithviraj Chauhan And The Indian Past, 1200-2000, published by Cambridge University Press and winner of the 2018 AAS Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Book Prize. To begin with, please tell us what your book […]
Janet Gyatso is Hershey Professor of Buddhist Studies and Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs at Harvard Divinity School, and author of Being Human in a Buddhist World: An Intellectual History of Medicine in Early Modern Tibet, published by Columbia University Press and winner of the 2017 AAS E. Gene Smith Award for Best […]
John Stratton Hawley (a.k.a., Jack) is Claire Tow Professor of Religion at Barnard College, Columbia University and author of A Storm of Songs: India and the Idea of the Bhakti Movement, published by Harvard University Press and winner of the 2017 AAS Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy Book Prize. To begin with, please tell us what your […]
By Lindsey E. DeWitt On July 9, 2017, Japan received its twenty-first UNESCO World Heritage inscription, making a total of seventeen cultural sites and four natural sites (the full list can be accessed here). The newly designated UNESCO World Heritage site, “Sacred Island of Okinoshima and Associated Sites in the Munakata Region,” features a solitary […]
Pankaj Jain is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of North Texas. Follow him on Twitter @ProfPankajJain. Your discipline and country (or countries) of interest Philosophy and religion; India and the Indian diaspora in the Americas (USA, Canada, Suriname, Trinidad, Guyana). How long have you been a member of […]
By James Edmonds I had already sat for several hours, gently sweating, as thousands of people arrived at an open-air building in Solo, Indonesia. The streets outside were full of pedestrians, cars, motorbikes, buses, and the smell of fried tofu. People pressed into the building; some took seats close to the front, while others went […]
By Brooke Schedneck “In deeply religious Thailand, monks have long been revered. But badly behaved clergy, corruption scandals, and the vast wealth amassed by some temples has many asking if something is rotten at the heart of Thai Buddhism. From selfies on private jets to multimillion dollar donations from allegedly crooked businessmen, Thailand’s monks are […]
