Letter from the Director
Dear Friends of CAS,
Warm greetings on a chilly winter’s day here in Boulder! 2015 was a busy year in Asian Studies.
Last Spring we partnered with the College of Media, Communication, and Information (CMCI); the Center for Media, Religion, and Society; and the Center for Environmental Journalism—all of whom provided generous funding—to host our annual symposium on last year’s theme of “Mediating Asia.” The symposium featured presentations by an international group of scholars and media practitioners (see a list of participants on page 6). Panels explored media and environmental politics in Asia; media, democracy and nationalism; and media, identity, and culture. For me, the symposium exemplified two important things that we strive for here at CAS: research and teaching about Asia that cross professional as well as disciplinary boundaries, and putting CU’s expertise in Asian Studies in conversation with the scholarly world beyond CU. In both of these, the symposium was a real success.
This academic year, our theme has been “Transcultural Asia,” in which we explore how cultural and social phenomena in Asia have historically emerged out of extended connections and relationships between different Asian regions, as well as relationships between Asia and other parts of the world. At its base, transculturalism is about cultural encounter and the ability “to see oneself in the other.” That is an ability, we believe, that much of our world still sorely lacks, as cultural encounter can just as easily result in the opposite (that is, an ability to only see ‘the other’ as someone completely different from and alien to oneself). Literature is one of the most effective media through which to explore transculturalism, and with that in mind, CAS joined many local Boulder organizations, government bodies, and individuals in co-sponsoring the inaugural Jaipur Literature Festival @ Boulder last September. This is an event where the idea of transculturalism is clearly on display, and we’re looking forward to it becoming an annual event in Boulder.
CU Boulder continues to support an amazing faculty pool of Asian Studies expertise in many departments and schools across campus, three of whom were recently honored for their scholarship. Miriam Kingsberg (History) received the 2015 Kayden Book Award, as well as the Provost’s Faculty Achievement Award, for her book, Moral Nation: Modern Japan and Narcotics in Global History (California, 2013). Emily Yeh (Geography) won the 2015 Association for Asian Studies (AAS) E. Gene Smith Book Prize for best publication on Inner Asia for her book, Taming Tibet: Landscape Transformation and the Gift of Chinese Development (Cornell, 2014). And Matthias Richter (ALC) received Honorable Mention for the 2015 AAS Levenson Book Prize for his book, Embodied Text: Establishing Textual Identity in Early Chinese Manuscripts (Brill, 2013).
I would also like to extend a welcome to some of our new Asian Studies faculty on campus: Sabahat Adil (ALC) studies pre-modern Arabic literature and culture; Aun Hasan Ali (Religious Studies) is a specialist in Islamic law and Sunni-Shi’i relations; Kathryn Goldfarb (Anthropology) works on kinship and networks of social inclusion and exclusion in Japan; Rachel Rinaldo (Sociology) studies gender, religion, and globalization in Indonesia; and Ming-Ying Li (ALC) is a new lecturer of Chinese who studies Chinese pedagogy.
Finally, I’m excited to announce two new initiatives we’ve launched this year. One is our new Asia Internship Program, featuring in-country internships in Japan and in China. Our ability to offer this opportunity is due almost entirely to the support of our alumni and supporters within these countries, for which we are extremely grateful. The other is a new fundraising initiative, the Friends of Asian Studies Flatiron Fund. This fund allows donors to contribute to Asian Studies in a significant way through a multi-year pledge. If you have contributed to CAS in the past, Thank You! If not, I invite you to become a “Friend of Asian Studies” and consider donating to our Flatiron Fund. To learn more, read below and visit . You can easily donate online at our website as well. Just click on the “Support CAS” link.
Tim Oakes, CAS Director