Call for Submissions - Explorations: A Graduate Journal of Southeast Asia Studies

Deadline: February 12, 2016

Web announcement: www.cseashawaii.org/students/explorations/papers/

Explorations: A Graduate Journal of Southeast Asia Studies published by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Hawaii provides a peer-reviewed forum for graduate scholarship on Southeast Asia. Submissions are welcomed from students who are currently enrolled in an academic program or who are a recent graduate (within the last year). The journal is produced through a blind review process, by volunteer editors with the guidance of a faculty advisor. Explorations is published electronically and in hard copy.

CFPapers: Special Issue: Southeast Asia in the Humanities and Social Science Curricula

Association of Asian Studies

Education About Asia

EAA seeks submissions for a special section to be published in spring 2015 entitled "Southeast Asia in the Humanities and Social Sciences Curricula," with a particular interest in obtaining feature-length manuscripts and teaching resources essays onSingapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Manuscripts selected for publication should be written in prose that is accessible for high school and/or undergraduate instructors and students. The number of endnotes in manuscripts should be minimal. EAA is especially appreciative of manuscripts that are potentially useful at both the undergraduate and secondary school levels. Please consult the EAA website www.asian-studies.org/EAA/Themes.htm for information on guidelines etc. Prospective authors are encouraged to send manuscript ideas or questions to the editor, Lucien Ellington, via email at l-ellington@comcast.net. The deadline for initial submission of manuscripts is November 20, 2014.

Call for Manuscripts: Southeast Asia in the Humanities and Social Sciences Curricula

We are developing a special section that will be published in spring 2015 entitled “Southeast Asia in the Humanities and Social Sciences Curricula.” We hope to publish a special section that includes articles and essays representative of a wide range of academic disciplines. Manuscripts selected for publication should be written in prose that is accessible for high school and/or undergraduate instructors and students. The number of endnotes in manuscripts should be minimal compared to more traditional scholarly journals.

Editor, Education About Asia
302 Pfeiffer Stagmaier Hall, Dept. 2222
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Chattanooga, TN 37403

Prospective authors should be aware that there is almost an even division between the percentage of our readers who are undergraduate instructors and the percentage of our readers who are secondary school teachers. We are especially appreciative of manuscripts that are potentially useful at both the undergraduate and secondary school levels. Please consult the EAA guidelines, available on the website under my signature, before submitting a manuscript for this special section. Pay particular attention to feature and teaching resources manuscript word-count ranges. Prospective authors are also encouraged to send possible manuscript ideas or any questions to me via email at l-ellington@comcast.net.

The deadline for initial submission of manuscripts is November 20th 2014. However, our manuscript word count ceilings are modest and we purposefully limit the number of endnotes for manuscripts since the journal is intended for educated lay people. I am particularly interested in obtaining both feature-length manuscripts and teaching resources essays on Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia but will promptly respond to authors who might be interested in submitting manuscripts on other Southeast Asian topics. We hope that the special section will be multi-disciplinary.

Lucien Ellington
e-mail: l-ellington@comcast.net
Web Site http://www.asian-studies.org/EAA/

CFP: Locating Southeast Asian Horror

CALL FOR PAPERS

Plaridel Special Issue
Locating Southeast Asian Horror

Issue editors: Katarzyna Ancuta & Patrick F. Campos

The unprecedented success of Japanese and Korean horror on international markets in the early 2000s increased the demand for the genre from the region, but also set a new standard against which these productions were judged. Encouraged by the enthusiastic reception of (the problematically labeled but widely accepted category) “Asian Horror” by commentators and the global fan community, Southeast Asian national cinemas began to revitalize their local horror genres, and distributors eventually turned to Southeast Asian horror as well.

But contemporary “Southeast Asian Horror” proved to be quite diverse, ranging from those that adapt the same strategy that made J- and K-horror into a global phenomenon, to a great majority of horror films that resisted or spawned its own formula. Many of these films followed local modes of narrative, frequently mixed elements of comedy with horror, introduced stories of supernatural creatures incompatible with the generic hordes of universally acceptable ghosts and monsters, and appreciated a different aesthetics than one usually associated with either Western or East Asian horror film.

There is much to be said about Southeast Asian horror yet until now the genre has mostly eluded the attention of the academic community. This collection is an attempt to fill in the gap. Horror forms a staple part of Southeast Asian cinematic repertoire. As a genre, it is almost exclusively supernatural. This is not surprising, given the region’s rich texture of religiosity, supernatural beliefs, shamanic rituals, and animistic practice. While there is no denying that, at least to a certain extent, Southeast Asian horror has been influenced by Western or, more recently, East Asian horror films, we cannot underestimate the importance of the particular politics, local cultural grounding, and other permutations of Southeast Asian Horror.

With this in mind, this special issue aims to answer a number of questions: Does Southeast Asian horror exist as a separate, recognizable category? How is Southeast Asian horror different from Western or East Asian horror genres? What are the particular political and cultural characteristics of horror films when considered in the context of Southeast Asia or as being Southeast Asian? Are there any similarities or differences between films in the region across national cinemas? What is the current reach of Southeast Asian horror, in terms of international viewership? What are the modes of receiving and appreciating Southeast Asian horror?

We invite contributions of academic articles that can further the discussion of the topic.

Some of the suggested themes are:

•     Foreign influences on Southeast Asian horror
•     Transnational horror
•     Southeast Asian horror narrative structure
•     Southeast Asian horror sub-genres
•     Comparative view of horror from Southeast Asian national cinemas
•     Themes, motifs and locations
•     Folklore and oral tradition
•     Rural and urban horror
•     Haunting and spectrality
•     Representations of otherness
•     Representations of gender
•     Race, class and ethnicity issues
•     Political dimension of Southeast Asian horror
•     Cultural dimension of Southeast Asian horror
•     Southeast Asian horror audiences

Manuscripts should be submitted via email to plarideljournal@gmail.com, on or before 1 DECEMBER 2014.

For more information about Plaridel see: http://plarideljournal.org/

Call for Papers: Religious Authority and Activism: Ulama' in Contemporary Muslim Societies

The 7th al-Jami'ah Forum has issued a Call for Papers 

(deadlineAugust 22, 2014)

By and large, ulama play key roles in the development of Muslim societies, not only in religious life but also in economic, social, political and cultural ones. There are ulama who are actively engaged in particular political parties, Islamic economics, people’s empowerment, cultural activities, and humanitarian reliefs, but there are also those who take distance from “worldly lives”. However, their roles are not measured merely by their direct involvement in various activities, but also by their absent in or even rejection to them. Both their activism and passivism have certain impact on Muslim societies. Morevover, their roles are different from one Muslim society to another. Ulama in majority Muslim societies, for instance, have different roles from those in minority Muslim societies. This is also true for ulama living and serving in urban and rural areas. Even in one society, ulama’s role has been very dynamic. The impact of media and globalization on their role has been also significant; people can just surf on the internet for seeking particular religious information. The involvement of certain ulama in some political or economic misconducts has also certain impact of people’s perception of ulama in general. It is important, therefore, to study the dynamic of ulama’s roles in various Muslim societies, either in Indonesia or in other countries.

This seventh al-Jami’ah Forum will bring together scholars and researches from various scientific and nationality backgrounds to share their research interests and findings pertaining to the role of ulama in different Muslim societies. The forum deals with, but not be restricted on, some issues, such as:

    Ulama, State and Politics
    Ulama, Islamic activism, and Counter-Radicalism
    Ulama and Shari‘a Economics
    Ulama, Women, and Gender Issues
    Ulama and Social-Humanitarian Activities
    Ulama, Culture and New Media

Anyone interested in participating the conference, please send abstract of presentation (150 – 300 words) and short CV to forum@aljamiah.org

Important dates:

Abstract submission deadline: 22 August 2014

Announcement of selected abstract: 1 September 2014

Deadline for full paper submission: 15 November 2014

Promising papers, after the process of peer reviews, will be published by al-Jami’ah: Journal of Islamic Studies in the next year edition.
Sayyidah Aslamah

Research Center Building
Sunan Kalijaga State Islamic University
jl. Marsda Adisucipto Yogyakarta 55281 Indonesia

Phone and Fax: +62 274 558186

Email: forum@aljamiah.org
Visit the website at http://www.aljamiah.org

CFManuscripts: Southeast Asia in the Humanities and Social Sciences Curricula

(Please cross-post to all relevant listservs)

Education About Asia (EAA), now in its 19th year of publication, is the peer-reviewed teaching journal of the Association for Asian Studies. Our readers include undergraduate instructors as well as high school and middle school teachers. High school and undergraduate instructors also utilize a significant number of EAA articles as student readings. Our articles are intended for both specialists interested in teaching and for a large non-specialist audience. Qualified referees evaluate all manuscripts submitted for consideration.
We are developing a special section that will be published in spring 2015 entitled “Southeast Asia in the Humanities and Social Sciences Curricula.” We hope to publish a special section that includes articles and essays representative of a wide range of academic disciplines. Manuscripts selected for publication should be written in prose that is accessible for high school and/or undergraduate instructors and students. The number of endnotes in manuscripts should be minimal compared to more traditional scholarly journals.
Prospective authors should be aware that there is almost an even division between the percentage of our readers who are undergraduate instructors and the percentage of our readers who are secondary school teachers. We are especially appreciative of manuscripts that are potentially useful at both the undergraduate and secondary school levels. Please consult the EAAguidelines, available on the website under my signature, before submitting a manuscript for this special section. Pay particular attention to feature and teaching resources manuscript word-count ranges. Prospective authors are also encouraged to send possible manuscript ideas or any questions to me via email at l-ellington@comcast.net. The deadline for initial submission of manuscripts is November 20th 2014.
Lucien Ellington
Editor, Education About Asia            
302 Pfeiffer Stagmaier Hall
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Chattanooga, TN 37403
Phone (423) 425-2118
e-mail: l-ellington@comcast.net
Web Site http://www.asian-studies.org/EAA/

CFP: Georgetown Journal of Asian Affairs

SFS Asian Studies Program • Box 571040 • 37th and O Streets NW • Washington, DC 20057 • Phone: (202) 687-6636 • Fax (202) 687-7397

The Georgetown Journal of Asian Affairs is a new initiative launched by the Asian Studies Program at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. The Journal is now accepting research articles from undergraduate and graduate students for its inaugural issue, which is scheduled to be printed in fall 2014. We welcome papers written on any topic pertinent to countries in Central, Northeast,Southeast, and South Asia. The deadline for submissions is August 15, 2014.

Submissions should be emailed to guasiajournal@gmail.com in a form of Word document. Please do NOT submit in PDF format. All submissions must include an abstract (100-200 words). Authors should include a short bio in the email text, but should avoid any self-identification in the manuscript as we send our articles out for anonymous review.

• Length: Manuscripts should be 5,000-7,000 words in length.

• Font: Please use Times New Roman, 12-point size, and 1-inch/2.5-centimeter margins on all sides.

• Style: Authors should follow The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition.

Submissions must NOT be plagiarized, copyrighted, or under review elsewhere.  Citations should be formatted as footnotes. Please also include a full bibliography at the end.

The Journal reserves the right to accept or reject submissions. By submitting content to the Journal, the author agrees to transfer copyright as well as exclusive rights to publication.

• All submissions are subject to initial screening by the Editorial Board. Manuscripts that violate the Journal’s submission guidelines, exhibit notable mistakes, and/or carry no relevance to Asia are rejected at this point.

• Manuscripts that passed the initial screening are sent to faculty and outside reviewers. Articles approved by our reviewers are accepted for publication, conditioned on the proper revision of the piece along the lines suggested by the Journal’s Editorial Board.

• Editorial exchanges occur between the editors and the authors in order to improve the argument and structure of the articles.

• Copy edited drafts are submitted to the Editor in Chief for final review.

CFP: The Future of NGOs: Incorporation, Reinvention, Critique?

Special issue of Critical Sociology

Special Issue Editors:

Sangeeta Kamat, Associate Professor, International Education, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Feyzi Ismail, Teaching Fellow, Development Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, UK

The last three decades have seen a range of critical studies on NGOs, and in particular a growing body of theoretical work on the links between NGOs, the neoliberal state and social movements (Kamat 2004; Hearn 2007; Fernando 2011; Choudry and Kapoor 2013; Dauvergne and LeBaron 2014). These studies have contributed to our understanding of ‘NGOisation’ as a vital aspect of global capitalism and its crucial function in stabilising the neoliberal order. In this special issue we seek to build upon these critiques towards a theorisation that illuminates the present conjuncture of the new aid architecture – now unfolding in the context of the global financial crisis – that has further subordinated NGOs to global capital but which is also confronted by a deepening crisis of the neoliberal state (Harvey 2010; Duménil and Lévy 2011; Saad Filho 2011). Critical Sociology (http://crs.sagepub.com/) invites contributions analysing the role of NGOs at this conjuncture, how they are responding to critiques and struggles against neoliberalism and whether they seek to articulate a new politics.

Since the late 1990s visible and widespread challenges to neoliberalism have taken the form of the anti-globalisation and anti-war movements, including the popular movements in Latin America and the World Social Forums, the vast mobilisations against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Occupy movement, the Arab uprisings and demonstrations against austerity. In some cases the movements have led to mass strikes in workplaces and the mobilisation of trade unions. NGOs have often had an ambivalent relation to these oppositional movements, either participating on the fringes of these movements or seeking new kinds of alliances with Left or progressive politics. At the same time, the aid regime of the new millennium has undergone significant changes, with corporate entities playing a leading role in the development sector and partnering with states to enforce new rules of compliance for NGOs. In other words, NGOs today straddle both the imperialist and neoliberal ambitions of the aid regime and the popular mobilisations, which at times dominate the political landscape.

In this special issue we seek to analyse how NGOs mediate these struggles toward particular ends. How are NGOs being repositioned within contemporary capitalism, and how is the relationship between NGOs, the state and the private sector evolving? In what ways are NGOs being further co-opted by corporate power? As the neoliberal state becomes increasingly privatised on the one hand – and challenged on the other – how have NGOs analysed these times of crisis and flux? Is the general critique of neoliberalism that many NGOs also espouse leading to a new kind of politics and new political understandings within the sector? What are the factors that determine the political direction that NGOs take? Are there examples of NGOs reinventing themselves to maintain or pursue radical politics, and are they adopting new ideas and new ideologies? What kinds of new organisational alliances or strategic partnerships are being made, for example, with the political Left?

Our contention is that the existence of an organised Left makes a difference, shaping both political history and the political space that is occupied by NGOs. Where left-wing political parties have had a strong legacy, we wish to investigate the historical relationship between NGOs and the Left in order to understand the politics of NGOs in that particular context. Where NGOs have taken on traditional roles, and have been funded and professionalised, we seek to understand not only the political compulsions that influence NGOs but what kind of political alternatives are possible. The focus here is on the factors that influence one tendency or the other, with the aim of drawing general conclusions on how the work of NGOs is being reshaped both at national and global levels.

We are seeking manuscripts (8,000 words maximum) on the following themes (though not limited to these), and encourage interdisciplinary approaches:
Neoliberalism and the co-option of NGOs;
The relationship between NGOs and left-wing political parties in power;
Conflict and collaboration between NGOs and social movements;
Class, class struggle and the role of NGOs;
Questions of strategy and democracy amongst NGOs and within the sector;
Ways that NGOs are reinventing themselves and envisioning new forms of political engagement;
The role of NGOs and the global financial crisis;
Labour NGOs and trade union organising;
Development NGOs in the present aid architecture and the implications for Left politics.
Within this broad thematic we are interested in case studies from Latin America (e.g. Venezuela and Bolivia), where left-wing governments have been in power; South Asia (e.g. India, Nepal and Bangladesh), where Left parties and social movements have a strong presence inside and outside of government; Eastern Europe (e.g. Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo), where previous democratic transitions meant compromise between communist parties and NGOs; South East Asia (e.g. Cambodia, Thailand and the Philippines), where there have been significant and sustained popular movements and workers’ strikes; and the Middle East (e.g. Egypt, Syria and Palestine), which has experienced colossal political upheaval and polarisation during and since the uprisings in 2011. In addition, we are interested in case studies documenting the work of labour NGOs and their relationship with trade union activity (e.g. China, Qatar and Saudi Arabia), and the role of NGOs in the Arab uprisings.

To submit your proposal, email the title, abstract (300 words maximum), and contact information for the primary author to Sangeeta Kamat <skamat@educ.umass.edu> and Feyzi Ismail <fi2@soas.ac.uk>, with the subject line “ATTN: SPECIAL ISSUE PROPOSAL”. All papers are subject to the standard review process at Critical Sociology.

Submission of abstracts: 31 May 
Solicitation of full papers: 15 June
Draft paper submissions due to editors: 31 August

CFP: Walailak Journal of Asian Studies

CALL FOR PAPERS 

The Walailak Journal of Asian Studies invites English-language submissions of scholarly papers on any subject of Asian studies in the area extending from the Nile River and the Middle East to Japan, China, and Southeast Asia.

Papers must be in English

Suggested length is 5,000-8,000 words

Send submissions and queries to the editor, Edwin Zehner, at zehner1234@aol.com.

CFP: Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs

CALL FOR PAPERS

Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs
Special Issue: Democracy and Human Rights in Southeast Asia (publication in late 2014)

The progress of democratisation and the corresponding implementation of universally acclaimed human rights protection standards in the Southeast Asian region is of interest to many scholars. This special issue seeks to bring together papers that track the progress democratization as well as the development of human rights norms and institutions in the region. In particular, it seeks to analyse the implementation of democratic values and human rights norms in ASEAN states by the various stakeholders - both state and non-state actors. The nascent ASEAN human rights regime - the Declaration and the Inter-Governmental Commission - represents a significant signpost reflecting awareness by both democratic and authoritarian states of the need for greater attention to human rights promotion and protection. At the same time, this signpost also points to the constraints facing democratisation and the effective implementation of these human rights norms. The contestation on these two fronts represents the tensions around efforts to forge a common regional value on democracy and human rights. This special issue aims to analyse the contesting discourses on democracy and human rights and evaluate their impact on the implementation of the emerging ASEAN human rights regime.


Guest Editors:

Dr.  James Gomez, Associate Professor, School of International Studies, Universiti Utara Malaysia
Email: jamesgomez@hotmail.com<mailto:jamesgomez@hotmail.com>

Dr. Robin Ramcharan, Professor and Head, College of Arts and Social Sciences, Webster University (Thailand).  Email: ramcharr@webster.ac.th<mailto:ramcharr@webster.ac.th>


Submission Guidelines

The special issue is scheduled for publication in late 2014. Papers are welcome from all disciplinary areas. An initial 500 word abstract should be sent to James Gomez and Robin Ramcharan by April 1, 2014. Full papers will be due by July 1, 2014 and will be peer reviewed. Research articles should not exceed 10,000 words (incl. footnotes and references). The Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs only accepts English-language articles. For detailed submission guidelines see: <www.CurrentSoutheastAsianAffairs.org>

About: Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs (JCSAA) JCSSA is an internationally refereed academic journal published by the GIGA Institute of Asian Studies, Hamburg. Aside from the print edition JCSAA will also be available online as an open access journal. Articles to be published should be written in English and submitted exclusively to this publication. The Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs is devoted to the dissemination of scholarly insights to a wide audience. The topics covered should therefore not only be orientated towards specialists in Southeast Asian affairs, but should also be of relevance to readers with a practical interest in the region.

GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Institute of Asian Studies
Rothenbaumchaussee 32 . 20148 Hamburg . Germany
Phone: +49 40 4288740 . Fax: +49 40 4107945
Website: http://www.giga-hamburg.de
E-mail: ias@giga-hamburg.de<mailto:ias@giga-hamburg.de>

Universiti Utara Malaysia Official Website http://www.uum.edu.my

Ms. Christine Berg, M.A., Editorial Management
GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Leibniz-Institut f?r Globale und Regionale Studien
Neuer Jungfernstieg 21
20354 Hamburg, Germany
Tel. 0049-40-42825-583, room 319
<mailto:christine.berg@giga-hamburg.de>
www.giga-hamburg.de<http://www.giga-hamburg.de>

CFP: Destabilizing Centers and Peripheries: Re-examining Approaches to the Study of Southeast Asia

Explorations: A Graduate Student Journal of Southeast Asian Studies

The history and present condition of Southeast Asia has been very much shaped by hierarchical arrangements specific to its global and local context, including colonialism, state-sponsored nation-building, the international capitalist economy as well as globalization. These arrangements have been highly influential in the manner in which academics have organized knowledge and have created categories through which that knowledge is presented.

Explorations is looking for papers that re-examine established approaches to the study of Southeast Asia. We are particularly interested in papers that destabilize or problematize existing categories and approaches in the light of contemporary research. In raising these questions, it is possible to consider alternative ways of thinking about Southeast Asia, both past and present. We encourage submissions from all fields of study, topics and time periods.

Possible topics (but not limited to) to explore:

    *    Typologies of political systems, e.g. authoritarianism, patrimonial democracy, bureaucratic polity

    *    Periodization of, or transitions within, Southeast Asian history e.g. Angkor and post-Angkor; colonial and post-colonial

    *    Formations of power: top-down or bottom-up

    *    State-centered approaches to the production of knowledge

    *    Constructions of gender

    *    Change and continuity: production of visual, written, or oral culture

    *    Diversity/homogeneity: exploring identities in their production, consumption and perpetuation

Deadline for paper submission: Friday, February 14, 2014

For more information, please see www.cseashawaii.org/students/explorations/papers/ 

CFP: Michigan Journal of Asian Studies

Call for Papers

Michigan Journal of Asian Studies

MJAS is a peer-reviewed journal that provides a forum for undergraduate and graduate students to publish papers relevant to the field of Asian Studies. MJAS and is currently accepting submissions for its next issue until January 5, 2014. Submission guidelines can be found on the website www.michiganjournalofasianstudies.com/.  

Journal Announcement: Verge: Studies in Global Asias

JOURNAL ANNOUNCEMENT

VERGE: Studies in Global Asias
Senior Editors, Tina Chen and Eric Hayot

Verge: Studies in Global Asias is a new journal that includes scholarship
from scholars in both Asian and Asian American Studies. These two fields
have traditionally defined themselves in opposition to one another, with
the former focused on an area-studies, nationally and politically oriented
approach, and the latter emphasizing epistemological categories, including
ethnicity and citizenship, that drew mainly on the history of the United
States.  The past decade however has seen a series of rapprochements in
which, for instance, categories “belonging”to Asian American Studies
(ethnicity, race, diaspora) have been applied with increasing success to
studies of Asia. For example Asian Studies has responded to the
postnational turn in the humanities and social sciences by becoming
increasingly open to rethinking its national and regional insularities,
and to work that pushes, often literally, on the boundaries of Asia as
both a place and a concept. At the same time, Asian American Studies has
become increasingly aware of the ongoing importance of Asia to the Asian
American experience, and thus more open to work that is transnational or
multilingual, as well as to forms of scholarship that challenge the
US-centrism of concepts governing the Asian diaspora.

Verge showcases scholarship on “Asian” topics from across the humanities
and humanistic social sciences, while recognizing that the changing scope
of “Asia” as a concept and method is today an object of vital critical
concern. Deeply transnational and transhistorical in scope, Verge
emphasizes thematic and conceptual links among the disciplines and
regional/area studies formations that address Asia in a variety of
particularist (national, subnational, individual) and generalist
(national, regional, global) modes  Responding to the ways in which
large-scale social, cultural, and economic concepts like the world, the
globe, or the universal (not to mention East Asian cousins like tianxia or
datong) are reshaping the ways we think about the present, the past and
the future, the journal publishes scholarship that occupies and enlarges
the proximities among disciplinary and historical fields, from the ancient
to the modern periods. The journal emphasizes multidisciplinary
engagement—a crossing and dialogue of the disciplines that does not erase
disciplinary differences, but uses them to make possible new conversations
and new models of critical thought.

For more information, please see our website:
http://www.upress.umn.edu/journal-division

Queries and Submissions should be sent to: verge@psu.edu

Issue 1: OPEN ISSUE
The history of scholarship on Asian America, when juxtaposed with the
fields of Asian Studies, reminds us how much nations, national movements,
and other forms of national development continue to exert powerful effects
on the world in which we live. Such movements also remind us of the
importance of inter-nationalism, of the kinds of networks that can spring
up between states and which can work to disrupt the smooth passage of the
planet into a utopian post-national future. The growing interest in the
global and the transnational across disciplines thus brings the various
Asia-oriented fields and disciplines—history and literature, Asia and
Asian America, East and South, modern and premodern—closer together. This
inaugural issue seeks to feature work that illustrates the diverse
engagements across disciplines (literature, history, sociology, art
history, political science, geography) and fields (Asian Studies and Asian
American Studies) that are possible once we begin thinking about the
possible convergences and divergences such divisions have traditionally
represented. We welcome a range of perspectives; featured contributors
include Dean Chan, Alexandra Chang, Catherine Asher, Catherine Ceniza
Choy, Magnus Fiskesjö, Pamela Kyle Crossley, Evelyn Hu-Dehart, Stephanie
DeBoer, Martin Svensson Ekstrom, Pika Ghosh, Yunte Huang, Suk-young Kim,
Joachim Kurtz, Meera Lee, Wei Li, Colleen Lye,Tak-wing Ngo, Haun Saussy,
David Palumbo-Liu, Sheldon Pollack, Eleanor Ty, and Jeffrey Wasserstrom.



Issue 2: COLLECTING (edited by Jonathan Abel and Charlotte Eubanks)
As a construct and product of powerful institutions from empires, to
nation-states, museums, to universities, Asia has long been formulated at
the level of the collection.  Whether through royal court poetry
compilations, colonial treasure hunters, art historians, bric a brac shop
keepers, or librarians of rare archives, the role of collecting and
classification has been deeply connected not only to definitions of what
counts as Asia and who can be considered Asian, but also to how Asia
continues to be configured and re-configured today.

With this in mind, this special issue of Verge seeks to collect papers on
the history, finance, psychology, politics and aesthetics of collecting
Asia in Asia and beyond.  This collection hopes not only to bring into
relief how “Asia” has been created but also to promote new definitions of
Asia. What, for instance, are the historical implications of
government-sponsored poetry anthologies in Mughal India, Heian-era Japan,
or 20th century North Korea? What do the contents of treasure-houses -- at
Angkor Wat, Yasukuni Shrine, or Vishwanath -- tell us about evolving
concepts of art and of the elasticity of cultural and national contours?
When did Japan become a geographical base for the collection of Asia?  Who
collects Chinese books? How has Indian art been defined by curatorial
practices?  Why did South Korea begin to collect oral histories in the
1990s?  What politics lie behind the exhibition of mainland Chinese
posters in Taiwan?  How much money do cultural foundations spend on
maintaining collections? Where are the limits of Asian collections in
geographical and diasporic terms?  How do constructions of these
collections impact our views of the collective, whether of Tibetan exiles
in Dharamsala, Japanese internment camps in Indonesia, global Chinatowns,
or adherents of new Asian religions in the Americas and former Soviet
Republics?

This issue is interested in the various cultures of collecting Asia and
collecting Asians, in the many politics of collecting, in the odd
financial restrictions on collectors, in the psychology of collecting, in
the anthropology of how communities form around collected objects, and in
the sociology around collective histories.


Issue 3: ASIAN URBANISMS AND URBANIZATIONS
(edited by Madhuri Desai and Shuang Shen)
In the contemporary age of globalization, the city has gained new
importance and attention as a center of information industry, a node of
transnational and translocal networks, and a significant site of capital,
labor migration and culture (Saskia Sassen, Manuel Castells and David
Harvey). While this renewed interest in the city both perpetuates and
revises theories of the city as a metaphor of modernity (Walter Benjamin,
Georg Simmel), it also opens up questions regarding the uniqueness and
relevance of earlier cities and their experience of urbanization. When we
move us away from Eurocentric understandings of modernity and time, it
becomes increasingly possible to study non-European urbanisms in the past
and at present with theoretical rigor and historical specificity. For this
special issue, we invite submissions (around 8000 words) that explore
urbanism as a site of comparison and connection among various Asian
locales and beyond. We are interested in not just studies of Asian cities
and their urban experience but also how “Asia” has been imagined both
historically and contemporaneously, through urbanism and urbanization, and
how “Asia” as a term of travel is registered in the urban space. This
special issue will draw attention to the following questions: As cities
become increasingly connected and similar to each other, how do they
express their distinct identities as well as articulate their unique
histories? Besides circulation, movement, and networks that have been much
emphasized in contemporary studies of the city, how do borders,
checkpoints, and passwords function in urban contexts? How does the city
articulate connections between the local, the national, and the
transnational? How does the Asian experience of urbanization and ideas
surrounding Asian urbanism revise, rethink, and in some cases revive
Asia’s colonial past? What does the Western perspective on some Asian
cities as unprecedented and futuristic tells us about the imagination of
Asia in the global context? How do migrant and ethnic communities
negotiate with and redefine the public space of the city? How is the urban
public shared or fragmented by co-existing ethnic and religious
communities? How is the rising cosmopolitanism of these cities challenged
through migration and sharply defined ethnic and religious identities? We
invite submissions that address these questions within the context of
Early modern, colonial and contemporary urbanisms and urbanizations.


Issue 4: ASIAN EMPIRES & IMPERIALISM (edited by On-cho Ng and Erica Brindley)
The nature of Asian empires in the past, as well as the definition of
imperialism in contemporary times, is a topic of ongoing discussion among
scholars from a wide range of fields. In this special issue of Verge, we
will explore a cluster of issues concerning the mechanics and influence of
empires, imperial authority, and imperial types of influence over
indigenous cultures and frontiers in Asia, as well as their diasporas
abroad and in the USA. We invite submissions that address one or some of
the following questions: How did various imperial efforts interact with
local concerns to shape the history of cross-cultural interactions in this
region? How did imperial regimes propose to solve the issue of a
multi-ethnic empire? What were the roles of specific geographic and
economic spheres in Asia (such as those of nomadic, agricultural,
maritime, high altitude or lowland, and far-flung/diasporic cultures) in
contributing to the distinctive quality of certain empires? How do certain
characteristics of imperial administration and control in Asia compare to
those of imperial states in other regions of the world? In addition to
questions concerning the long history of Asian imperialism and comparisons
with other empires, we also solicit submissions that speak to questions
concerning contemporary Asian diasporas and their reactions to various
forms of imperialism in the modern age. Questions might address such
topics as “Yellow Peril” fears about Asian cultural imperialism; Japanese
internment camps as a US response to Japanese imperial expansion in the
Pacific; the Tibetan diaspora in South Asia and the Americas as a reaction
to contemporary Chinese imperialism; Vietnamese responses to French,
Chinese, or American imperialisms, and the treatment of Japanese-Americans
in Hawaii in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor.

Charlotte Diane Eubanks
Associate Professor of Comparative Literature, Japanese & Asian Studies
Director of Undergraduate Studies, Asian Studies
Associate Editor, Verge

CFP: Journal of Asia Pacific Studies, December 2013 issues

The Journal of Asia Pacific Studies is calling for papers for its December 2013 issue. JAPS is published online and in print. The Journal is indexed by EBSCOhost as well as other prestigious databases. For more information please visit our website.