ASPAC Proposals: Extended Application Deadline

Call for Proposals
Envisioning Global Asia
ASPAC 2018 Conference, June 8-10, 2018

The Asia Program at WSU invites college and university faculty, K–12 schoolteachers, independent scholars, and graduate and undergraduate students with an interest in Asian or Asian diaspora studies to submit proposals for organized panels, roundtable discussions, individual papers, or poster presentations on historical or contemporary topics in the humanities, arts, social sciences, education, health, law, business, environmental sciences, or other disciplines related to East, South, or Southeast Asia and their diasporas. We especially welcome proposals that connect theory, method, or practice to contemporary or historical questions of urbanization, migration, exchange, and sustainability within, across, or alongside Asia. We look forward to wide-ranging discussions of diverse subjects such as administrative, economic, and cultural clustering; sprawl, green space, gentrification, and deurbanization; borders and borderlands, glass ceilings, and other conduits and barriers to social, economic, or geographic mobility; group identity, assimilation, and multiculturalism; diverse forms—technological, political, economic, cultural, educational—of communication, exchange, and cross-fertilization; and diverse responses—political, social, literary, artistic—to demographic, environmental, political, and technological change.

When to apply
Early submission and notification: The early application deadline is Sunday, December 31, 2017. Early submission is intended mainly for international applicants who need a letter of invitation for visa purposes. For applications received by the early submission deadline, notification of acceptance will be sent by Wednesday, January 31, 2018. If you miss the early submission deadline and need a letter for visa purposes, we will provide you with it as soon as we can.

Regular submission and notification: For regular applicants, the application deadline is Wednesday, February 28, 2018. For applications received by the regular submission deadline, notification of acceptance will be sent by Saturday, March 31, 2018.

Extended submission and notification: For applicants who cannot meet the regular deadline, we will continue to accept submissions until Saturday, March 31, 2018, and provide notification of acceptance as soon as possible thereafter.

How to apply
Go to the submissions page to submit proposals for single papers, organized panels, and roundtable discussions. Questions about applying can be directed to the organizers at aspac.2018@wsu.edu.

ASPAC–Mori Prize and ASPAC Barlow Prize for Graduate Students
At the 1992 ASPAC conference at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly San Luis Obispo), the ASPAC Board voted to establish the John and Mae Esterline Prize to encourage student participation in ASPAC conferences and to recognize the support given to students by our colleagues John and Mae Esterline. The name of the award was changed to the ASPAC–Esterline Prize and then to the ASPAC–Mori Prize in June 2014, in honor of Professor Barbara Mori of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. As a long-time ASPAC member, Professor Mori advocated Asian studies, including Asian musicology, her area of expertise. She passed away in 2013, leaving a generous donation in support of this graduate student prize.

Through this prize, ASPAC recognizes extraordinary graduate student scholarship. It is open to all students pursuing graduate studies in any discipline, at any American university, and in any area of research pertaining to Asian studies. Awards are given at the conference banquet. Currently the total award available is $300 and is awarded to the best paper, but if there are two papers of equal quality, the award may be split equally between the two papers’ authors. The author does not have to be attending a university in the ASPAC area to be eligible but must attend the annual ASPAC conference and present the paper to receive the award.

The ASPAC–Barlow Prize has been established to remember and honor Professor Jeffrey G. Barlow, a professor emeritus at Pacific University, who passed away in October 2016. The newly established prize will be used to recognize the best student paper on China presented at each annual conference of ASPAC starting in 2018. The award will be in the amount of $300 and the awardee will be selected by the ASPAC Prize Committee and announced at the banquet of the annual conference. The winner will be eligible, along with the winner of the ASPAC–Mori Prize, to compete for nomination by ASPAC to present her/his paper at the annual conference of the Association for Asian Studies (AAS) in the following year.

All graduate student proposals for the above two prizes must include a cover letter from the supervising professor recommending the paper to ASPAC. Graduate students wishing to apply for the 2018 ASPAC–Mori Prize and the 2018 ASPAC–Barlow Prize should email both their supervisor’s cover letter and complete conference paper to Dr. Tsuneo Akaha (Professor of International Policy and Development, Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey) at takaha@miis.edu. Papers are only accepted as a Microsoft Word document and should be between 15–20 pages in regular academic format. PowerPoint, slide, and other formats are not accepted.

Application deadline: May 15, 2018.