H-Asia Discussion Network

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About H-Asia

H-ASIA is an international electronic discussion group established in l994 by Steven A. Leibo of the Sage Colleges & Suny-Albany and Frank F. Conlon of the University of Washington. Professors Conlon and Leibo co-founded H-ASIA as part of the H-NET family of lists. During the summer of 1996 Marilyn A. Levine started serving as a third editor. Our ability to offer our subscribers a steady flow of sophisticated book reviews advanced as well when in the fall of 1997 Robert Entenmann (East Asia) joined us to serve as book review editors. That same fall Ming-te Pan joined us as a subscription editor and to prepare our monthly list of new works in the field. Professors Leibo, Entenmann and Levine have since retired from their H-ASIA roles (in 2004, 2003 and 2006 respectively), and other editors have come and gone: Christiane Reinhold (1997-2001), Richard A. White (1997-2000) T. Matthew Ciolek (2001-2003) as list editors, and Patrick Peebles as South Asia Review editor (1997-2000).

The current editorial team (as of early 2008) consists of: Frank F. Conlon, University of Washington; Linda Dwyer, Independent scholar, Washington, D.C.; Kate Brittlebank, University of Tasmania; Ryan Dunch, University of Alberta; and Andrew Field, University of New South Wales. The book review editors are Sumit Guha, Rutgers University (South Asia), and William Cummings, University of South Florida (Southeast Asia). Ming-te Pan continues his valuable work behind the scenes as subscription editor.

H-ASIA is governed by an editorial board and its editors serve a broad intellectual community. While H-ASIA's discussion list is a twenty-four hour academic seminar open only to graduate students and professors interested in the subject of Asian Studies and specifically Asian history, the ASIA-PACIFIC NETWORK and its archived logs are open resources available to everyone. Freely available for viewing and downloading are H-ASIA discussions, announcements about subjects ranging from conferences and seminars to academic jobs. Moreover, this archive also serves as a central repository for sample syllabi, bibliographies, book and product reviews, and other materials of interest to the college level Asian studies community, and is linked to other important Asian Studies sites.

The principal regional emphasis of the list is South Asia, South-east Asia, East and Northeast Asia and Central Asia. We also run discussions and announcements of a more general professional nature. H-ASIA is a particularly appropriate vehicle for the discussion of comparative and pedagogical issues associated with the academic study of Asia.

The primary purpose of H-ASIA is to enable historians and other Asia scholars to easily communicate current research and teaching interests; to discuss new articles, books, papers, approaches, methods and tools of analysis; to test new ideas and share comments and tips on teaching. Relevant extracts from the H-Net Job Guide are posted, as are fellowship announcements. Organizers of conferences, and symposia in Asian Studies are encouraged to post calls for papers and program contents. H-ASIA will attempt to stimulate dialogues between disciplines among Asia specialists through publication of course syllabi and reading lists, course handouts, bibliographies or guides to term papers etc. Many of the latter are now permanently archived on the ASIA-PACIFIC NETWORK. We encourage graduate students to post abstracts of their doctoral dissertations. Reports on new archival or bibliographic sources, new software, datasets or CD-ROMS are also welcome.

H-ASIA is one of the many H-NET lists supported by Michigan State University, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Japan Foundation. H-Net, Humanities Online is a broad initiative designed to facilate electronic communications among historians and other social scientists.

WE ENCOURAGE YOU TO POST A SUBSCRIBER'S SELF-INTRODUCTION:

In addition to the short subscriber information form, we encourage all members of H-ASIA to post to the list a self-introduction in which you inform your new H-ASIA colleagues of your particular interests and activities. On H-ASIA there are no strangers--only friends who have not yet met. Introductions are not merely good form or a matter of being polite but have been found to be very valuable to other H-ASIA members looking for collaborators for panels and other scholarly activities.

Subscribers will receive automatically messages in their computer electronic mailboxes. These messages may be downloaded to a word processor, saved, discarded, printed out, duplicated, or relayed to someone else. H-ASIA is like a newsletter that is free and published daily. Please note that we encourage subscribers to retain all indications of authorship for postings that they reproduce in other locations.

The editors of H-ASIA are always seeking volunteers to assist in various H-ASIA activities, including book reviews. If you are interested in playing a role in H-ASIA, please contact one of the current editors listed above.