Letter From the Director
Dear Friends of CAS,
Warm greetings from Boulder! As we begin 2017, we want to share exciting news from the Center from the past year.
Two new Asian Studies faculty joined the CU community this Fall, both in the Department of Asian Languages and Civilizations. Rahul Bj酶rn Parson studies questions of individualization in early-modern Jain writers. Katherine Alexander studies popular religion in Chinese opera and concepts of women's chastity in what is present-day Taiwan. Combined with the five new faculty we welcomed last academic year, the University is expanding its strengths in world class research and teaching on Asia.
The Center will be increasing its regional undergraduate offerings over the next two years as a result of other good news. We were awarded a prestigious and competitive grant from the Department of Education's Undergraduate International Studies and Foreign Languages Program to create a new track in Southeast Asian Studies within the Asian Studies major. This award will build on the growing critical mass of Southeast Asia faculty in disciplines across the campus by offering several new initiatives. It will allow us to hire a new social scientist of SE Asia, will increase our SE Asia course offerings, will facilitate Indonesian language study once again, and will offer study abroad scholarships for CU undergraduates. We received word of this award in September and began implementing these benefits immediately. Students in Dr. Christian Hammons' global seminar to Indonesia in Summer 2017 will be eligible for the scholarship funds. We continue to develop initiatives to amplify the programs we support through the Center. We are expanding our internship program in Japan (see page 3), and are looking to build similar programs in China and Indonesia.
Our annual themes continue to be productive nodes for interdisciplinary collaboration on campus. We trust you enjoyed the Transcultural Asia events in the past academic year.
This year's theme, Asian Borderlands, launched with style in December with an inaugural address on the trade in ancient Chinese porcelains, by Dr. Tianlong Jiao, the Joseph de Heer Curator of Asian Art at the Denver Art Museum. Four keynote addresses in the Spring 2017 semester will consider the temporal, cultural and political features of Asian borders. We look forward to seeing you at these events.
Your donations are vital to our shared work to facilitate connections between the University of Colorado Boulder and the Pacific Rim. Please consider contributing to the Friends of Asian Studies Flatiron Fund, for projects large and small. To those of you have already donated, we extend our sincere gratitude.
We rely heavily on your involvement and energy in making the Center the most vibrant area studies center at the University of Colorado. Thank you.
Warmly,
Carla Jones
Associate Professor
Department of Anthropology
CAS Interim Faculty Director
