JOSAH Volume 52 Launch

Please join the Australian Society for Asian Humanities for the launch of Volume 52 of the Journal of the Society for Asian Humanities: “What’s in a Name? After Orientalism”, a special issue guest-edited by Olivier Krischer and Meaghan Morris.

After a welcome by ASAH President Jon von Kowallis and an introduction by the guest-editors, Adrian Vickers (Southeast Asian Studies, University of Sydney), Tejaswini Niranjana (Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Ahmedabad University) and Lucia Sorbera (Arabic Studies, University of Sydney) will reflect on their contributions. Collegial discussion will follow.

Register for the online launch here.

About JOSAH, Vol. 52

Special Issue “What’s in A Name? After Orientalism”.

Guest-edited by Olivier Krischer and Meaghan Morris.

Marking the sixtieth anniversary of Australia’s oldest journal in Asian Studies, this special issue was inspired by a 2018 symposium on the legacy of Edward Said’s Orientalism (1978), as well as by the centenary of Asian Studies at the University of Sydney.

This historical orientation encouraged us not only to consider the influence of Said’s work over a forty year period but more widely to reflect on the worldly processes that have created and changed “Asian Studies” over the decades, renaming areas, redistributing resources and reshaping disciplinary clusters.

Much debate about Orientalism in English has been academically West-centric, invoking a smooth space of “post-colonialism” or confined to specialist silos. For this issue, we invited essays that engage with naming in relation to specific histories and locations of scholarship, ranging from the University of Sydney in the Australian context (Adrian Vickers) to Islamic Central Asia and the Russian-Soviet Orient (Adeeb Khalid), to the “contemporary Asia” constructed in art exhibitions (C.J. Wee Wan-ling), and to Maritime Southeast Asia (Imran bin Tajudeen).

This broadening of geographic frames of reference is extended by a “Roundtable” of eleven short, personal reflections by scholars working from a range of diverse disciplines, worldly situations, and individual practices as they look back to and beyond Said’s Orientalism.

Find out more about JOSAH Volume 52 here.