Published: Jan. 21, 2022

The AAS is pleased to invite applications to participate in “Technology in Asia,” the fourth workshop in its series “Emerging Fields in Asian Studies,” supported by the Henry Luce Foundation. The fourth workshop is convened by Aleksandra Kobiljski (CNRS) and will be virtually hosted by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University in New York City.
The Association for Asian Studies calls for proposals from early career scholars, early career practitioners, and advanced graduate students (near candidacy or PhD candidates) to participate in a workshop on “Technology in Asia,” to be held online from Friday, May 13 through Sunday, May 15, 2022. 
This workshop seeks to bring into focus research on aspects of technology, including its interfaces with technoscience, biotech, envirotech, medical technologies and techniques, and material culture. The goal is to productively combine the Asia focus with the emerging trends in the general fields of history, sociology, and anthropology of technology, as well as in Science, Technology, and Society (STS).
While study of technology is not entirely new in the scholarship on Asia, technology remains a relatively underrepresented field within Asian Studies. As Asia is looming increasingly large in the technology field and technology is making inroads in Asian Studies, the goal of the workshop is to nurture a more robust dialogue on technology in Asian Studies. Because new approaches in the studies of technology call into question current conceptualizations of innovation and teleologies of modernity, Asia at last has a natural and welcome place in these debates. As research on technologies consumes its global turn and grapples with ways to think about technology as governance, technologies in use, technologies and ontologies, technologies and materialities, as well as environment, Asia is both a key empirical site and the hot crucible of theorization.
The workshop is designed to foster conversations with the opportunity to explore comparative and theoretical insights and to rethink the fields of both Asian Studies and technology.
With this in mind, this workshop aims to contribute to developing work-in-progress and create networks of intellectual exchange among researchers and practitioners across a variety of disciplines. We intend to explore a vast range of topics and approaches which deal with technology in Asia in creative and insightful ways. 
We welcome participation by early career scholars, practitioners, and scholar-practitioners both inside and outside the academy engaged in research on technology in Asia.
To apply: please submit a 500-word abstract and a CV (maximum two pages) in Word or PDF format by Monday, February 14, 2022 through the AAS application portal. Between 10 and 12 participants will be selected; all applicants will be notified of decisions via email by March 1, 2022
If selected for the workshop, you will be expected to submit a 5,000-7,000 word piece that exemplifies and situates your research contribution to the field of technology in Asia by Monday, April 25, 2022. You may submit a full chapter or article it if falls within the word limit, or may submit a distillation or shorter version of such a piece.
At the workshop, senior and junior colleagues will offer written feedback on the pre-circulated piece and engage discussions about the field. Participants are expected to stay connected for the entire workshop.
For any questions about the workshop or application process, please contact Aleksandra Kobiljski (aleksandra.kobiljski@ehess.fr)