APSIG newsletter no. 55: July 2004

Hot Asian Studies in cold Canberra

George Miller writes:

Asian Studies are alive and well in Australia, judging by the number of delegates and the quality of the papers at the Asian Studies Association of Australia, 15th Biennial Conference in Canberra, 29 June to 2 July 2004. There were nearly 500 attendees and almost 400 papers, many by aspiring young scholars. The Association has been consistent in organising its conference every second year during the 30 years of its existence; no mean feat!

At meetings which addressed the issue of the health of Asian Studies, there was an up-beat flavour, despite a number of specific areas of concern such as the failure to reach target numbers for students of Asian languages (for example, the University of Western Sydney will no longer teach Indonesian from 2005) and a potential decline in established expertise.

On the positive side, the ASAA has been instrumental in obtaining more scholarships for two-way exchanges with Asian institutions, the new Centre for Excellence in Asian and Pacific Studies at the ANU will include a paid ASAA Secretariat for the first time, the Association now has a promotions officer and the Association's own report, Maximizing Australia's Asia Knowledge, is being used as a lobbying tool not only in public institutions but by academics themselves, within their own universities.

Another positive sign is that there is more Asian content in areas of study not traditionally seen as 'Asian Studies'; disciplines such as environmental studies, public health and criminology. People in these fields are flying off to Asian countries to undertake fieldwork or to engage in co-operative research projects with Asian colleagues. One challenge for the ASAA is to ensure these people become members of the Asian Studies fraternity.

Conference papers covered the usual wide gambit of subjects, from the study of classical texts (The Fall of the Indigo Jackal: The Discourse of Division in Purnabhadra's Pancatantra) to the latest fashionable scholarly preoccupations (AsiaPacifiQueer: Queer Cultures and Queer Theories in Asia Today).

The conference website contains a full program.

Several sessions on publishing, highlighted the fact that the book and the scholarly journal are still vital for the dissemination of scholarly information, irrespective of the immense volume of data available through electronic means.

Two Canberra Asian Studies librarians, Amelia McKenzie (NLA) and Renata Osborne (ANU), on behalf of APSIG and EALRGA (East Asian Library Resources Group of Australia), emphasising the modern, organised a panel entitled 'New avenues for academic publishing'. Two topics at the forefront of current debate were covered, e-publishing and copyright issues. Colin Steele and Lorena Kanellopoulus of the ANU described national and international developments in electronic publishing and Publication on Demand. Wan Wong of NLA outlined the burgeoning volume of electronic publishing in China. Her paper, E-Publishing in China, is at http://www.nla.gov.au/nla/staffpaper/2004/wong1.html. Colette Ormonde of ALIA drew attention to negative implications for the free dissemination of information in Australia if the US copyright regime is applied in Australia under the proposed United States-Australia Free Trade Agreement. ALIA has made a submission to the Senate Select Committee considering this.