2025 SEC-AAS Prizes Announced

At the 64th annual business meeting of SEC-AAS, the 2025 prize winners were announced.

  • Best undergraduate paper, Clay Wallace (Furman University)

    “China: An Exporter of Authoritarianism? Analysis of Chinese Influence in West Africa”

    Among current scholarship on whether China is seeking to export authoritarianism, there has been little research on the actual impact of China’s policies, particularly in West Africa. Clay’s paper combines his interests in China and Africa as well as quantitative methods and shows an impressive use of existing and original datasets. 

  • Best graduate paper, Dah Kim (University of Georgia)

    "Female Subjectivity, Female Body in Han Kang’s The Vegetarian"

    Drawing on Deleuze's and Spinoza's philosophies, the paper offers an innovative reading of the Korean author and Nobel literature prize winner Han Kang's novel The Vegetarian.

     

  • Best article prize, Emily Matson (research associate, University of Virginia)

     “Complicity and Cold War Politics: The Long Shadow of Unit 731 in Sino-U.S. Relations”

    Published in the Journal of American-East Asian Relations. This article’s research was first presented at the SEC-AAS 2024 annual meeting in Winston-Salem, and it pushes for new understandings of the legacy of wartime atrocities involving biomedical experimentation on human beings in East Asia—and especially a fresh perspective on how the memory of these events continues to impact China’s foreign relation today.

  • Best book prize, Ting Wang (assistant professor of Sociology, University of North Carolina at Greensboro)

    Lonely Generation: Unraveling China’s Population Crisis after the One-Child Policy 

    The book masterfully dissects the multifaceted consequences of China’s one-child policy across generations and genders and offers nuanced insights into the shifting dynamics of family, education, employment, and gender equality. Its rich exploration of women’s silent yet transformative resistance against entrenched patriarchal norms, coupled with its timely discussion of China’s low fertility crisis, makes it an invaluable contribution to the understanding of the complex interplay of policy, culture, and social change in contemporary China.

 

Seven travel grants were also made to students accepted to the conference:

  • Hoàng Phượng Mai (Fulbright University Vietnam, declined because unable to attend)

  • Hui Chung Ling (The University of Hong Kong)

  • Xiaodan Wang, (Duke University)

  • Joseph Raymond Dokupil (UNC-Chapel Hill, declined in favor of other funding)

  • Tanmai Vemulapalli (NC State University)

  • Mariko Azuma (Duke University)

  • Vinny Nguyen (University of Tennessee at Chattanooga)

Congratulations to all the winners!

The Minutes of the 2024 Annual Business Meeting and the Financial Report for 2024 are available

The former Secretary-Treasurer of SEC-AAS, Prof. Li-ling Hsiao of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, prepared the minutes of the annual business meeting at the 63rd annual meeting in 2024, held at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, NC. These minutes must be approved at the business luncheon during the annual meeting in 2025 (on Saturday, January 25, 2025). Members can review the minutes in advance of that meeting by clicking this link.

The current Secretary-Treasurer of SEC-AAS, Dr. Kevin Fogg of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has prepared the organization’s annual financial report. This report must be approved at the business luncheon during the annual meeting in 2025 (on Saturday, January 25, 2025). Members can review the report in advance of that meeting by clicking this link.

Extended deadline for prize submissions

The executive committee of the Southeast Conference of the Association for Asian Studies has extended the submission deadline for books, articles, and papers for the SEC-AAS prizes. The new deadline for submissions is December 20, 2024.

1.      Books can be sent to the chair of the book prize committee, past-president Prof. Gengsong Gao

2.      Articles can be sent to the chair of the article prize committee, past-past president Dr. Kevin Fogg

3.      Graduate paper can be sent to the chair of the graduate paper prize committee, past president Prof. Gengsong Gao (these should be nominated by an advisor or instructor)

4.      Undergraduate papers can be sent to the chair of the undergraduate paper prize committee, senior member-at-large Prof. Xia Shi (these should be nominated by an advisor or instructor)

Please remember that the authors should be normally resident in (or studying at a university in) the Southeast region of the United States, encompassing the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.

The prizes will be announced at the business meeting of the SEC-AAS at its annual meeting at the University of Kentucky, on January 25, 2025.

2024 Presidential Letter

SEC-AAS president Prof. Yaohua Shi has released his presidential letter, dated May 24, 2024. Here is his message:

Dear colleagues and friends,

I am pleased to announce that the 64th fully in-person annual meeting of the Southeast Conference of the Association for Asian Studies will be held on January 24-26, 2025, at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky.

As an academic discipline with roots in the Cold War and its associated ideologies, Asian Studies is facing a host of challenges and opportunities as a result of the evolving geopolitical landscape within the Asia-Pacific region and worldwide. The 2025 SEC/AAS conference provides a vital platform for scholarly engagement and debate amidst what could be arguably described as a process of “deglobalization.” Factors such as the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Palestine, the escalating tension between China and the United States as well as other countries in Asia, and the rise of ultranationalist movements all contribute to this significant restructuring process that could bring about profound changes.

The conference program committee invites participants to evaluate dynamic concepts and methodologies paramount to our understanding of Global Asias in this pivotal moment. These include such overarching themes as “Global,” “Asia(s),” “Asian/ness,” “Asian American,” “Asian Diaspora,” “Asia-Pacific,” and “Transpacific.” Of particular interest are submissions that focus on underrepresented areas, notably South and Southeast Asia, or offer innovative and unconventional perspectives.

Our local coordinators, Charlie Yi Zhang (charlie.zhang@uky.edu) and Liang Luo (llu222@uky.edu), are planning a full panoply of exciting events. Conference information, including proposal submission sites and deadlines, will be posted at https://www.sec-aas.com/conf .

SEC/AAS will award four prizes — best book, article, graduate, and undergraduate paper — at the 2025 conference. Books and articles published during 2024 and graduate and undergraduate papers written during 2024 and nominated by a faculty advisor are eligible for the awards. The deadline for submissions is October 30, 2024. Books and graduate papers should be sent to Professor Gengsong Gao (ggao@richmond.edu), articles to Dr. Kevin Fogg (kfogg@email.unc.edu), and undergraduate papers to Professor Xia Shi (xshi@ncf.edu).

A limited number of $200 travel grants are available to student presenters. Those who wish to be considered should include a note in their proposals. Preference will be given to students in the Southeast region who must travel more than two hundred miles to the conference.

Participants must be dues-paying members. SEC/AAS dues are $20 for faculty and $10 for students. The membership application form is available on the SEC/AAS website. Please submit the application with the correct dues to:

Carolina Asia Center
CB#7582
UNC-Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7582

Finally, SEC/AAS invites self-nominations to the executive committee. Please email me (shiy@wfu.edu) if you are interested in running for the vice president or 1st year member-at-large position.

I look forward to seeing you at the 2025 meeting!

Sincerely

President SEC-AAS 2024
Yaohua Shi

2024 prizes announced

At the annual business meeting of SEC-AAS, the 2024 prize winners were announced.

The 2024 undergraduate paper prize went to Sam Dietrich of UNC-Chapel Hill for his paper entitled “Privacy, Psychology, and the Panopticon in Xia Jia’s Short Stories.” This paper was written in Prof. Robin Visser’s class, CHIN 545 “Chinese Science Fiction“.

The 2024 graduate paper prize went to Nelson Jiajie Meng of the University of Kentucky, for his paper entitled “Travel of Dora and Nora: On Women’s Identities and the Writing of Disease in Zhang Zipeng’s The Last Happiness, Black Romance, and Red Mist.” This paper was written under his advisor, Prof. Charlie Yi Zhang.

The 2024 article prize went to Prof. Pamela Lothspeich of UNC-Chapel Hill for her article “Pandit Radheshyam’s Ramayan: A Sourcebook for Ramlila Scripts in the Orbit of Bareilly,” published in the Journal of Hindu Studies.

The 2024 book prize goes to Prof. Gennifer Weisenfeld of Duke University for her book Gas Mask Nation: Visualizing Civil Air Defense in Wartime Japan (University of Chicago, 2023).  Gennifer Weisenfeld’s book creatively uses visual sources from across Japanese life in the 1930s and 1940s to bring to life the modernist cultural dimension of air defense. Looking at bombs, airplanes, gas masks, and other related themes in magazines, pamphlets, movies and every kind of public art, she presents a fresh take on Japan’s home front in the long Pacific War. This book speaks not only to art and art history, but also to cultural studies, history, and peace war and defense.

Six travel grants were also made to students attending the conference:

  • Dah Kim, University of Georgia

  • India Green, Florida State University

  • Genn Ruan, University of California, Riverside

  • Jacquelyn Wilder, University of Kentucky

  • Jennifer Luckey, University of Georgia

  • Huaqing Shi, Florida State University

2024 annual meeting a success!

With many thanks to our hosts Profs. Andy Rodekohr and Yaohua Shi of Wake Forest University, the 2024 annual meeting of SEC-AAS was a success!

One exciting innovation this year was a well-received undergraduate research poster session. Several colleagues got to share their new books with the rest of the conference. Panels throughout the day on Saturday and on Sunday morning were lively and engaged.

To see the full conference line-up, check out the 2024 conference program.

2024 Conference Proposal Deadline Extended

The 2024 annual meeting organizing committee, led by Prof. Andy Rodekohr and Prof. Yaohua Shi of Wake Forest University, are extending the deadline to submit proposals for the SEC-AAS annual meeting on January 26–28, 2024.

The extended deadline is November 13, 2023. Please submit your proposals to the the appropriate form:

Individual papers: https://forms.gle/pGMUjfVUi3tHdzuu7

Panels: https://forms.gle/uoLvmki57Skmwkqw7

New book roundtable: https://forms.gle/e8Gx45ffASrBDNLy6

2024 SEC-AAS Prize Competition

As at past conferences, at the SEC-AAS annual meeting in January 2024 we will award prizes for an outstanding book, an outstanding article, an outstanding graduate paper, and an outstanding undergraduate paper. The deadline for submissions is October 30, 2023. Books and articles published during 2023 and graduate and undergraduate papers written during 2023 and nominated by a faculty advisor are eligible.

All submissions should be by Asianists or students in the Southeastern US. See this map on the Association for Asian Studies website for the region covered by SEC-AAS, although we have in the past accepted submissions from Asianists in Virginia and Louisiana who were already active with the Southeast Conference.

Books and graduate papers should be sent to Dr. Kevin Fogg.

Articles and undergraduate papers should be sent to Professor Yuxin Ma.

Any further questions about this competition can be directed to the SEC-AAS Past President, Dr. Kevin Fogg.

2024 Annual Meeting and Prize Competition Announced

The president of the Southeast Conference of the Association for Asian Studies, Prof. Gengsong Gao, has issued his presidential letter—including details on the 2024 annual meeting. You can download a copy by clicking this link.

Below is the text of this letter:

May 19, 2023

Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to announce that the fully in-person 63rd annual meeting of the Southeast Conference of the Association for Asian Studies, “Regional and Global Flows,” will be held on January 26–28, 2024, at Wake Forest University, North Carolina. Our local coordinators are arranging some very exciting events. All conference information will be posted online at https://www.sec-aas.com/conf as it becomes available.

The program committee welcomes proposals for individual or panel presentations and round tables. Please submit your proposals to the following sites:

Individual papers: https://forms.gle/pGMUjfVUi3tHdzuu7

Panels: https://forms.gle/uoLvmki57Skmwkqw7

Roundtables: https://forms.gle/e8Gx45ffASrBDNLy6

We plan to have a “new book roundtable” for authors who have published their new books in 2023. Pease let us know if you are one of them and share your success together! Please submit your proposals no later than October 30, 2023. All proposals will be collectively reviewed by our 2024 program committee. Please direct questions about conference logistics to Professor Yaohua Shi shiy@wfu.edu.

Prizes for an outstanding book, one best article will be awarded at the 2024 Conference. The deadline for submissions is October 30, 2023. Books and articles published during 2023 and graduate and undergraduate papers written during 2023 and nominated by a faculty advisor are eligible. Books and graduate papers should be sent to Dr. Kevin Fogg, kfogg@email.unc.edu; articles and undergraduate papers should be sent to Professor Yuxin Ma, yuxin.ma@louisville.edu.

Three $200 travel awards are available to graduate students. Those who wish to be considered for these awards should note this on their paper proposals. Preference will be given to students in the Southeast region who must travel more than two hundred miles to attend.

Conference participants must be dues-paying members. SEC/AAS dues are $20 ($10 for students). The membership application form is available on the SEC/AAS website under “Membership.” Please submit this form with the correct dues to Professor Li-ling Hsiao, Department of Asian Studies, New West 113, CB#3267, UNC-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599.

I look forward to seeing you at the 2024 meeting!

Sincerely,

President SEC-AAS 2023

2023 SEC-AAS Prize Competition

As at past conferences, at the SEC-AAS annual meeting in January 2023 we will award prizes for an outstanding book, an outstanding article, an outstanding graduate paper, and an outstanding undergraduate paper. The deadline for submissions is October 30, 2022. Books and articles published during 2022 and graduate and undergraduate papers written during 2022 and nominated by a faculty advisor are eligible; all submissions should be by Asianists or students in the Southeastern US.

Books and graduate papers should be sent to Professor Yuxin Ma.

Articles should be sent to Dr. Kevin Fogg.

Undergraduate papers should be sent to Professor Yanbing Tan.

2021 Prize Winners

Faculty

Dr. Margherita Zanasi, Professor of History at Louisiana State University, was awarded the 2021 SEC/AAS Annual Book Prize for her publication, Economic Thought in Modern China: Market and Consumption, C.1500-1937 (Cambridge University Press, 2020).

Dr. Charlie Yi Zhang of the University of Kentucky was awarded the 2021 SEC/AAS Annual Article Prize for his publication Releasing Masculinity for a More Just World: Lessons of How to 'Be Water' in Hong Kong in the Journal of Asian Studies 80 no. 3 (April 2021): 683-704.

Students

Bradley Sadowsky was given an award for his paper “Post-War Japanese Society and Mishima Yukio’s The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea.” (University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, adviser: Kevin Fogg) 

Sabrina Simpson was given an award for her paper “Animal Ethics in Thai Buddhism.” (Rhodes College, Advisor: Brooke Schedneck) 

SECAAS Member Publications Since July 2021

Xiaolin Duan
History Department, North Carolina State University

Remembering West Lake: Place, Mobility, and Geographical Knowledge in Ming China. Ming Qing Studies, 2021: 9-46.

Documentary, Song Dynasty and Silk. OER World History Project, July 2021.

Joshua H. Howard
History Department, University of Mississippi

Beyond Repression and Resistance: Worker Agency and Corporatism in Occupied Nanjing. Modern Asian Studies. 56.1 (January 2022): 309-349.

Paperback issue of Composing for the Revolution: Nie Er and China’s Sonic Nationalism . Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2021.

Jeffrey L. Richey
(Asian Studies Department, Berea College)

Daoist Cosmogony in the Kojiki Preface. Religions 12/9 (2021):761.

Editor. Special Issue: Chinese Influences on Japanese Religious Traditions. Religions 12/9 (2021).

Timothy Yang
History Department, University of Georgia

A Medicated Empire: The Pharmaceutical Industry and Modern Japan (Cornell University Press, 2021)

SECAAS Member Publications Since June 2020

Annika A. Culver
History Department, Florida State University

Annika A. Culver and Norman Smith, eds., Manchukuo Perspectives: Transnational Approaches to Literary Production (Hong Kong University Press, 2020)

Collection of Literary Selections by Each Ethnicity in Manchukuo-1, "Statements by Selectors". In Jonathan Henshaw, Craig A. Smith, & Norman Smith (Eds.), Translating the Occupation:  The Japanese Invasion of China, 1931–45 (pp. 103-114). (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2020).

Joshua H. Howard
History Department, University of Mississippi

“Beyond Repression and Resistance: Worker Agency and Corporatism in Occupied Nanjing” Modern Asian Studies. FirstView, 2021

Composing for the Revolution: Nie Er and China’s Sonic Nationalism (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2020).

Yuxin Ma
History Department, University of Louisville

“Technology transcending ideologies: Chinese cinema technicians at Manying,” Journal of Modern Chinese History, 14:2 (2020), 300-328.

“Collaborating with Japanese in Making Entertainment Movies for Chinese Viewers: Chinese Filmmakers at Manchurian Film Association,” The Chinese Historical Review, 27:2 (2020), 119-145.

Masako Mori
Department of Comparative Literature and Intercultural Studies, University of Georgia

“The Infiltrated Self in Murakami Haruki’s ‘TV People’” in Japan Studies Review 24 (2020): 85-108.

Haruki Murakami and His Early Work: The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Running Artist (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2021).

Margherita Zanasi
Department of History, Louisiana State University

Economic Thought in Modern China: Market and Consumption, c.1500-1937 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020).

Congratulations to our prize winners for their outstanding papers, articles, and books!

Dr. Harshita Mruthinti Kamath (Visweswara Rao and Sita Koppaka Assistant Professor in Telugu Culture, Literature and History) at Emory University was awarded the 2020 SEC/AAS Annual Article Prize for her publication, “Kṣētrayya: The Making of a Telugu Poet” (The Indian Economic and Social History Review, 2019).

Dr. Harshita Mruthinti Kamath at Emory University was awarded the 2020 SEC/AAS Annual Book Prize for her publication, Impersonations: The Artifice of Brahmin Masculinity in South Indian Dance (University of California Press, 2019).

Two students from the University of Richmond were awarded the 2020 SEC/AAS Annual Undergraduate Student Paper Prize.

Bryan Carapucci, "Governance in a Multiethnic Republic: Nationalist Rule and Response in Xinjiang and the Frontier, 1933-1935."

Peizhen (Pixie) Zhang, "The Impact of the one-child policy on Chinese returnees."