Next semester, Transasia meetings will be held on:

• September 19
• October 17
• November 14
• December 19

More details about the picnic and the meetings will be announced later. Enjoy the summer, and we look forward to seeing you at the picnic! 

Due to limited space, we encourage PhD students and those carrying out independent research to participate. Please contact Pengnan (p.hu@uva.nl) if you would like to discuss your paper. If you have any news that you would like to disseminate, please forward it to us.

The ASCA Trans-Asia cultural studies reading group aims to bring scholars in The Netherlands together who are working on issues related to "Asia," to read and discuss key texts as well as each other’s work. The hitherto absence of such a reading group is particularly remarkable when many of us who study Asia have been drawing on work from cultural studies scholars. The research interest of this reading group is broad: not only work that focuses on cultural practices in Asia, but also related studies on the presence of Asia in Europe or elsewhere is included. This reading group operates deliberately on the interstices of humanities and social sciences, and aims at an inclusive and critical approach that refuses to privilege any particular academic paradigm. It aspires to bring together students from research masters, PhD candidates as well as faculty members from different departments at different universities.

We prefer to discuss work in progress, either one or two papers per session of 1.5 hours, but alternative proposals (screenings, walks, exhibitions) are always welcome.