[Tlc] TLC-calls for papers, fellowships, awards

[justinm at ucr.edu]

FYI. 4 items below.
Thanks,
jusin

(1)
2009 Graduate Student Awards to Attend Singapore Conference on Maize

The UCLA Asia Institute is offering up to three awards of $3,000 each to graduate students to prepare a paper and to present it at an international conference on Charting the Global-Asian Footsteps of Maize to be held in June 2009 at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore.

Maize (corn) nourished the Inca and Mayan civilizations.  From the 16th century, it spread rapidly to feed exploding populations not only in Europe but also more importantly in Africa and Asia.  It has come to dominate the global food market and it may come to play an even larger role in the fuel revolution that is unfolding.

Scholars of Asia have paid little attention to maize, and have yet to situate it in the larger picture of empire, demographic-dietary change and the rise of modern Asia. To fill this gap, the Asia Research Institute of the National University of Singapore, Manchester University (United Kingdom) and the Asia Institute at UCLA have called a conference to trace the global footsteps of maize to Asia and to evaluate the role of maize in the making of colonial-modern Asia and China.  The conference organizers are calling for papers that will address the following issues:

1.      The introduction of maize to Asian countries, its initial perception by Asian local elite/ordinary people and the names they gave to maize
2.      The spread of maize cultivation in Asia and the political, economic and social circumstances in which it came to be adopted
3.      Its indigenization or integration into the diverse Asian cultures of food
4.      Food, gender, class, and political or colonial authorities
5.      Maize and diet revolution in the age of decolonization/nation making

The UCLA Asia Institute is offering up to three awards of $3,000 each to assist graduate students to prepare a paper for the conference and to travel to Singapore to present it.  Students in any discipline registered at UCLA, USC or the University of Washington for the 2008–2009 academic year are eligible to apply for these awards. UCLA will forward three selected proposals to the organizing committee at the National University of Singapore. Awards will be subject to final acceptance by the organizing committee.

Applicants should submit a one-page outline of the topic of their paper together with a half page biographical note explaining how participation in the conference will contribute to their current research and writing. Applications by e-mail are preferred. Please send your application to <nmenzies at international.ucla.edu>. Please use the phrase “Singapore Conference” in the subject line. Deadline: August 10, 2008. Award notifications will be made before September 1, 2008.

For more info please contact: Nick Menzies, 310-825-0007, <nmenzies at international.ucla.edu>, Or visit the Asia Institute website at http://www.international.ucla.edu/asia/.
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(2)
2009 Ford Fellowship of the 92nd Street Y / Cambodia

Deadline: June 30, 2008

Each year, a group of 20-24 emerging leaders from different regions of the world are selected to become Ford Fellows of the 92nd Street Y. For the 2009 Fellowship, we are accepting applications from Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Estonia, Ethiopia, Israel, Latvia, Liberia, Lithuania and Uruguay. For more information visit, http://www.92y.org/content/ford_fellows_about.asp?redirect=fordfellowship.
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(3)
Call for Papers
Continuity and Change: (Re)conceptualising Power in Southeast Asia

March 26th-28th 2009
Hosted by CRASSH (Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities), University of Cambridge, UK

Keynote Speakers: James Scott (Sterling Professor of Political Science and Professor of Anthropology, Yale University) and Shelly Errington (Professor of Anthropology, UC Santa Cruz)

The study of power in contemporary Southeast Asia has never been more timely. Over the last half-century, the region has undergone innumerable far-reaching changes. It has witnessed the rise of postcolonial nation-states, rapid industrialization, economic growth and democratization but also genocide, political upheaval and widespread repression.  Power lies at the core of these important developments, whether in the form of brute military force or as a more capillary 'disciplinary' influence on religious and political subjectivities. New religious, economic and political movements-all drawing deeply on local traditions while proposing new forms of personhood, civil and political society-cut across national, cultural, ideological and sectarian boundaries.

Yet for all that power can be detected in Southeast Asia, there seems to be little specifically Southeast Asian about it contemporary scholarly analyses. This is both puzzling and ironic given the central role that earlier ethnographic studies of Southeast Asia once played in identifying distinctively regional modalities of power, prompting us to reconsider how 'power' could be most profitably studied in Southeast Asian contexts.

'Continuity and Change' will be a major interdisciplinary and international conference on Southeast Asia. Its key aim is to reopen the debate on the issue of 'power'-both in real life and academic scholarship-as it is manifest across the region. Conference themes and questions will include:

.       Are there, or were there ever, distinctly 'Southeast Asian'  notions of power that could still exist as alternatives-or complements-to Western folk and political models?
.       Are scholars' analytic imaginaries of power in relation to nationhood and governance congruent with the imaginaries of Southeast Asians witnessing or involved in such projects and processes?
.       What are the shapes that power takes?
.       How have recent theoretical developments within various disciplines reshaped our understanding of the nature and location of power?
.       How useful is the concept of 'Southeast Asia' as a geographical, political and analytical entity in dealing with these issues?

We invite papers from scholars working in the arts, humanities and social sciences whose research illuminates novel, exciting and challenging dimensions of power in Southeast Asian contexts across space and time. Abstracts, 250 words in length, should be submitted to <sea.continuity.change at googlemail.com>. For further details, see our website: http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/542, or email us at the address above.

Submission of Proposal: 1st October 2008
Announcement of accepted proposals: 1st November 2008
Circulation of Paper Abstracts and Panels: 1st March 2009

Convenors: Liana Chua, Joanna Cook, Nick Long, Lee Wilson, University of Cambridge
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(4)
Call for Papers
In Celebration of 175 Years of U.S.-Thai Diplomatic Relations

Annual Meeting of the Council on Thai Studies 2008.  The Council on Thai Studies will be holding its annual meeting at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois October 24-25, 2008. Conference theme: In Celebration of 175 Years of U.S.-Thai Diplomatic Relations (Presentations of research on topics unrelated to this year's theme also are welcome.)

You are invited to share your research at the annual meeting for the Council on Thai Studies.  The Council on Thai Studies or COTS is an informal organization of scholars interested in all aspects of Thai studies.  COTS provides scholars with a venue for reporting preliminary findings; opportunities to receive prepublication feedback; and a forum to discuss field and archive challenges.

Please consider giving a paper yourself or gathering a small group for a roundtable discussion or panel.  Graduate students are also encouraged to submit papers. Paper proposals/abstracts are due September 1, 2008.

Individual topics and/or groupings of papers may be submitted.  An effort will be made to group individual papers into panel sessions around a common theme, issue, methodology, or discipline. Each person will have a maximum of twenty minutes for an oral presentation and should be prepared to field questions after the talk.  Since the agendas of COTS meetings have grown over the past several years, we will try to adhere to these time limits. Scholars may distribute written copies of their papers.

Acceptance of paper proposals, information regarding scheduling of panels, and assignment of panel moderators and discussants will be sent in early October to those who submit proposals/abstracts as well as to those who indicate their intention to attend.  If you need more information, please do not hesitate to contact the organizers: Danny Unger (COTS 2008 Chair) at <dannyunger5 at gmail.com> and Grant Olson (co-Chair) at <golson at niu.edu>.

Membership in COTS is free and there is no registration fee for the meeting. Details about the meeting will be sent out only by email in September 2008. A block of rooms will be held at the Holmes Student Center at Northern Illinois University for conference participants to make their own reservations (815-753-1444) or see http://www.niu.edu/hsc/hotelinfo/index.shtml.

Please submit proposals with name, address, and other contact information plus the title of the panel or paper to Danny Unger, COTS Chair, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115; email <dannyunger5 at gmail.com> or <golson at niu.edu>; or FAX 815-753-1776. You may also find this information on our website at: http://www.cseas.niu.edu/conf.htm.

______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
3046 INTN
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
951-827-4530
justinm at ucr.edu