SEAA News Blog

Hakuhodo Foundation is now accepting applications for the 16th Hakuhodo Foundation Japanese Research Fellowship.

The Fellowship invites leading international researchers of the Japanese language, Japanese language education, Japanese literature and Japanese culture to Japan to conduct residential research.
In providing residential research opportunities, the Fellowship aims to further strengthen the base of international research into Japan and to deepen the understanding of Japan.

1. Fellowship period(tentative):
   Long-term (12 months): September 1, 2021 - August 31, 2022
   Short-term (6 months): September 1, 2021 - February 28, 2022 (Round 1) or
                          March 1, 2022 - August 31, 2022 (Round 2)

2. Schedule:
   Application period: June 1 - October 30, 2020
   Notification: late March 2021(tentative)

Applications will be accepted online.
For further details, please visit our website or contact us at the address below.

A personal tribute to Sarah Nelson

Gina L. Barnes

Sarah Milledge Nelson (1931–2020) reached the ripe old age of 88 and a half before she succumbed to the long-standing leukemia and late developing kidney problems that led to her death on April 27th. These did not keep her from attending a conference in Germany in January where we last met – I have never known anyone more adventurous and ready to travel. She admitted that her family motto was “Why not? … especially if the question has ‘go’ in it”!

Sarah put enormous amounts of energy into her chosen fields of, first, Korean archaeology, then northeastern Chinese archaeology, and finally into gender studies. In the first two, she has been a path-breaker, treading where few Western women were allowed to go. In the latter, she was a pioneer in challenging patriarchical organization of archaeology, publishing, and fieldwork through her entire career, culminating in her book on Shamans, Queens, and Figurines cited below. For those who want to hear about her life in her words, she gives extensive autobiographical contexts for each stage of her research in this book; they are an eye-opener to the hurdles she had to overcome in becoming one of the foremost East Asian archaeology scholars today. Moreover, they illustrate how serendipitous the development of research can be, where barriers and opportunities crop up in unexpected quarters – a good lesson for beginning students. I wish more of us would be as brave as Sarah to write about our career experiences, warts and all; they form important contexts for and constraints on the development of our thinking.

Call for SEAA Media Coordinator

 The Society for East Asian Archaeology is currently looking for a volunteer Media Coordinator, whose responsibilities will include finding and collating news and announcements related to East Asian archaeology, and posting these on the SEAA blog and in a regular newsletter that will be distributed to the membership. We are looking for an enthusiastic, technology savvy undergraduate or graduate student who will work with our current web editor to fill this role.

As the SEAA is now moving towards a 3-year conference cycle, we have also been in the process of updating our membership system to align with this change. This has now been implemented on the website for all new or renewing memberships. What this means in practical terms is that when you go to renew your membership, the options are now Regular and Concessionary 3-year fixed term. If you renew or join anytime this year, your membership will now last until December 31st, 2022. If you renew or join anytime in 2021, then your membership will last until December 31st, 2023, and so on.

Postdoctoral Research Associate - Encounter

A fixed term full-time postdoctoral appointment for 36 months is available to work on the ERC-funded project “Encounter: Demography, Cultural change, and the Diffusion of Rice and Millet during the Jomon-Yayoi transition in prehistoric Japan”. https://www.encounterproject.info/.  The role is for an analytical chemist or archaeological scientist to conduct lipid and protein residue analysis on Final Jomon and Early Yayoi ceramic vessels. You will generate data that will advance our understanding of the transition to farming in Japan. N.B. Prior doctoral training or equivalent experience in the field of organic residue analysis is highly desirable.

You will join the University of York’s world-renowned BioArCh group, where you will benefit from a highly multi-disciplinary and engaging working environment.  You will work closely with the residue analysis group under the direction of Prof. Oliver Craig, although you have your own remit within the project and the opportunity to complete first authored publications. You will be supported by our team of dedicated technicians and have access to all the instrumentation needed to undertake the research on site.  As part of this project, you may also be expected to make occasional visits to Japan to undertake sampling and dissemination of the results with the project partners, and to Cambridge where other team members are based. 

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS OPPROTUNITY HAS BEEN POSTPONED DUE TO COVID-19

The first BE-ARCHAEO summer school is organized within the framework of MSCARISE BE-ARCHAEO project. It is addressed to PhD and postgraduate students in archaeology and related disciplines, as well as operators from archaeological museums, who are interested in the archaeology and proto-history of Japan and in the methodology of archaeological investigation. Participant will take part to lecture sessions with exercises, and a final workshop.

Understanding Authenticity in China’s Cultural Heritage

Conference at the University of Oxford, 28-30 May, 2020

What we deem to be genuine or fake is not an objective determination, but something that we agree upon as communities. Debates about authenticity, moreover, are often intimately bound to question who owns the past and its representation. Please join us at Oxford on May 28^th-30^th, 2020, for a discussion on the construction of “authenticity,” both historically and today, in relation to China’s cultural heritage. 

Cattle (Bos taurus), domesticated from the extinct aurochs (Bos primigenius), has been an important animal to many human societies since prehistoric times. Cattle provides not only meat for subsistence, but also hide, blood, dung, milk and traction that contribute to the organization of human beliefs, cultural attitudes and social complexity. This book provides the widest range of cattle bone biometrical information from the Early Neolithic period to the Early Bronze Age (10000 to 3600 years ago) and investigates the morphological variation of this animal from a biological point of view: the main indicator for tracing domestication. The results suggest that cattle in ancient China was imported from the Near East around 4,300 years ago and made their first appearance in the Yellow River Valley. Once they had arrived in central China, these small-sized domesticated cattle soon spread and was exploited intensively from then on.

Haimenkou was an important location, with trade and cultural links connecting parts of modern Southeast Asia and northwestern China in ancient times. This book is based on an analysis of the faunal assemblage recovered from the Haimenkou site during the 2008 field season in Yunnan Province, China. It investigates the human-animal relationships at Haimenkou through a time span running from the late Neolithic Period to the middle Bronze Age (ca. 5000-2400 BP).

November 1, 2019

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Louis Frieberg Post-doctoral Fellowships

The Louis Frieberg Center for East Asian Studies offers post-doctoral fellowships for the2020-2021 academic year. The post-docs are open to scholars in the humanities and socialsciences specializing in East Asia, especially China, Japan, Korea and Mongolia.Fellowships are granted for one academic year or one semester. The starting date of the visitshould not be later than four years after receipt of the doctoral degree; the fellow must hold avalid doctoral degree no later than October 2020.The fellowship consists of a monthly stipend (tax free) of $1,800, paid in Israeli currency andlinked to the representative rate of exchange. Fellows are entitled to one airline ticket(economy class, up to $1,500) for a direct flight from their hometown to Israel and back. Thefellows are expected to teach one semester-long course at the Hebrew University (foradditional payment, according to the Hebrew University regulations). The ability to teach acourse in Hebrew is welcome, but is not a prerequisite for attaining the fellowship. Thefellows will also actively participate in the life and activities of the Louis Frieberg Center forEast Asian Studies and will present their research at the seminar of the Department of AsianStudies, and possibly at other relevant forums. Any work outside the Hebrew Universitywould be allowed only after specific approval by the Frieberg Center. Applicants shouldsub one hard copy and an electronic copy—in one file—of their application to theaddress below, no later than March 8, 2020.