SEAA News Blog

Archaeology of East Asia, a BAR sub-series

Series Editor: Dr Anke Hein (University of Oxford, UK).

In recent years, the archaeology of East Asia has been receiving increasing interest among scholars world-wide, leading to an upsurge in publications in western languages as well as an increase of presentations and panels on that topic at international archaeological conferences. Within this trend, most publishing houses tend to favour textbook-type overviews or big-picture stories; what has been missing so far is a venue to publish archaeological material and in-depth analyses that can provide a greater audience access to evidence previously unpublished or only accessible through articles in not-easily-accessible venues or languages. Likewise lacking are publication venues for conference proceedings that summarize the most recent findings and insights in a timely manner.

Dr Keith Knapp has once again created his yearly digest of publications relating to the archaoelogy of East Asia. This excellent resource summarizes a large number of archaeology-related articles that have been published in the last year. For the full digest please visit: https://www.academia.edu/41475529/2019_East_Asia_Archaeological_Digest

The Department of Archaeology at Durham University seeks to appoint a talented individual to the role of Assistant Professor. We welcome applications from those with research and teaching interests in the broad field of zooarchaeology from any part of the world and we are particularly eager to hear from applicants capable of directing research on the zooarchaeology of East and South East Asia and Africa.

INSTITUTE OF ASIAN AND ORIENTAL STUDIES / CHINESE STUDIES
 

The Traditional China Chair at the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies
of the Uni­versity of Zurich is looking for a postdoc in East and Central
Asian archaeology, art history or palaeo­zoology/-botany. Postdoctoral work
will be carried out under the aus­pices of the Swiss Na­tional Science
Foundation (SNSF) project “Sino-Indo-Iranica rediviva – Early Eurasian
migratory terms in Chinese and their cultural im­plications” (PI: Prof.
Wolfgang Behr). The project will investigate Central Asian loan words of
Ira­nian, Indian, Tocharian and other linguistic origins in Chinese
epigraphical and transmitted texts from early antiquity to the Sui
unification (581 CE). Linguistic results will be compared to evidence from
from material culture and the natu­ral environments with the aim of gaining
deeper in­sights into the devel­opment of the flourish­ing trade routes
linking China and Cen­tral Asia since the onset of writing in China.
As part of the project, a database of Chinese terms with their (putative)
foreign equiva­lents and material culture correlates will be compiled and
published online. The successful appli­cant will conduct a thorough
investigation of material traces re­flecting contact during the time of the
investigated textual evidence in close coordina­tion with the other three
project partici­pants as well as external collaboration part­ners.

INSTITUTE OF ASIAN AND ORIENTAL STUDIES / CHINESE STUDIES

The Traditional China Chair at the Institute of Asian and Oriental Studies of the University of Zurich is looking for a doctoral candidate in Middle Iranian linguistics. Work towards the Ph.D. will be carried out under the auspices of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) project “Sino-Indo-Iranica rediviva – Early Eurasian migratory terms in Chinese and their cultural implications” (PI: Prof. Wolf­gang Behr). The project will investigate Central Asian loan words of Iranian, Indian, Tochar­ian and other linguistic origins in Chinese epi­graphi­cal and transmitted texts from early antiq­uity to the beginning of the Sui dynasty (581 CE). Linguistic results will be compared to evi­dence from material culture and the natural en­viron­ments, as reflected by archaeological, paleob­otanical, -zoological or art historical data, with the aim of gaining deeper insights into the de­velopment of the flourishing trade routes lin­king China and Central Asia since the on­set of writing in China. 

TAG 2020 at Stanford University

May 1-3, 2020

TAG 2020 Stanford aims to facilitate archaeological conversation across a range of topics, formats, and media. The conference will include a variety of events: a full-day plenary debate on the “Potentials and Limits of Big Data” in archaeology; two days of thematically open, concurrent breakout sessions; and a range of art exhibitions to stimulate conversations about the intersections of ethics, politics, and archaeological practice. In the spirit of the Stanford Archaeology Center, a space that fosters collaboration and discussion among archaeologists in different disciplines, we welcome sessions and papers on all current archaeological topics. 

The Asian Studies Program at Vanderbilt University is accepting applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor in Asian Environmental Studies to begin in the Fall 2020 semester. Regional specialization is open to any area(s) of East, South, and Southeast Asia. Academic training may come from any discipline(s) in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences.

The Department of Asian Studies and Anthropology Program at Furman University invite applications for a full-time, tenure-track, Archaeology of East Asia position beginning August 2020 at the assistant, associate or full level.

We seek an archaeologist with teaching and research specialization in East Asia and/or Southeast Asia and experience directing or running a field school and/or willingness to start one. 

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 28th-30th, 2020, for a discussion on the construction of “authenticity,” both historically and today, in relation to China’s cultural heritage (those objects and texts concerned with China’s past). Applications are now invited for the presentation of papers (~20-30 minutes in length) on this theme.

The Esherick-Ye Family Foundation is pleased to announce its fourth annual competition for small grants of up to $5,000 to support projects in modern Chinese economic, social, and political history or in archaeology.

Grants will support travel to China for research or field work.   Grants are available for graduate students and untenured faculty. 

Established in 2016 by Joseph W. Esherick and Ye Wa, the Esherick-Ye Family Foundation supports solid, careful, empirically based, and clearly reasoned scholarship—the sort of work that Esherick encouraged from the students he mentored at the University of California, San Diego, and that Ye Wa has promoted in archaeology.