Asian Studies Parade

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Archival, Biographical, Institutional and Post-Colonial Approaches

Author: Paul van der Velde

Editor: Alex McKay

About this book

The Asian Studies Parade reflects a lifetime of commitment to the field by Paul van der Velde, a leading Asian studies innovator, scholar, and publisher. The first chapters examine aspects of the Dutch colonial presence in Asia and its intellectual support system in the Netherlands. The author’s engagement with historical biography emerges in studies of such contrasting figures as Japanese interpreter Imamura Gen’emon Eisei, pioneering anthropologist P.J. Veth, and anti-colonialist Jacob Haafner. Van der Velde then continues to describe the development of Asia-Europe links at the end of the 20^th century and the emergence of the ‘New Asia Scholar’ in the 21st century. This unique work will interest anyone concerned with wider issues in Asian studies.

Paul van der Velde is a historian and served as Secretary of the International Convention of Asian Scholars and General Secretary of the region-transcending multilingual ICAS Book Prize for many years. His most recent publication is Life under the Palms: The Sublime World of Jacob Haafner, 1754-1809 (NUS Press, 2020).

Format: Hardback

Pages: 318

Illustrated: Black and White

ISBN Print: 9789087283995

ISBN ePDF: 9789400604445

Published: 1 February 2023

Language: English

Open Access 🔗

Keywords: Asia, Asian Studies, Biography, Cultural engagement, History

Category: Asian Studies, History

Price €124.00

Reviews

Bob Hefner, Professor of Anthropology and Global Affairs, Boston University

A multi-national and delightfully collaborative field of scholarship today, Asian studies in the Western academy were originally implicated in the conquest and colonization of Asia. That story has long been told, and its complicities exposed. Paul van der Velde’s The Asian Studies Parade does something more. Drawing on research and publications crafted over a forty-year career, van der Velde provides a far-ranging and at times breathtaking overview of the transformation of Asian studies from colonial instrumentality to cross-cultural celebration. The author roams widely but always insightfully, taking us from Japan and Taiwan to the Netherlands East Indies, as well as Asian studies in contemporary East Asia and Europe. Few books provide a better sense of where the field of Asian studies came from and, no less important, where it should go today.

Lisheng Dong, Professor of Comparative Politics, Tartu University, Estonia, and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China

To general readers, the book opens a window on the wide field of Asian Studies. To academics, it is a convenient handbook on Asian Studies. The book presents a panoramic view of Asian studies in terms of up-to-date review with historical roots as well as a combination of both theoretical and methodological approaches.