East Asia Studies: Challenges of Complex Realities in an Era of Globalization and Digitization
The 14th ACPSS International Conference
and the 90th Jubilee of Cornell's Charles W. Wason Collection on East Asia
November 7-9, 2008
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York
Cornell University Library, the Cornell East Asia Program, and the Association of Chinese Professors of Social Sciences in the United States (ACPSS) announce the 14th ACPSS international conference to be held in conjunction with the 90th Jubilee of Cornell's Wason Collection on East Asia. The conference's theme is “East Asia Studies: Challenges of Globalization and Digitization,” and all events will be held at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA, from Friday, November 7 to Sunday, November 9, 2008.
The Wason Collection and the ACPSS
Cornell University Library's collection on East Asia was founded by Cornell alumnus Charles W. Wason in 1918, with the lofty ideal of bringing “China and the U.S. into intellectual relations.” During the past 90 years, the Wason Collection has provided strong academic support to generations of East Asian scholars at Cornell and throughout the world. Today, the Wason Collection is one of the top East Asian libraries in North America.
The Association of Chinese Professors of Social Sciences in the United States is an academic organization founded in 1995. The ACPSS has vigorously promoted research projects involving interdisciplinary collaboration among scholars and actively engaged in scholarly dialogue with Chinese academics across the Pacific.
Conference Theme
The forces of globalization increasingly pull Asian countries into the world economy and international politics. Some of the most impressive changes taking place in Asia are the result of the rise of China and India because of their rapid economic growth. These changes, among others, have greatly altered the economic and geo-political landscapes of Asia in the last two decades. This region has become a key economic engine for the world, dominating world trade in numerous sectors and attracting major investments from Europe, the United States, and elsewhere.
Hand in hand with the increased economic interactions comes an influx of social and cultural clashes among the affected countries. The sharp contrast between the cultures of the East and those of the West generates debate about which country's values factor into our understanding of freedom and democracy. These unprecedented interactions in economic, political, social, and cultural aspects of life have brought forth a wide range of new challenges for leaders, scholars, and everyone else involved in the process if they want to preserve world peace and ensure sustainable development and prosperity. It is therefore not just necessary but imperative for scholars of all disciplines to explore and understand the challenges and their impact on the future.
Just as globalization has affected East Asian scholars, digitization has imposed a huge challenge upon East Asian libraries. As the major component of the information revolution, digitization has fundamentally changed the landscape of the library. While the digitization of historical and current documents, books, research papers, newspapers, and journals, enables libraries to provide scholars with convenient access to information resources and addresses physical storage requirements, librarians are facing the daunting challenges of managing the transition from a traditional library to a digital one, supporting users’ information literacy needs, and strategically reallocating financial resources. As librarians of area studies, East Asian librarians also have compelling obligations to organize digital information into databases for East Asian studies. The rapidly developed technologies naturally pose growing challenges to East Asian librarians.
Scholars and librarians are inseparable partners in East Asian studies. This conference, jointly organized by Cornell University Library, the Cornell East Asia Program, and the ACPSS will provide East Asian scholars and librarians an excellent opportunity to understand and analyze each other’s challenges, exchange ideas and experiences, and share common concerns. This gathering will also serve as a unique event in honor of Charles W. Wason’s historical contributions to East Asian studies.
Suggested Topics Concerning China, Japan, Koreas,
and Adjacent Regions
The conference will seek panels and papers to address issues revolving around (but not limited to) the following subjects:
(1) Regional Economy and Its Integration into World Economy
(2) Regional Politics and Relations with World Politics
(3) Social and Cultural Development
(4) Issues Related to the Environment and Public Health
(5) International Cooperation in Crime Control
(6) Overseas Chinese and Globalization
(7) Transition from Traditional Library to Digital Library
(8) Methods and Technologies Involved in the Digitization of East Asian Materials
Please submit via email an abstract for your paper (100-150 words) to Dr. Liren Zheng at lz14@cornell.edu or Dr. Jieli Li at lij@ohio.edu by July 1, 2008. A committee will review all submissions, and those with accepted abstracts are expected to submit their full-length papers by September 20, 2008. Papers should be written in English and run the length of a journal article. Presented papers may be selected for publication in conference proceedings or considered for publication in American Review of China Studies, the official journal of the ACPSS.
