MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale
South Asian Studies Council

Carnegie Grant to Yale helps build a transregional scholars’ network for the Asian century

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New Haven, Conn. – A grant of $500,000 to Yale from the Carnegie Corporation of New York will support a global network of scholars to rethink approaches to understanding Asian topics by thinking beyond traditional regions and refocusing research with trans-regional lenses.
The InterAsia Initiative is a collaborative multi-institutional group that includes the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), the National University of Singapore (NUS), the Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (HKIHSS) at the University of Hong Kong, Göttingen University (Germany), the Arab Council for the Social Sciences (Lebanon), and Koç University (Turkey).  The MacMillan Center at Yale and the SSRC are managing the project.

“The InterAsia Initiative aims to shift paradigms in how we conceptualize Asia by promoting collaborative research, scholarly networking, and public policy connections,” says Helen Siu, Professor of Anthropology, Yale University. “We are working to reveal and depict Asia as an interlinked set of formations stretching from the Middle East through Eurasia, Central Asia, and South Asia to Southeast Asia and East Asia.”

Tangible products that are expected as a result of Carnegie Corporation support include:

  • A comprehensive, online, searchable scholars database. This database will be populated with information obtained through various InterAsian activities – including all InterAsian Connections Conferences, follow-up research collaborations and publications, the SSRC’s Postdoctoral Fellowship for Transregional Research, and the newly formed Transregional Virtual Research Institute (TVRI) scholars’ group – as well as research conducted by the Postdoctoral Research and other initiative-related scholars.
  • An updated project website that provides a platform for the dissemination of research and networking materials, with a specific focus on outreach to U.S. policy-makers.
  • A large international conference that will serve to cement existing scholars’ networks and expand the growing group of InterAsian scholars.
  • Research products produced in conjunction with TVRI Research Forum and TVRI Conference including background research materials, bibliographies, web resources, and curriculum materials.

Professor Siu and Kalyanakrishnan Sivaramakrishnan, Dinakar Singh Professor of India & South Asian Studies, will serve as principal investigators. Both are affiliated with the MacMillan Center at Yale through its Council on East Asian Studies (Siu was a former chair) and Council on South Asian Studies (Sivaramakrishnan is currently the chair). The project is supported financially and administratively by the Councils and will leverage the MacMillan Center’s strengths as an innovative, interdisciplinary research hub that tackles contemporary issues of international and global, institutional and human import. It will also capitalize on the research done by the InterAsia Initiative over the course the past three years.

“We are grateful for the generous support from the Carnegie Corporation,” says Professor Sivaramakrishnan. “The InterAsia Initiative will highlight the shifting regional dynamics by mapping the changing shape of emerging sub-regions, as well as the emergence of new narratives on ‘who defines Asia through time.’”