Asiatica Association

We have just received the Newsletter for Research in Chinese Studies, 118 (May 2011 - vol. 30, no. 2), a hard copy quarterly published by the Center for Chinese Studies (CCS), established in 1981 to promote research in Chinese studies both in Taiwan (The Republic of China) and overseas.

It is written in Chinese with subtitles in English. It contains articles, interviews, and regular updates on the happenings in the worldwide community of Chinese studies.

This issue includes:

The Global Forum of Japan Commentary of October 1, 2011, Vol. 4, No. 5 presents views of members and friends of GFJ on the relations of Japan with the rest of the world and other related international affairs. The commentary "The Death of Osama bin-Laden" is written by Prof. Bruce Mazlish (MIT).

The Death of Osama bin-Laden, by Bruce Mazlish

The death and disposal in the sea of Osama bin Laden on 5/1/11 seems a fitting book end to the events of 9/11. It cannot be lamented; but it does raise a set of questions. The Letter of Mr. ITO Masanori entitled "Is Osama Bin Laden a Criminal or a Hero?" and carried by "GFJ -Commentary" is very interesting because it tries to answer such questions. Agreeing with him that the international legal system would have benefited from his trial (and he could have been captured,) I would like to respond to some of the questions raised by him.

Something like 3,000 victims were claimed at the World Towers and the other 9/11 sites. Al Qaeda, led by bin Laden, has been responsible for many more. Horrible as they are, their number has been fairly limited. In comparison with the Nazi Holocaust and the killing of an additional 6 million or more Poles, Russians and others, the Al Qaeda attack is dwarfted into insignificance. Its major significance lay in the shattering of the belief in American domestic invulnerability. The fear that was created by the small number dead -compare the 60,000 plus deaths each year on American highways- resulted in a major victory for the terrorists.

Thye Institute of Research on Contemporary Southeast Asia in Bangkok offers 3 grants of 6 months each to doctoral/ post doctoral students to make field studies in Southeast Asia, starting November 1, 2011. Disciplines: Political Science, Anthropology-ethnology, Economics, Geography, Contemporary History, Sociology, International Relations.

I want to recommend to you the Alphabetical List of Open Access Journals in Ancient Studies from the blog The Ancient World Online, by Charles Ellwood Jones, Head Librarian at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at NYU. 

As you can see, also the Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies (IJTS) is listed. The EJVS (Editor-in-chief Prof. Michael Witzel)  is one of the first academic electronic journals of the world, established in 1995 together with the JSAWS and the IJTS, and I humbly serve as Managing Editor for it.

I want to introduce Sudharma. The Only Samskrita Daily, the only Sanskrit e-newspaper that I know of, which joines Sanskrit language and journalism. IThe paper format has been launched on Juky 14, 1970. You can subscribe to it or donate.

History.

Kalale Nadadur Varadaraja Iyengar, a Sanskrit scholar, launched this paper in the year 1970 with a goal of propagating the language. He was also a publisher of Sanskrit books and the Sanskrit moving types that were sometimes lying idle with him were another motivation for starting the newspaper. When he discussed his venture with others, he had to face the wrath of skeptics who warned him of his ‘misadventure’ and predicted the newspaper’s doom. This was because not many people believed that the Sanskrit language had a vocabulary sufficient enough to cover contemporary and complex day-to-day activities and developments. He was, however, supported in his venture by Agaram Rangaiah, who was an editor of a Kannada newspaper and also by P. Nagachar, who was a former Joint Director of Information. Ignoring the skeptics, Varadaraja Iyengar published the first issue of Sudharma on July 14, 1970 from a location called ‘Ganapathi Totti’ in Maharaja’s Sanskrit College. He was also instrumental in starting a Sanskrit news bulletin on All India Radio by convincing I. K. Gujral, the then Minister of Information and Broadcasting in the Government of India. K. V. Sampath Kumar, the son of Varadaraja Iyengar, is the current editor of the newspaper. The paper is currently published out of a press in the # 561, 2nd Cross, Ramachandra Agrahara locality of Mysore.

We have just received the Sungkyun Journal of East Asian Studies, vol. 11, no. 2 (Oct. 2010). This is a research publication on Sinology written in English. It is published by the Academy of East Asian Studies of Sungkyunkwan University.

This is a special issue titled “Chinese Intellectual History”, including the papers “Classical Exegesis and Social Change: The Song School of Yijing…” by Tze-ki Hon; “The Authority of the Classics: A Comparative

On April 28 — just two days before the US blitz on Osama’s compound in Abbottabad— I interviewed Ahmed Rashid, the famous Pakistani journalist and bestselling author of Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (2000) and Descent into Chaos (2008).

In this interview Rashid talks about the so called “Arab spring”, and particularly Libya, about the role of Europe in managing immigrants who are not political refugees from Africa, about the importance of solving the Israel-Palestine dispute for the Middle East and the Muslim world at large, and about the current situation in Pakistan and the possibility of a modern and moderate Islam.

Mr Rashid also talks about new initiatives by the US government that should bring Pakistan to a special understanding on the future of Afghanistan, and about a collaboration between the two countries on Afghanistan. All this two days before the US forces killed Osama bin Laden in a blitz near Abbottabad, in Pakistan, officially without the Pakistan government knowledge. Read the Interview.

We have just received the International Edition of the Journal of Confucian Philosophy and Culture, vol. 15 / February 2011, which is published by the Institute of Confucian Philosophy and Culture, Academy of East Asian Studies of Sungkyunkwan University, a private academia located in Seoul and Suwon, South Korea, which was established in 1398 and is considered one of the foremost universities in the country.

The papers of the Journal of Confucian Philosophy and Culture deal with Confucianism, its idea and idealsand the more recent studies on it. They are written either in Korean with a summary in English, or in English. In this issue, which is 352 page long, papers are written in Korean.

Table of contents, papers: “The Origin of Ritual and Music of the Confucius Ceremony…” by Kim, Sung Kee; “The Moral Change from Ordinary to Metaphysical in Pre-Chin…” by Su Tzu-Ying; “The Trait of Daoism of Confucian Philosophy” by Gou Xiaoqian; “The textual Research on Qidiaoshi School” by Song Li-lin;