CFP: UCLA/USC and Illinois/Indiana National Dissertation Workshop on Medieval East Asia

The Illinois/Indiana East Asia National Resource Center Consortium (IL/IN East Asia NRC) in cooperation with the University of California, Los Angeles/University of Southern California National Resource Center Consortium (UCLA/USC NRC) is pleased to announce its first Joint Consortium National Dissertation Workshop in the field of Medieval East Asian Studies. The workshop will be held May 8-9 on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign. Doctoral students in the humanities, social sciences, and fine arts whose dissertation projects concern medieval topics broadly conceived are invited to apply. Areas of interest include literature, visual arts, history, performing arts, demography, and medical humanities, among others. The workshop is designed to enable students just beginning work on their dissertations, as well as those farther along, to engage in intensive discussions of their own and each other’s projects. Participants will circulate writing samples (ideally dissertation chapters, but partial chapters are also welcome) of 15-30 pages. Follow-up meetings via video-conference will be scheduled 6 months, 12 months, and 18 months following the workshop to build on the foundation laid at the workshop. The workshop will be limited to eight participants. Participants are required to fund their own travel to the University of Illinois, as well as some meals.* Remaining costs of the workshop, including materials, some meals, and two nights’ lodging will be covered by the Joint Consortium. 

 

The workshop will be led by Ronald P. Toby, Professor Emeritus of East Asian Languages and Cultures and History at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Manling Luo, Assistant Professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Indiana University Bloomington; and Richard Von Glahn, Professor of History at the University of California, Los Angeles.

 

Applicants must be enrolled full-time in a doctoral program and must have drafted a dissertation research proposal, although they need not have advanced to candidacy. Those in the early phases of writing are also encouraged to apply. In order to prepare the ground for a productive exchange, participants must come to the workshop having read and prepared comments on the other participants’ writing samples.

 

Application materials consist of three items: