CfA: Labor and the Politics of Care in East Asia Dissertation Workshop

March 10-12, 2026
Vancouver, Canada
Application deadline: October 20, 2025

The Association for Asian Studies, with funding from the Henry Luce Foundation, is pleased to host a dissertation workshop for advanced doctoral students who have completed their research and are writing their dissertations. The workshop will take place March 10-12, 2026, immediately prior to the AAS Annual Conference in Vancouver, Canada (participants should plan to arrive on March 9).

The workshop theme will be “Labor and the Politics of Care in East Asia.” We invite proposals in the broad areas of migration politics, gendered labor, religious praxis, and cultures and ecologies of care, among others. The period covered ranges from medieval East Asia to the present. We invite applications from across the social sciences and the humanities.

The aim of the workshop is to provide advanced doctoral students with the opportunity to have one of their chapters and the argument of the dissertation subjected to an intensive critique from an inter-disciplinary panel consisting of two faculty members with expertise in the theme of the workshop and their fellow doctoral students.

The workshop will be conducted by Dr. Yulia Frumer, Associate Professor of East Asian Science at Johns Hopkins University, and a second mentor to be announced at a later date. Dr. Frumer is a specialist in the history of East Asian, specifically Japanese, Science and Technology. She received her Ph.D. from Princeton University and her research covers histories of science and technologies in Japan from the early modern period to the 21st century.

To ensure effectiveness, participation is limited to 9 students. Students who have defended their dissertation prospectus and have completed a significant portion of data gathering (whether archival research, ethnography, or any other kind of source collection) are eligible to apply.

The AAS encourages students across disciplines to apply for the workshop. We extend a special invitation to those in the underrepresented disciplines in the AAS, including sociology, economics, and political science, to apply.

Students selected for the workshop will receive a grant to cover the costs of:

• lowest economy class airfare
• AAS conference registration fee
• lodging (shared room) during the workshop
• meals during the workshop

All application materials must be submitted via the AAS application portal by October 20, 2025.

To apply, please submit the following:

• A letter of recommendation from your academic advisor. Letters of recommendation must be emailed directly by your advisor to grants[at]asianstudies.org no later than October 20, 2025. Please have your advisor include your full name in the subject line and “AAS2026 Dissertation Workshop”
  • Example subject line: “AAS2026 Dissertation Workshop, Zhang Wei”
• A three-page proposal, outlining the themes and argument of your dissertation. Your proposal should address the following:
  • The problem the thesis addresses
  • Research question
  • Description of the body of literature relevant to the thesis
  • Description of the research conducted and methods used.
  • Significance of the study
  • Outline of chapters (chapter title and 1-2 sentences about each)
• One completed chapter
• CV (3 pages maximum)

For any questions about the workshop or application process, email grants[at]asianstudies.org.