Mission
Grand challenges today in politics, economics, social justice, immigration, armed conflicts, and environment are creating an overlapping effect between the Asian and the global, making it necessary that the existing framework for Asian Studies be re-crafted. Intensifying flows of people, goods, ideas, and culture within Asia and between Asia and the rest of the world are calling for a new approach to Asia from a transnational and transhistorical perspective. Needless to say, national boundaries continue to exist, and concerns over sovereignty and nationalism often result in immense human and environmental disasters. At the same time, we now live in an age where human movements across national borders are happening in an unprecedented scale, delivering new conflict, new tragedy, and new anxieties, but also new knowledge, new forms of life, and new communities. The Chao Center’s new research initiative, the Transnational Asia Research Initiative (TARI), aims to address this complexity, working across multiple disciplines and methodologies.
Fellows
TARI consists of a team of postdoctoral research fellows residing at the Chao Center. Fellows are expected to engage in their own research aimed at elevating and deepening their understanding of a specialized area, while simultaneously pursuing a common theme and knowledge on transnational Asia. Such themes/projects will be inter-disciplinarily generated and traverse a broad terrain—both time and space—concerning Asia and the world. The TARI fellows will actively build a research community through close interactions with other comparable units on the Rice campus.
2020 - 2022
Shivani Bothra, Bhagwaan Mahavir/Chao Family Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Jain Studies
2019 - 2021
Ka-Kin Cheuk, Annette and Hugh Gragg Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Asian Studies
Eric Huntington, Annette and Hugh Gragg Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Asian Studies
Alex Jong-Seok Lee, Annette and Hugh Gragg Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Asian Studies
2018 - 2019
Maria Hwang, Henry Luce Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Southeast Asian Studies
Alex Jong-Seok Lee, Academy of Korean Studies (AKS) Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Korean Studies
Sohoon Yi, T.T. and W.F. Chao Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Asian Studies
2017 - 2019
Mitra Barua, Annette and Hugh Gragg Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Asian Studies
Brendan A. Galipeau, Annette and Hugh Gragg Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Asian Studies
2016 - 2019
Brianne Donaldson, Bhagwaan Mahavir/Chao Family Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Jain Studies
2016 - 2018
Han Sang Kim, Annette and Hugh Gragg Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Asian Studies
2016 - 2017
Bhavani Arabandi, Annette and Hugh Gragg Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Asian Studies
Sandeep Ray, Henry Luce Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Southeast Asian Studies
Seminar Series
The Transnational Asia Research Initiative (TARI) Seminar Series addresses grand challenges today in politics, economics, social justice, immigration, armed conflicts, and environment that are creating an overlapping effect between the Asian and the global, making it necessary that the existing framework for Asia Studies be re-crafted. Intensifying flows of people, goods, ideas, and cultures within Asia and between Asia and the rest of the world are calling for a new approach to Asia from a transnational and transhistorical perspective. The seminar series is an extension of the Chao Center's broader research initiative, TARI, that brings together scholars from a broad spectrum of disciplines and methodologies as postdoctoral fellows to address this complexity. Throughout the academic year, each fellow will host a seminar to share their unique research and perspective. All seminars are free and open to the public.
November 17, 2021: Ka-Kin Cheuk, Annette and Hugh Gragg Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Asian Studies
"Remaking the transnational connections: Sikh diaspora in Hong Kong and their return visits to India"
February 4, 2022: Shivani Bothra, Bhagwaan Mahavir/Chao Family Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Jain Studies
"Empowering Laywomen: Emerging Trends in the Continuity of Traditional Religious Education"
October 29, 2020: Shivani Bothra, Bhagwaan Mahavir/Chao Family Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Jain Studies
"Jains in Migration: An Analysis of Religious Education"
November 6, 2020: Alex Jong-Seok Lee, Annette and Hugh Gragg Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Asian Studies
"Class Concepts and Imperial Conciliation in Bong Joon-ho's "Parasite" (Gisaengchung)"
November 12, 2020: Ka-Kin Cheuk, Annette and Hugh Gragg Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Asian Studies
"The End of a Diasporic Economy? Some Ethnographic Insights from the Indian Traders in Southeast China"
November 19, 2020: Eric Huntington, Annette and Hugh Gragg Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Asian Studies
"In Light of Color: An Interdisciplinary and Transnational View of Buddhist Chromatics"
October 25, 2019: Eric Huntington, Annette and Hugh Gragg Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Asian Studies
"Body/Landscape/Art: Buddhist Images and Corporeal Geographies"
November 1, 2019: Ka-Kin Cheuk, Annette and Hugh Gragg Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Asian Studies
"Everyday Migration Management in a Chinese County"
November 8, 2019: Alex Jong-Seok Lee, Annette and Hugh Gragg Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Asian Studies
"Attendant Masculinity: Modeling and Managing Gender Scripts among South Korean Male Flight Attendants"
September 26, 2018: Sohoon Yi, T.T. and W.F. Chao Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Asian Studies
"You're Family Only When You're Rich: The Moral Economy of Visas, Kinship, and Relational Labor"
October 3, 2018: Maria C. Hwang, Henry Luce Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Southeast Asian Studies
"Gendered Regimes of Illegality: The State Management of Women's Migration in Asia"
October 31, 2018: Alex Jong-Seok Lee, Academy of Korean Studies (AKS) Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Korean Studies
"Se-cura: Security as the Presence and Absence of Care among Feminized South Korean Flight Attendant Labor"
February 15, 2019: Brianne Donaldson, Bhagwaan Mahavir/Chao Family Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Jain Studies
"Jainism and Bioethics: From Consequences to an 'Ethics of Carefulness'"
February 27, 2019: Maria C. Hwang, Henry Luce Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Southeast Asian Studies
"Differentiated Intimate Economies: Intimate Labor, Exchange Practices, and Gendered Migration in Hong Kong"
April 5, 2019: D. Mitra Barua, Annette and Hugh Gragg Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Asian Studies
"Rohingyas are (not) Bengalies: Fighting over the Geographical Integrity and Cultural Autonomy in Myanmar's Arakan"
April 8, 2019: Brendan A. Galipeau, Annette and Hugh Gragg Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Asian Studies
"Salmon in Shangri-La: Aquaculture and Identity in China and Tibet"
October 20, 2017: Brendan A. Galipeau, Annette and Hugh Gragg Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Asian Studies
"Crafting a Tibetan Terroir: Wine Production, Identity, and Landscape Change in Shangri-La, China"
November 3, 2017: D. Mitra Barua, Annette and Hugh Gragg Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Asian Studies
"Buddhist Transnational/Transregional Networks in Reviving Indian Buddhism"
November 17, 2017: Han Sang Kim, Annette and Hugh Gragg Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Asian Studies
"Performed Localism, Translated Federalism: South Korea's Cinematization of Koreanness under U.S. Hegemony"
April 11, 2018: Brianne Donaldson, Bhagwaan Mahavir/Chao Family Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Jain Studies
"Transmitting Identity Through Pāṭhśāḷā Temple Education Among U.S. Jains"
October 14, 2016: Bhavani Arabandi, Annette and Hugh Gragg Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Asian Studies
"Karma and the Myth of the New Indian Super Woman"
November 4, 2016: Brianne Donaldson, Bhagwaan Mahavir/Chao Family Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Jain Studies
"(im)Practical Ethics?: Remembering Plants, Animals, and Microscopic Life in Jain Rituals of Nonharm"
March 3, 2017: Sandeep Ray, Henry Luce Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Southeast Asian Studies
"Fear of the Hyphenated Citizen: The Internment of Chinese-Indians in 1962"
March 24, 2017: Han Sang Kim, Annette and Hugh Gragg Postdoctoral Fellow in Transnational Asian Studies
"Film Auterism as Cold War Governmentality: A Korean Case"