New director looks to expand visibility, impact of The Asia Center at ASU

Housed within Arizona State University's School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies, The Asia Center has served as a research hub for faculty and students interested in the study of East, South and Southeast Asia since 1966.

“We have literature, language and culture scholars, historians, anthropologists, social scientists, political scientists, and lately we've been getting a lot more affiliates in fields like urban planning or sustainability,” said the center's new director, William Hedberg.

“We're housed in The College’s division of humanities, but we have a wide footprint across the university. The conversations that our affiliates are engaged in go well beyond the walls of the center.”

Originally joining the Arizona State University community in 2015, Hedberg’s primary research focus is the literature and culture of early modern Japan and includes Japanese literary relations with China, translation studies, and travel literature in premodern and modern East Asia. He hopes that through inviting new affiliates and demonstrating how their research impacts conversations happening at the university and within local communities, the center’s reach will increase.

“One goal at The Asia Center this year is to find new audiences and people who are working on topics that transcend and challenge traditional disciplinary boundaries,” he said.

He also wants to highlight connections between ASU, Arizona and societies in Asia with the help of faculty research and partnerships in the area.

“Asia makes up more than 50% of the world's population, so any topic you can conceive of within the human experience involves Asia in some ways, and I think the larger university benefits when our affiliates take part in as many of these conversations as we can, and we establish as many of these community partnerships as we can,” said Hedberg.

The center currently hosts several annual lectures, such as the Aaron Stephen Moore Endowed Lecture in East Asian History, which invites internationally renowned scholars to ASU and creates an opportunity to establish partnerships with other institutions.

This year’s lecture, which will be open to the public and free, will feature the University of Colorado Boulder’s Miriam Kingsberg Kadia, who will discuss the impact of China and Japan’s 1988 Friendship Climb of Everest on Nov. 18.

The Global Asia Lecture Series is expanding traditional disciplinary boundaries and challenging the conception that Asian studies can be broken down by region since texts, ideas, languages and people travel across borders. Since 2021, faculty have presented on the theme of “Global Asia in a Multipolar World” with topics on literature, democracy and biodiversity.

The center looks forward to a busy fall semester, including its participation in this year’s Humanities Week, when it will bring back the popular Onigiri Action event on Oct. 20, inviting students to make their own onigiri and snap photos of their creations to help donate school meals to children in need.

Additionally, they’ll explore Korean pop culture and snacks and K-pop dances inspired by the recent hit Netflix film “KPop Demon Hunters” on Oct. 22. (If you're a student wanting to get in on the fun, register here.)

“There's a lot of possibilities for increasing student participation in the center. Whether it's designing new programming or initiatives, we just want everybody to be a part of our programming,” said Hedberg.