Monthly Archives: August 2019

[Announcement] Handbooks and Anthologies for Officials in Imperial China

Pierre-Etienne Will’s long expected bibliography will be out for Christmas (Publication expected on Dec. 24, 2019)!

“The 1,165 entries of Handbooks and Anthologies for Officials of Imperial China by Pierre-Étienne Will and collaborators provide a descriptive list of extant manuscript and printed works—mainly from the Song, Ming, and Qing dynasties—created with the aim to instruct officials and other administrators of imperial China about the technical and ethical aspects of government, and to provide tools and guides to help with the relevant procedures. Both generalist and specialized texts are considered. Among the latter, such disciplines as the administration of justice, famine relief, and the military receive particular attention. Each entry includes the publishing history of the work considered (including modern editions), an analysis of contents, and a biographical sketch of the author.”

See on the editor’s page: https://brill.com/view/title/38448

[Announcement] The Palgrave Handbook of Bondage and Human Rights in Africa and Asia (forthcoming 2019)

The Palgrave Handbook of Bondage and Human Rights in Africa and Asia, ed. Gwyn Campbell and Alessandro Stanziani will be out in November 2019!

Argument: “In the West, human bondage remains synonymous with the Atlantic slave trade. But large slave systems in Africa and Asia predated, co-existed, and overlapped with the Atlantic system—and have persisted in modified forms well into the twenty-first century, posing major threats to political and economic stability within those regions and worldwide. This handbook examines the deep historical roots of unfree labour in Africa and Asia along with its contemporary manifestations. It takes an innovative longue durée perspective in order to link the local and global, the past and present. Contributors trace shifting forms of forced labour in the region since circa 1800, connecting punctual shocks such as environmental crisis, conflict, market instability, and crop failure to human security threats such as impoverishment, violence, migration, kidnapping, and enslavement. Together, these chapters illuminate the historical and contemporary dimensions of bondage in Africa and Asia, with important implications for the fight against modern-day bondage and human trafficking.”

More information on the editor’s webpage

The Bibliography

The tentative bibliography of “slaving” and “dependency” in Chinese history (and beyond) is now a work in progress. See above (in the menu section). Completing this “Bibliography of Slaving and Dependency in China (and Beyond) will take time. So, please stay tuned. If you have suggestions for additional references, or find mistakes, do not hesitate to contact me.

Direct link to the Bibliography of Slaving and Dependency in China (and Beyond)

[Annoucement] CfP “Slavery in Early Modern East and Southeast Asia” Workshop Harvard

Call for Paper Proposals: “Slavery in Early Modern East and Southeast Asia”

Date of workshop: March 23–24, 2020

Location: Harvard University, Cambridge MA, USA

Date proposals due: August 26, 2019

See below for proposal requirements.

We seek proposals for papers about different types of unfree labor in East and Southeast Asia during the early modern period, including but not limited to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. From the proposals, we will invite 8–10 scholars to participate in the two-day workshop to be held at Harvard on March 23–24, 2020. We will cover airfare and hotel for invited participants. A selection of the papers will appear in a special issue of the Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies.

The goal of the workshop is to spark discussion about the involuntary circulation of people within and beyond the East and Southeast Asian region. We see this workshop and publication as contributing to development of a working definition of “slavery” in the early modern Asian context. We welcome submissions from the fields of history, literature, art history, and other disciplines. We also welcome international submissions, including from scholars resident in East and Southeast Asia. Papers and conference presentations must be in English.

Proposal Requirements:

  • a current CV
  • title of proposed paper
  • abstract of proposed paper (maximum 200 words)
  • explanation (maximum 100 words) of why the form of unfree labor you examine can be considered slavery

Please provide all the following materials by August 26, 2019:

Send proposals to: HJAS_submissions@fas.harvard.edu
Contact Info: Melissa J. Brown, Managing Editor, HJAS

Contact Email: melbrown@fas.harvard.edu
URL: http://www.hjas.org