This is the first issue of the Journal of Asian Studies published by Duke University Press. Changing publishers is an opportunity to reflect on the past, take critical stock of the present, and anticipate future directions in the field. I look forward to the many ways in which this new partnership will allow the journal to build creatively and imaginatively on the foundation of academic excellence established over the preceding seventy years by a community of scholars dedicated to the mission of the Association for Asian Studies.
At a moment of significant transition, it is useful to reflect on how the Journal of Asian Studies is oriented toward the future. The new design indicates that we are anchored in a tradition of scholarship that embraces and acknowledges our age—and our well-established reputation for fine-grained, empirically grounded analyses—while at the same time highlighting significant changes: changes in Asia, changes in the...
