The articles in this issue cover a lot of ground, in Asia and beyond. They provide a critical perspective on travel and the intersection of history, literature, translation, and embodiment. As a set, they help us to understand how geography and history can be reshaped to produce new perspectives on the relationship among empires, nations, regional spaces, and concepts of self and other in Asia. The articles extend across a broad range of topics and places while persistently raising questions about the conceptual boundedness of topics and the political and historically contingent demarcation of regions. They examine the deterritorialized flow of ideas—embodied, materialized, and purely imaginary ideas, as well as fragmentary and visionary ones that are wholly transformative.
Collectively the articles in this issue engage with questions of geography, language, and physicality to bring into focus theoretical developments in the field of Asian studies. A common concern among them is...
