Department of East Asian Studies newsletter spring 2014

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ames.cam.ac.uk/deas

Department of East Asian Studies Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

NEWSLETTER SPRING 2014

Greetings There have been a number of staff changes in the last two years. After 27 years as Chair of Japanese Studies, Professor Richard Bowring retired at the end of September 2012: the Japanese staff held a congratulatory dinner for him and told his life story in a set of limericks, but the real accolade came when he was presented with the Order of the Rising Sun 3rd Class, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon for contributions to the development of Japanese studies, by the Japanese Ambassador at his residence in London. Most of the Japanese Studies staff were present to enjoy the occasion, along with colleagues from SOAS and Oxford.

Inside... Chinese Studies

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Japanese Studies

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Korean Studies

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Staff Publications

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DEAS staff

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Staying in touch

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The Department of East Asian Studies dates back only to 2007, when the former Faculty of Oriental Studies was renamed the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (FAMES), in order to reflect its geographical scope and teaching and research, and was split into two new departments, the Department of East Asian Studies and the Department of Middle Eastern Studies. Professor Roel Sterckx was the founding Head of Department, followed by Professor Richard Bowring, and I succeeded Professor Bowring in September 2012. It is already several years since the last newsletter appeared and this, the third, is long overdue. There have been many changes since the last newsletter. On the national scale the new fee regime requiring students to take out loans to pay home and EU fees of £9000 per year has come into force and its long-term impact is still difficult to assess, though it must surely make postgraduate study less attractive to British students unless we can provide ample funding for them. In this connection the decision of the Arts and Humanities Research Council not to award the Cambridge-SOAS-Oxford consortium on Asian Studies the sixty PhD studentships over five years it had applied for under the ‘Block Grant Partnerships 2’ scheme is disappointing and shows that we still have an uphill struggle to persuade bodies such as the AHRC that the rest of the world is of some importance.

Several new appointments have been made in the last couple of years. We have welcomed amongst us Dr Imre Galambos, a Hungarian who has been long associated with the International Dunhuang Project, as lecturer in premodern Chinese studies, Dr Laura Moretti, an Italian who has taught at the universities of Venice and Newcastle, as lecturer in pre-modern Japanese studies, and Ms Jiaqi Feng Guo, who is replacing Emma Wu during Emma’s maternity leave. Congratulations are due to Professors Sterckx and van de Ven, who were both elected Fellows of the British Academy in 2013; to Drs Chau and Steger, who were both promoted to University Senior Lecturer in 2013; to Dr Kushner on his massive EU research grant and to Dr Steger on her Japan Foundation Grant and her two Cambridge Humanities Research Grants; and to Emma Wu, Susie White and Ghazala Sadiq, who have all had babies recently. Ghazala, the Undergraduate Programmes Administrator, left the Department at the end of November, and having worked with her closely over the last couple of years I have to say that I shall miss her good sense, cheerful efficiency and uncanny ability to remain unruffled in times of stress! Lastly, I must not forget to mention the Faculty Administrator, Mary Howe, whose dedication and administrative acumen are much valued, and the Graduate Programmes Administrator, Tash Sabbah, whose mastery of the complex processes which all graduate degrees now involve is indispensable as our graduate numbers creep upwards: warmest thanks to you both. Peter Kornicki Head of Department


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