On Thursday September 17th, NYU Shanghai students and faculty gathered in the school’s auditorium for the inaugural lecture of the Center for Global Asia. The brand new initiative is headed by NYUSH’s Global China Studies professor Joanna Waley-Cohen and University of Singapore’s Chinese history professor, Prasenjit Duara, a Harvard Ph.D. and former chairman of the Department of History at the University of Chicago. According to NYUSH’s website: “The Center For Global Asia At NYU Shanghaiwill serve as the hub within the NYU Global Network University system to promote the study of Asian interactions, both historical and contemporary. The overall objective of the Center is to provide global societies with information on the contexts for the reemerging connections between the various parts of Asia through research and teaching.” More directly-related to NYUSH’s students, the goal is to “integrate the study of Asia into the proposed Global and Regional Studies major and create a MA program in Global Asia coordinated from NYU Shanghai.”Duara began the seminar by introducing two of his most recently published books, The Crisis of Global Modernity and Asia Redux, which explore major historiographical themes such as nationalism, transnationalism and sovereignty. “I have written about and very much supported these Asian globalization and studies,” said Duara. “They are very interested in this field of inquiry. Let me just say the importance of studying Asian connections comes from several things, some of its philosophical [and some of it] logical.” Duara then proceeded to lecture about various topics such as Chinese cosmology, legal order, and theories of transcendence; many of the audience’s Global China Studies students eagerly took notes. At the end, Duara accepted questions from the audience and participated in a short discussion with professors Lena Scheen of NYUSH and Li Tiangang of Fudan University.“We are really excited about the creation of this center,” said Cohen when asked her thoughts on the project. “And as I said in my opening remarks, it’s very much of the moment; in academia everything is about Europe and or America and but this is about Asia, but not Asia and Europe or Asia and the US—it’s more about intra-Asian connections and I think that’s the exciting part.” This article was written by Maeve Lazor. Send an email to [email protected] to get in touch. Photo Credit: NYU Shanghai