The idea of launching an academic journal for Asian and Oriental Studies was born out of the International Peer Group of the Bonn International Graduate School for Oriental and Asian Studies (BIGS-OAS). The International Peer Group had been initiated by Professor Bethany Walker (Head of Islamic Archaeology Department) to support international students settling into German academia. Its range of activities quickly reached beyond that scope, providing a base for workshopping conference papers, developing syllabi and addressing a variety of matters generally connected to academic life.
Considering the broad range of disciplines and areas in our graduate school, we have learned to keep an open mind listening to presentations and research of others. Discovering common interests and striving towards the creative energy that can evolve once multidisciplinary dots are being connected to form an interdisciplinary network is equally important – a lesson we were happy to learn (and are still learning) together. Though most of us had the possibility to publish with discipline/ and or area-specific journals, these were all different publications and deeply specialized ones. Hence, the idea of an English language academic journal that would serve as an interdisciplinary academic home base for all our interests and fields surfaced. A handful of people willing to dedicate their time and energy stepped up to turn this idea into reality.
Our network of academic professionals and established peers guarantee the publication quality of our journal in the field of Asian and Oriental Studies. Our common goal is to connect these fields, thus providing a platform that is new and unique in its approach. These fields consist of a variety of disciplines and themes across Asia and the Middle East including (but not limited to) those that deal with the contemporary and classical languages, literature, religions, politics, material culture and visual arts of those regions (for more information about our team and research interests click here).
We are extremely excited about this new kind of academic collaboration and are looking forward to meeting and working with other scholars interested in crossing discipline lines and connecting the diverse fields of Asian and Oriental Studies!
