Call for Applications

2026 Penn State Global Asias Summer Institute

VITALIZING GLOBAL ASIAS: ARTIFACTS & ARCHIVES

Penn State University and the Global Asias Initiative invites applicants for its annual Global Asias Summer Institute, to be held June 8012, 2026. SI2026, co-directed by Neelima Jeychandran (VCUarts Qatar), Monica Merlin (VCUarts Qatar), and Tina Chen (Penn State), will focus on the topic of “Vitalizing Global Asias: Artifacts & Archives.”

Institute participants spend a week reading and thinking about the annual theme, as well as significant time workshopping their work in progress. Particularly strong work will be considered for publication in an upcoming special issue on “Things That Matter: Materiality and the Making of Global Asias” (13.2) of the award-winning journal, Verge: Studies in Global Asias (https://www.upress.umn.edu/journal-division/journals/verge-studies-in-gl...).

SI2026 will cover housing and some meals, and offer an honorarium to help defray travel costs (USD 450 from the East Coast, 650 from the Midwest, 850 from the West Coast; USD 1100 from Europe; USD 1500 from Asia and the Middle East). Applicants must have completed their PhDs no earlier than June 2021, or be advanced graduate students who are completing their dissertations.

On the theme:

In a time of hyper-mobility, heightened migration, and refugee flows, we seek to rethink the making of local, trans-local, and trans-oceanic Asias by tracing the lives and afterlives of artifacts and archives. Even as much attention is paid to studying people, places, and practices, we propose to examine the movement of artifacts and the archival actions of such objects to reimagine the proliferous and heterogeneous histories of the aqueous, littoral, terrestrial, and diffused diasporic geographies of Global Asias. By focusing on things and their materiality as sites where histories of travels, transfers, and transits are inscribed, we hope to generate conversations on other forms of archives that exist and how they can offer new epistemological meanings on Global Asian worldmaking. In assigning agency to things, we aim to animate the archival dimension of artifacts as they turn into layered documents, palimpsests of creative practices, and lived experiences that continue to enrich our understanding of cultures in motion. At the same time, we also treat the archive itself as a historical artifact that can bring to the fore unconventional records and collections that include ordinary items, portable objects, built environments, protection items, photographs, maps, artworks, and forms of mnemonic media.

This institute, then, invites participants to look at the afterlives of artifacts and archives to offer fresh perspectives on place-making and unmaking, mobile bodies, and embodiment in the

making of Global Asias. During SI2026, our collective work will be guided by the following questions: How does mapping the life of objects and the creative practices surrounding their conception rearrange existing knowledges and theorizations on the relations between the diasporic universes and networked spaces of sea and land? How does the making of an artifact and archive, and also the stories generated from their existence and extinction, reveal unknown histories of transoceanic communities, displaced and marginalized groups within Asia, and outside? How does the focus on materiality and contemporary works of art provide new insights into imperial geographies, spaces of containment, fragile places, and transit zones? We welcome a diverse group of scholars focusing on historical and contemporary research projects interested in the study of material cultures and alternative archives who are reconfiguring places, practices, networks, and alliances—both old and new—within Asia and beyond.

Application Process:

To apply, please send the following documents to gai@psu.edu by November 3, 2025. Items #1-3 must be sent as a single PDF file; the recommendation letter for applications from advanced graduate students may be sent separately.

1. An abstract of 1000 words outlining research project and clarifying its

connection to the Institute theme.

2. A sample of current work.

3. A current c.v. (no longer than 2 pp).

4. A letter from a principal advisor about the advanced status of work (in the

case of graduate students).

Decisions will be made by early December 2025 so that international participants will have time to secure visas. Inquiries regarding the Summer Institute may be directed to GAI director Tina Chen (tina.chen@psu.edu).