Guest Editors's Introduction: What's Left of Asia

Abstract

Introduction to a special issue of "Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique" on the question of "What's Left of Asia?" This essay, co-authored with Yan Hairong, surveys the collected articles within the context of extant work on the meaning and history of the concept of "Asia" within area studies and inter-Asian cultural studies. It also grounds such academic work in the context of past imperial/colonial histories of Asia and within the current globalization of capitalism in the region. "Asia" remains an inherently problematic concept-metaphor for a radically diverse, discontinuous, and conflicted "area" but also remains a term we have to keep using and hopefully re-inventing to meet contemporary intellectual and political needs.