The Asian Center, University of the Philippines Diliman will be holding an International Conference via Zoom,  "Scripts in Asia: c. 1500–2000," from 27–28 April 2021. The conference is free and open to the public, but Zoom account sign-in required. 

SIGN UP via CONFERENCE PAGE

TWO KEYNOTE LECTURES

•  The Many Paths from Sound to Sign in Island Southeast Asia

Campbell Macknight
Honorary Professor, College of Asia and the Pacific, Australian National University

•  Jawi: Script, Language, People, Religion

Mulaika Hijjas, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

SCRIPTS/LANGUAGES COVERED

Showing the diversity of writing systems in Asia, the conference features papers on the following

Islamic calligraphy in Java, Indonesia
Pegon (Sumenep district, Indonesia)
Sileti Negari (Southeastern Bengal, India)
Jawi (Southeast Asia)
Arabi Malayalam (Malabar)
Sundanese script (Indonesia)
Manipravala (a blend of Tamil and Sanskrit)
Bugis Script
Khojki (Ismaili script, Pakistan)
Kaithi script (South Asia)
Baybayin (Philippines)
Chữ Quốc Ngữ (Vietnamese Romanized Script)
Mandarin and Shanghainese (China)

EIGHT (8) PANELS, TWENTY-THREE  (23) PAPERS

• Scripts, Art and Idenity
• Scripts, Conversion and Islamic Education
• Jawi: History and Collection
• Scripts and Cross-Cultural Contact
• Scripts, State and Society
• Scripts and Technology
• Scripts: Revival and Continuity
• Scripts and Christian Missionaries

HOW TO SIGN-UP

To view abstracts, speaker profiles, schedules, and Zoom registration details, please visit the conference page. For inquiries, kindly email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Organized by the UP Asian Center, this conference intends to explore the impact of European presence in the various writing traditions of Asia. In what ways were certain languages and especially scripts privileged by colonial states? How is the transition from one writing script to the other reflected in the sources? How do postcolonial societies across Asia view or instrumentalize their varied epigraphical, textual, and codicological traditions?

The UP Asian Center offers M.A. degrees in Asian Studies with four fields of specialization: Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and West Asia. The Center also has an M.A. program in Philippine Studies that allows students to major in Philippine society and culture, Philippine foreign relations, or Philippine development studies. The Center offers a Ph.D.  program in Philippine Studies in conjunction with the College of Arts and Letters and the College of Social Sciences and Philosophy. For an overview of these graduate programs, click here. The Asian Center also publishes Asian Studies: Journal of Critical Perspectives on Asia, the latest issue of which can be downloaded at the journal's website. For other news and upcoming events at the Asian Center, click here.