亜史祭

The Historical Blogosphere has a Carnival, an Early Modern and Ancient/Medieval carnival, even a Bad History carnival, but it doesn't yet have a regional carnival. The time has come. This is a call for submissions, suggestions and future hosts for the Carnival of Asian History Blogging.

This will be a bimonthly carnival, appearing in even months on the same day as the number of the month (i.e. 2/2, 4/4, etc.). I will host the first edition at Frog in a Well: Japan, Monday, October 10th, so get your submissions in quickly! You can send them to me (dresner[at]hawaii[dot]edu; please include something like"Carnival" in the subject line) and you may submit your own work or suggest good posts by someone else. You may submit multiple posts, but not by the same blogger. The host, of course, is not bound by such restrictions, though we will attempt to provide as much geographical and chronological coverage as possible. For this first carnival, you have a unique opportunity to send the very best posts you've done (or read); subsequent carnivals will be limited to posts written since the previous installment. As always, host has final, absolute, and arbitrary authority with regard to inclusion, exclusion, scope, scale, format and presentation.

You do not have to be Asian, an historian, or a carny (you do have to be a blogger, at least once); all you have to do is blog about Asian history. Our definition of Asia, for the purposes of this carnival, is pretty much the same as that of the Association for Asian Studies: East Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, North Asia, Southeast Asia, Far East, Middle East, Near East, all regions are welcome. Our definition of history (and of good blogging), for the purposes of this carnival, is pretty much that of the History Carnival. We don't want to duplicate the current events/news roundups provided by Simon World, etc.: this carnival will focus on collecting the best English-language Asian historical blogging.

And it's not too soon to start thinking about the future: if you are an Asian historical blogger, and are interested in hosting a future edition, contact me. (The next cycle will be on Monday, December 12th.)

Jonathan Dresner - 9/30/2005

Asia's big... we can share.

Seriously, though; we went back and forth a bit about Asia v. East Asia, and finally decided to go broad and see how rich the pool was, figuring that we could always split off regions as participation expanded. If South Asian history blogging is ready to sustain its own carnival, I say "Great!"

Maybe we could alternate months, when you're ready to kick it off?

Manan Ahmed - 9/30/2005

While I am down with this [a chance to FINALLY pull out those pre-carnival posts!!], I fear that in a few months I may be announcing the South Asia History Carnival. No?

Rebecca Anne Goetz - 9/30/2005

Good for you, Jonathan. I think that's a great idea.