The End of Area

The term area may have a variety of connotations, but the “area” that is the central topic of this issue of positions: asia critique is thematically determined within the historical context of what is generally referred to as area studies. Broadly speaking, area studies designates a group of academic disciplines, initially conceived of during the advent of the Second World War and later institutionalized under the political climate of the Cold War in the higher education arena in the United States — at universities, research institutes, associations, and public foundations — whose raison d’être was originally to produce knowledge that would serve the global strategy and policy positions of the United States of America. Each of the disciplines under this heading takes an area as its legitimate object, and the identity of an area serves as the principle of disciplinary integrity and specialization. This concept of “area,”