The conference is expected to draw Asian specialists from across the state and southern Ontario to share information on research, teaching and program development in the field.

The meeting, hosted by UB and chaired by Thomas Burkman, director of the UB Asian Studies Program, will be held in the University Inn and Conference Center, 2401 North Forest Road, Amherst.

More than 125 panelists, some from the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong, Japan and Taiwan, will participate in 27 academic discussions on such issues as ideology and politics, aesthetics, corporate and educational exchange, electoral politics in Asia and the Asian-American experience.

NYCAS is the oldest of eight regional societies under the umbrella of the Association for Asian Studies, the premiere organization promoting scholarship concerning East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia and Inner Asia. The interdisciplinary association publishes the quarterly Journal of Asian Studies and the annual Bibliography of Asian Studies.

Meeting events include a Sept. 16 keynote address by the association's national president, Evelyn Rawski, professor of history at the University of Pittsburgh, titled, "The Qing Origins of Ethnic Nationalism in Contemporary China." The Qing (also Ch'ing or Manchu) Dynasty (1644-1912) was the last of China's imperial dynasties. Under its aegis, the empire's territory grew to tremendous size and the population increased from 150 million to 450 million.

Gary Y. Okihiro, associate professor of history and director of the Asian American Studies Program at Cornell University, will deliver a plenary session address on Sept. 15.

Following a banquet on Sept. 15, conferees will attend the premiere of "Chinoiserie," a major new theatrical work by the distinguished Chinese-American playwright Ping Chong. Commissioned by the UB Center for the Arts, "Chinoiserie" is the second part of a trilogy about the Asian diaspora. The multimedia production features an international cast and will go on to tour major American cities as well as Paris, Singapore and Hong Kong

A concurrent mini-conference for K-12 teachers, "Asia in the Classroom," sponsored by Erie 1 BOCES in cooperation with the UB Asian Studies Program, will be held on Sept. 16 at Williamsville North High School.