Chiara Betta and Charles Macdonald

First let us remind you briefly of what is SENAS. The South European Network of Asian Studies, which was started in January 1998, is an informal association of resource and research centres on Asia, academic institutions specialising in Asia, and individual Asianists located in Southern Europe (Southern France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece...). Its main aim is to foster mutual information between the members, develop co-operation and mutual understanding, and support joint endeavours. SENAS is not a learned
society nor a research centre. It is more like an open club welcoming all specialists of Asian studies or people involved in teaching subjects related to Asia. Its goal is to include all university departments, research and resource centres, libraries and other institutions which specialise partly
or completely in Asian studies (in the fields of human and social sciences).

Now why SENAS?
The founding members of SENAS felt that Southern Europe lacked a network enabling individuals and centres to know about each other and communicate information about themselves and their activities. Northern Europe had already developed a dynamic network of contacts around centres like Amsterdam, Copenhagen, London, and Paris with large institutions active in the field of  Asian Studies (IIAS, NIAS, SOAS, EFEO).  The creation of SENAS was then felt to be a first step toward the establishment of Southern European space wherein people, research projects, teaching activities, libraries and resources could be identified and accessed so as to promote further exchange of ideas, persons and resources. In other words it seemed that Southern Europe was the repository of much knowledge, of valuable archives, and of active research work while it lagged behind in terms of visibility and communication. It is to remedy this situation that SENAS was created.

The main activities of SENAS consist in exchanging information by means of

an Email discussion group (senas@up.univ-mrs.fr ),

a WEB page (http://www.ishlyon.cnrs.fr/iao/SENAS/SnsPrs.html ),

a yearly meeting and a newsletter (two issues yearly)

We feel that this newsletter will best fulfil our goal and we are very happy
to present you its first full issue. We trust it will help us  know each other much better and invite new contacts and new endeavours. As this is our first, we are aware that we did not cover the whole ground, far from it.

So please send us all information that you deem relevant!

We want to know you better!! We want you to tell us your activities, projects, and in what environment you are working. This information will constitute the bulk of our next issue. There is also a need to engage issues and problems about Asia. Therefore we welcome points of view and opinions. A "Forum" section can be included in the next issues. Suggestions concerning the format and presentation of this newsletter are welcome. Don't hesitate to review it critically. Last, we need to broaden our circle of contacts and
get to be known to other interested parties. So please circulate this issue as widely as you like.