The Association for Asian Studies (AAS) is a scholarly, non-political and non-profit professional association focusing on Asia and the study of Asia. It is based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. The Association provides members with an Annual Conference (a large conference of 3,000+ normally based in North America each spring), publications, regional conferences, and other activities. History Shortly after World War I, the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) with the support of the Rockefeller Foundation, gave Mortimer Graves a mandate to develop Chinese studies. Kenneth Scott Latourette would recall in 1955 the "people of the United States and those who led them knew little of the peoples and cultures of the Far East" and that was "in spite of political, commercial and cultural commitments in the region and of events which already were hurrying them on into ever more intimate relations." Graves worked with Arthur W. Hummel, Sr. of the Oriental Division of the Library of Congress, the Institute of Pacific Relations, the Harvard-Yenching Institute, the American Oriental Society, as well as with colleges, universities, and museums. Twenty-eight people attended the first meeting of the planning group, which was held at the Harvard Club in New York in 1928, and further meetings were held over the next decade. In 1936, the group began publishing the Far Eastern Bibliography. On 6 June 1941 the Far Eastern Association was formed and issued The Far Eastern Quarterly as its organ, with Cyrus Peake as Managing Editor. The Quarterly survived the war with the financial help that Kenneth W. Colgrove obtained from Northwestern University. After the war, an organizational meeting of some 200 people was held at Columbia University April 2, 1948, following the annual meeting of the American Oriental Society, to which many of the Far Eastern group belonged. The Constitution of the new group was drafted by Edwin O. Reischauer, Woodbridge Bingham, and Earl H. Pritchard. The first president of the Association was Arthur W. Hummel, Sr. In 1956, the organization was renamed to the Association for Asian Studies to expand its scope to cover all areas of Asia, including South and Southeast Asia. Attendance grew from 200 for the organizational meeting in 1948 to 605 at the first annual meeting in 1949 and to 2,434 in 1963. The organization was further restructured in 1970, when four elective area Councils were formed, representative of each of the four areas of