The Harvard East Asia Society (HEAS) Graduate Student Conference is an annual two-day event that provides an interdisciplinary forum for graduate students to exchange ideas and discuss current research on topics related to Asia. This year, we are excited to host twelve panels featuring Harvard faculty and participants from around the world, as well as keynote addresses by Professor Paul Roquet of MIT and Professor Yoon Sun Yang of Boston University. 

The HEAS 2026 conference is entitled “Delineations: Temporality, Boundaries, and Imaginaries of East Asia.” Through this theme, we aim to explore a simple question: What do we do when we draw the line? We delineate to describe, to trace, to portray, and to mark out the vagueness and ambiguities that find purchase in scholarship. How does navigating between liminalities inform our understanding of East Asia? This year’s conference asks scholars to re-examine how a world created entirely of ascriptions reveals intrinsic and extrinsic connections among subjects, space, borders, history, and time. 

The conference will run from February 13-14, 2026, in Harvard CGIS South. More information can be found on its website here.