The American Oriental Society was chartered under the laws of Massachusetts on September 7, 1842. It is one of the oldest learned societies in America, and is the oldest devoted to a particular field of scholarship.
It is closely associated with Yale University, which is the site of its library. The society publishes a journal quarterly, The Journal of the American Oriental Society, the most important American serial publication in the historical languages of Asia. Former presidents include Theodore Dwight Woolsey, James Hadley, W. D. Whitney, Daniel C. Gilman, William H. Ward, Crawford H. Toy, and M. Jastrow, Jr..
Famous quotes containing the words american, oriental and/or society:
“While the focus in the landscape of Old World cities was commonly government structures, churches, or the residences of rulers, the landscape and the skyline of American cities have boasted their hotels, department stores, office buildings, apartments, and skyscrapers. In this grandeur, Americans have expressed their Booster Pride, their hopes for visitors and new settlers, and customers, for thriving commerce and industry.”
—Daniel J. Boorstin (b. 1914)
“The Oriental philosophy approaches easily loftier themes than the modern aspires to; and no wonder if it sometimes prattle about them. It only assigns their due rank respectively to Action and Contemplation, or rather does full justice to the latter. Western philosophers have not conceived of the significance of Contemplation in their sense.”
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“A few years later, I would have answered, “I never repeat anything.” That is the ritual phrase of society people, by which the gossip is reassured every time.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)