Program Description
Faculty in the Asian Studies Cluster offer comprehensive yet focused exposure to Asian histories and cultures with an emphasis on transdisciplinary research and methodologies. The program trains students in advanced research and interdisciplinary studies across the humanities and social sciences. Specializations offered include Chinese, Japanese, South and Southeast Asian history and Culture; Buddhist, Hindu, and Daoist Studies; the arts of China, Japan, and South Asia; and modern Asian Politics.

The cluster's curriculum leads students through religious/cultural structures that are central for understanding the past, while highlighting the diversity within Asian traditions, the inner dynamics of their historical development, and the rich and complex ways that those traditions are deployed in contemporary Asian societies. Courses address our standard assumptions about historical social change and cultural development in fresh and interesting ways.  In the first year, students enroll in three seminars.  A second-year research seminar provides a collective framework for students to develop dissertation topics addressing interdisciplinary concerns.  The content of these courses is adjusted to needs of students gathered in any specific year.

Students interested in pursuing a PhD in Art History, Communication Studies, Comparative Literary Studies, History, Music, Philosophy, Political Science, Religion, Sociology, and Theatre and Drama are encouraged to find a second intellectual “home” in this interdisciplinary cluster.

Program Faculty
George Bond, Religion Buddhism
Mark Bradley, History Modern Southeast Asia
Peter Carroll, History Modern China
Sarah E. Fraser, Art History Chinese Painting; Pan-Asian Buddhist Art
Dilip Gaonkar, Communication Studies Globalization
Laura Hein, History Modern Japan
Bruce Knickerbocker, Asian and African Languages Chinese Literature
Phyllis Lyons, Asian and African Languages Japanese Literature
Melissa Macauley, History Late Imperial China
Jock McLane, History South Asian History
Stuart Sarbacker, Religion South Asian Religions (Hinduism & Buddhism)
Victor Shih, Political Science East Asia
Brook Ziporyn, Religion East Asian Religion and Thought (Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, Shinto)