East Asian studies

East Asian Studies is a distinct multidisciplinary field of scholarly enquiry and education that promotes a broad humanistic understanding of East Asia past and present. East Asian Studies is located within the broader field of Area studies and is also interdisciplinary in character, incorporating elements of the social sciences (anthropology, economics, sociology, politics etc.) and humanities (literature, history, film, etc.), among others. The field encourages scholars from diverse disciplines to exchanges ideas on scholarship as it relates to the East Asian experience and the experience of East Asia in the world. In addition, the field encourages scholars to educate others to have a deeper understanding of, and appreciation and respect for, all that is East Asia and, therefore, to promote peaceful human integration worldwide.

At American universities, the study of East Asian Humanities is traditionally housed in EALC (East Asian Languages and Civilizations or Cultures) departments, which run majors in Chinese and Japanese Language and Literature, and sometimes Korean Language and Literature. East Asian Studies programs, on the other hand, are typically interdisciplinary centers that bring together literary scholars, historians, anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, etc. from their various departments and schools to promote instructional programs, conferences, and lecture series of common interest. East Asian Studies centers also often run interdisciplinary undergraduate and master's degree programs in East Asian Studies.

Critiques of the field

As part of the Opposition to the Vietnam War in the 1960s, younger faculty and graduate students criticized the field for complicity in what they saw as American imperialism. In particular, the Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars debated and published alternative approaches not centered in the United States or funded, as many American programs were, by the American government or major foundations. They charged that Japan was held up as a model of non-revolutionary modernization and the field focused on modernization theory in order to fend off revolution. In the following decades, many critics were inspired by Edward Said's 1978 book Orientalism, while others, writing from the point of view of the quantitative or theoretical social sciences, saw Area Studies in general and East Asian Studies in particular, as amorphous and lacking in rigor.

Critiques were also mounted from other points in the political spectrum. Ramon H. Myers and Thomas A. Metzger, two scholars based at the generally conservative Hoover Institution charged that "the 'revolution' paradigm increasingly overshadowed the 'modernization' paradigm" and “this fallacy has become integral to much of the writing on modern Chinese history,” discrediting or ignoring other factors in the history of modern China.

Noted East Asian Studies Programmes

Australia

• Australian National University

Austria

• University of Vienna

Czech Republic

• Charles University in Prague
• Palacký University of Olomouc
• Masaryk University

Canada

• University of British Columbia
• University of Western Ontario
• York University
• University of Toronto
• McGill University
• University of Victoria
• University of Calgary
• Université de Montréal
• University of Alberta.
• University of Waterloo

France

• Jean Moulin University Lyon 3
• Paris Diderot University
• ENS-Lyon 2 Institute of East Asian Studies
• School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences
• INALCO
• CERI, Sciences Po Paris

Germany

• University of Heidelberg
• Ruhr University Bochum

Hong Kong

• Chinese University of Hong Kong
• Centre for East Asian Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
• City University of Hong Kong

Finland

• University of Turku
• University of Helsinki

Japan

• Waseda University
• Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University

Korea

• Korea University
• Asia Institute

Malaysia

• University of Malaya

Poland

• Jagiellonian University

Slovakia

• Comenius University in Bratislava

Singapore

• National University of Singapore

United Kingdom

• University of Oxford
• University of Cambridge
• University of Edinburgh
• University of Leeds
• University of Bristol
• University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies
• University of Manchester
• University of Sheffield
• University of Nottingham

United States

The universities listed are NRC Awardees:

• Columbia University
• Cornell University
• Duke University
• Harvard University
• Indiana University Bloomington
• Michigan State University
• Princeton University
• University of Arizona
• University of California, Berkeley
• University of California, Los Angeles
• University of Chicago
• University of Hawaii at Manoa
• University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• University of Kansas
• University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
• University of Pennsylvania
• University of Pittsburgh
• University of Southern California
• University of Texas at Austin
• University of Virginia
• University of Washington
• University of Wisconsin–Madison
• Yale University

Journals

• Asian Survey
• Critical Asian Studies
• East Asian History
• East Asia. An International Quarterly
• Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies
• Japan Forum
• Journal of Asian Studies
• Journal Asiatique
• Late Imperial China
• Modern China
• New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies
• Pacific Affairs
• positions: east asia cultures critique
• The China Quarterly
• T'oung Pao

See also

• List of academic disciplines
• EALC
• Japanology
• List of Korea-related topics
• Sinology

External links

• Brown University
• Columbia University
• Cornell University
• University of Hawaii
• Harvard University
• University of British Columbia
• University of Chicago
• Indiana University
• Indiana University
• University of Iowa
• University of London
• McGill University
• National University of Singapore
• University of Pennsylvania
• University of Washington
• University of Wisconsin–Madison
• Yale University