About the Program

Bachelor of Arts (BA)

The Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures offers an undergraduate major in East Asian Religion, Thought, and Culture. Knowledge of philosophical and religious traditions is important to understanding many aspects of East Asia's diverse cultures. This major seeks to train students in these traditions in a way that is grounded in a familiarity with the texts, languages, and cultures of East Asian societies, while also examining how these traditions have been (and might better be) brought into humanistic disciplines.

Students who major in the department have a variety of backgrounds and many students are double majors in a broad spectrum of other departments and programs including: Anthropology, Applied Mathematics, Architecture, Art History, Art Practice, Asian Studies, Business, Comparative Literature, Computer Science, Economics, English, Linguistics, Mass Communications, Molecular and Cell Biology, Political Economy, Political Science, Psychology, Rhetoric, and Theater Arts.

Declaring the Major

Students interested in majoring in the department should consult with the staff undergraduate adviser regarding major requirements, transfer credits, and other academic concerns. Students are admitted to the major only after successful completion (with a grade of C or higher) of the prerequisites to the major; for information regarding the prerequisites, please see the Major Requirements tab on this page. Students are advised to begin preparation for the major as soon as possible in order to satisfy University, College, and department requirements. All students should be familiar with the College requirements for graduation with a Bachelor of Arts degree, as explained in the "Earning your Degree," a bulletin available from the College of Letters and Science, 113 Campbell Hall. The bulletin is revised and reissued every year.

Honors Program

A senior undergraduate student who has completed 12 units of upper division language courses in the department, and who has a GPA of 3.5 in those courses and an overall average of 3.0 may apply for admission to the honors program. If accepted, the student will enroll in an honors course (any H195 course) for two consecutive semesters leading to the completion of an honors thesis, which must be submitted at least two weeks before the end of the semester in which the student expects to graduate. While enrolled in the honors program, the student will undertake independent advanced study under the guidance of the student's honors thesis adviser. Upon completion of the program, a faculty committee will determine the degree of honors to be awarded (honors, high honors, highest honors), taking into consideration both the quality of the thesis and overall performance in the department. Honors will not be granted to a student who does not achieve a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.3 in all undergraduate work in the University by the time of graduation.

Minor Program

There is no minor program in East Asian Religion, Thought, and Culture.

Other Majors and Minors Offered by the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures

Chinese Language  (Major and Minor)
Japanese Language  (Major and Minor)
Korean Language  (Minor only)

undefined

Major Requirements

In addition to the University, campus, and college requirements, listed on the College Requirements tab, students must fulfill the below requirements specific to their major program.

General Guidelines

1. All courses taken to fulfill the major requirements below must be taken for graded credit, other than courses listed which are offered on a Pass/Fail basis only. Other exceptions to this requirement are noted as applicable.
2. No more than one upper-division course may be used to simultaneously fulfill requirements for a student's major and minor programs, with the exception of minors offered outside of the College of Letters and Science.
3. A minimum grade point average (GPA) of 2.0 must be maintained in both upper- and lower-division courses used to fulfill the major requirements.

For information regarding residence requirements and unit requirements, please see the College Requirements tab.

Prerequisites

Major Requirements

Core Courses

Supplementary Disciplinary Breadth Courses

College Requirements

Content from the Letters & Science page

Faculty

Professors

Mark L. Blum, Professor.

Mark Csikszentmihalyi, Professor. Early China, Confucianism, Taoism, Daoism, Comparative Religion.
Research Profile

Yoko Hasegawa, Professor. Pragmatics, syntax, east asian languages and cultures, acoustic phonetics, semantics, sociolinguistics of Japanese, cognitive linguistics.
Research Profile

H. Mack Horton, PhD, Professor. Performativity, east asian languages and cultures, classical poetry, diary literature, cultural context, anthology of vernacular poetry, Man'yôshû, poetry and poetics.
Research Profile

Andrew F. Jones, Professor. East asian languages and cultures, Chinese popular music, sonic culture, media technology, modern Chinese fiction, children's literature, literary translation.
Research Profile

Robert H. Sharf, Professor. East asian languages and cultures, medieval Chinese buddhism, Chan buddhism, Japanese buddhism, Zen buddhism, Tantric buddhism, buddhist art, ritual studies, methodological issues in the study of religion.
Research Profile

Alan Tansman, Professor. Popular culture, film, east asian languages and cultures, Japanese cultural criticism, area studies, Japanese and Jewish responses to atrocity.
Research Profile

Associate Professors

Robert Ashmore, Associate Professor. China, lyric poetry, Chinese literature, Chinese culture, poetic theory.
Research Profile

Jacob Dalton, Associate Professor. Religion, ritual, Tibet, Buddhism, Tantra, Dunhuang.
Research Profile

Daniel C O'Neill, Associate Professor. Critical theory, east asian languages and cultures, Japanese literature, the novel in comparative perspective, representations of gender and sexuality in visual culture, film and digital media.
Research Profile

Paula Varsano, Associate Professor. Phenomenology, translation, comparative literature, aesthetics, epistemology, classical Chinese poetry and poetics (3rd-11th centuries), traditional Chinese literary theory.
Research Profile

Assistant Professors

Jinsoo An, Assistant Professor.

Adjunct Faculty

Lanchih Po, PhD, Adjunct Faculty.

Lecturers

Yasuko Konno Baker, Lecturer.

Kayoko Imagawa, Lecturer.

Wakae Kambara, Lecturer.

Minsook Kim, Lecturer.

Kijoo Ko, Lecturer.

Meehyei Lee, Lecturer.

Soojin C Lee, Lecturer.

I-Hao Li, Lecturer.

Li Liu, Lecturer.

Junghee Park, Lecturer.

Maki Takata, Lecturer.

Noriko Komatsu Wallace, Lecturer.

John R Wallace, Lecturer.

Lihua Zhang, Lecturer.