Bachelor of Arts in Asian Studies

University of California - Santa Barbara

As an Asian Studies major, you’ll become competent in some of the most important Asian languages (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Tibetan, or Hindi). Importantly, you’ll also develop an interdisciplinary knowledge of various fields relating to Asia: literature, film, art, history, anthropology, religious studies, politics, and economics. Finally, you’ll acquire a comparative context for your understanding of Asia in its relations with the US and other parts of the world.

The Department of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies offers the essential tools to delve deeply into these complex cultures of China, Japan, and Korea. We teach the languages and scripts of East Asia. We offer our students ways to think about the experience of modernity, colonialism, nationalism, and state formation, and how they relate to traditional cultures. We train our students in techniques to discover old and new literatures and arts as well as introducing them to films, media, and popular culture. We discuss the religious traditions (including Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism) and intellectual discourses (including political thought and the sciences) that have shaped visions of the world and everyday life in East Asia for centuries some have been rejected during modernization, but some are still alive and part of East Asian cultures.

College of Letters and Science