Advising for the East Asian Studies major

Any first year student who may be interested in majoring in East Asian Studies should (1) start out with Chinese or Japanese language classes, and (2) try to take either HIST 160/EAST 140 Traditional East Asian Civilization or HIST 165/EAST 150 Modern East Asian Civilization, or, ideally, both in their first year. Other good choices of EAST courses (electives) open to first-year students are ARHI 175/EAST 175 The Arts of East Asia and HIST 105/EAST 105 Cross-Cultural Interactions Along the Silk Road, 200 BC -1400 CE.

For majors and minors: You do not need to cross-list East Asian Studies courses as EAST for them to count towards your major or minor. You may leave them listed by their home departments--that is, as HIST, ARHI, ANTH, etc. Courses have cross-listings so that students can easily identify all available East Asian Studies courses in the schedule. If you would like to cross-list any of your courses as EAST, you have that option. Know that courses cross-listed in an interdisciplinary program will not count toward the divisional GERs. For example, ARHI 175 satisfies the Fine  Arts divisional requirement, but EAST 175 (the same course, but with the cross-listing) does not. Home department listings are also more informative for your transcript.

Requirement #5 for the major--"One course that situates East Asian culture in a broader academic or international context":  In addition to the courses listed on the major requirements catalog page, a number of courses in other disciplines can also satisfy this requirement. The idea is to take a course that is relevant to and includes East Asia, but in which the course content is broader in scope (comparatively or theoretically) than just East Asian cases or contexts. For example, majors have previously fulfilled this requirement with the following anthropology courses: ANTH 552 Disability and Culture or ANTH 377 Culture and Aging. Contact the East Asian Studies program director if you would like to select a course that corresponds with your academic interests--as available courses change from year to year.

Senior experiences for double-majors: We like to work with our East Asian Studies majors who have an additional major to see if they can combine their senior experiences into one project that satisfies both of their majors. This takes planning and coordination, but has worked out well for past EAST seniors who have also majored in anthropology, history, government, art history, religious studies, or Chinese. Such combined projects often take two terms to complete.

For more information about the East Asian Studies major or minor, contact the program director: Brenda Jenike, Associate Professor of Anthropology