East Asian Studies

Benjamin Elman, the Gordon Wu '58 Professor of Chinese Studies and professor of East Asian studies and history at Princeton, has been selected by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation as one of three winners of its Distinguished Achievement Awards. The awards are intended to honor scholars who have made significant contributions to humanistic inquiry. (for more information)

The East Asian Studies Department at Princeton University invites you to explore the culture, history, societies, politics, and languages of East Asia (China, Japan, and Korea). Close to 40 faculty members and language lecturers offer students, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels, the opportunity to study with preeminent scholars and to do research in our world-renowned East Asian Library--home to the Gest rare books collection.

EAS undergraduate courses provide students with a lens to focus on the fascinating 4,000-year history of the East Asian region. Class offerings in the Spring of 2012 include: EAS / ANT / ENV 230 Culture and the Environment of East Asia; EAS 329 / POL 357 Politics of Japan; EAS / HIS 416 Intellectual History of China from the Ninth to the 19th Century, and intensive language classes at all levels of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. Taking EAS language courses can lead students to participate in international programs, such as summer language courses through Princeton in Beijing, Princeton in Ishikawa, or Princeton University’s Global Seminars in China and Korea, amongst others.  Undergraduate students may obtain the A.B. degree in East Asian Studies; earn a Language and Culture Certificate in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean; or an EAS Program Certificate in East Asian Studies.
 
At the graduate level, students focus their doctoral training on Chinese, Japanese, and Korean literature and history, the traditional strengths of the East Asian Studies Department, with many new offerings on contemporary East Asia.  Princeton’s relationship with universities around the world allows our students to work with top scholars such as Professor Zhaoguang Ge, the founding director of the National Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai.  Professor Ge is appointed as a Global Scholar in East Asian Studies at Princeton by the Council for International Teaching and Research and will be in residence for part of the spring semester 2012, as well as several semesters thereafter.