East Asian Studies

The MacMillan Center
320 Luce Hall, 203.432.3426
http://ceas.yale.edu
M.A.

Chair
Hwansoo Kim (hwansoo.kim@yale.edu)

Director of Graduate Studies
Eric Greene (eric.greene@yale.edu)

Professors Daniel Botsman (History), Fabian Drixler (History), Aaron Gerow (East Asian Languages and Literatures; Film and Media Studies), Valerie Hansen (History), Tina Lu (East Asian Languages and Literatures), Helen Siu (Anthropology), Chloë Starr (Divinity School), Jing Tsu (East Asian Languages and Literatures; Comparative Literature), Anne Underhill (Anthropology), Arne Westad (History; Global Affairs), Mimi Hall Yiengpruksawan (History of Art)

Associate Professors Eric Greene (Religious Studies), Denise Ho (History), William Honeychurch (Anthropology), Michael Hunter (East Asian Languages and Literatures), Hwansoo Kim (Religious Studies), Yukiko Koga (Anthropology)

Assistant Professors Lucas Bender (East Asian Languages and Literatures), Jinyi Chu (Slavic Languages and Literatures), Maura Dykstra (History), Daniel Mattingly (Political Science), Quincy Ngan (History of Art), Hannah Shepherd (History), Rosa van Hensbergen (East Asian Languages and Literatures), Emma Zang (Sociology)

Senior Lecturer Pauline Lin (East Asian Languages and Literatures)

Lecturers Jonathan Feuer, Victor Fong, Marnyi Gyatso, Meghan Howard, Rio Katayama, Dilrabo Tosheva, Xiaoxiao Shen, Carolyn Wargula

Senior Lectors II Seungja Choi, Angela Lee-Smith, Ninghui Liang, Peisong Xu

Senior Lectors Hsiu-hsien Chan, Min Chen, Rongzhen Li, Fan Liu, Kumiko Nakamura, Hiroyo Nishimura, Jianhua Shen, Mari Stever, Wei Su, Chuanmei Sun, Haiwen Wang, Yu-lin Wang Saussy, Mika Yamaguchi, Yongtao Zhang, William Zhou

Lectors Jingjing Ao, Seunghee Back, Hyun Sung Lim

Fields of Study

The Master of Arts (M.A.) program in East Asian studies is a multidisciplinary program offering a concentrated course of study designed to provide a broad understanding of the people, history, culture, contemporary society, politics, and economy of China, Japan, Korea, or a transnational region within East Asia. This program is designed for students preparing to go on to the doctorate in one of the disciplines of East Asian studies (e.g., anthropology; economics; history; history of art; language and literature, including comparative literature, film studies, and theater studies; political science; sociology; etc.), as well as for those students seeking a terminal M.A. degree before entering the business world, the media, government service, or a professional school.

Course of Study for the M.A. Degree

The East Asian studies graduate program is designed to be completed in either a one-year or a two-year track. The two-year track requires the preparation of a master’s thesis and is therefore ideal for students who are keen to pursue focused, independent research under the guidance of a faculty member. It also provides students with an opportunity to pursue additional disciplinary and language training. Students who enter the two-year track with a strong command of one East Asian language will be encouraged to consider beginning a second (or third) language.

In general, students focus their course work on the study of China, Japan, Korea, or transnational East Asia. Some students may prefer to focus their course work on one or two disciplines, in addition to language study and courses focused on East Asia. Others may create a highly interdisciplinary program, taking courses in traditional disciplines such as history, literature, political science, art history, or anthropology, as well as in Yale’s professional schools.

Applicants to the East Asian studies graduate program must indicate on their application whether they are applying to the one-year or the two-year track.

Requirements for the M.A. Degree: One-Year Track

Language proficiency Students must demonstrate proficiency in one’s primary East Asian research language equivalent to Yale’s third-year level, demonstrated by: 

  1. native fluency;
  2. completion of the language placement and proficiency exam (https://eall.yale.edu/academics/language-programs) offered by the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures; or 
  3. completion of two terms of language courses at the third-year level at Yale. 

Eight courses With the exception of East Asian language classes, all classes must be at the graduate level (either a code 500 or above class, or an undergraduate class approved for graduate credit). If approved by the DGS, one graduate course taken for a grade of Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory in other departments or programs in which these courses are counted toward that department/program’s requirements will be counted toward the eight-course requirement.

A maximum of four East Asian language classes can be counted toward degree requirements. Four of the eight courses must be East Asian studies classes. These four classes may include:

  • a maximum of one independent study class on an East Asian studies topic
  • graduate-level courses that appear on the East Asian studies course list (https://ceas.yale.edu/academics/courses)
  • with DGS approval, one non-East Asian studies class for which a final paper or project is written on an East Asian studies topic. The final paper must be submitted to the DGS at the end of the term. In exceptional cases the DGS may approve, in consultation with the academic mentor, additional non-EA classes (with a final EA paper/project).

The course of study must be approved by the DGS.

Special Requirements

Students must earn two Honors grades (“H”) over the course of their two terms at Yale. Honors grades earned in any language course cannot be counted toward satisfying this requirement, except with the permission of the DGS.

Requirements for the M.A. Degree: Two-Year Track

Language proficiency Students must demonstrate proficiency in one’s primary East Asian research language equivalent to Yale’s fourth-year level, demonstrated by:

  1. native fluency;
  2. completion of the language placement and proficiency exam (https://eall.yale.edu/academics/language-programs) offered by the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures; or
  3. completion of two terms of language courses at the fourth-year level at Yale. 

Sixteen courses With the exception of East Asian language classes, all classes must be at the graduate level (either a code 500 or above class, or an undergraduate class approved for graduate credit). If approved by the director of graduate studies (DGS), up to two graduate courses taken for a grade of Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory in other departments or programs in which these courses are counted toward that department/program’s requirements will be counted toward the sixteen-course requirement.

A maximum of eight East Asian language classes can be counted toward degree requirements. One of the sixteen courses is EAST 900, Master's Thesis. Eight of the sixteen courses must be East Asian studies classes. These eight classes may include:

  • a maximum of two independent study class on an East Asian studies topic 
  • graduate-level courses that appear on the East Asian studies course list (https://ceas.yale.edu/academics/courses)
  • with DGS approval, two non-East Asian studies classes for which a final paper or project is written on an East Asian studies topic. The final paper must be submitted to the DGS at the end of the semester. In exceptional cases the DGS may approve, in consultation with the academic mentor, additional non-EA classes (with a final EA paper/project).

The course of study must be approved by the DGS.

Special Requirements

Students must earn four Honors grades (“H”) over the course of their four terms at Yale. Honors grades earned in any language course cannot be counted toward satisfying this requirement, except with the permission of the DGS. A master’s thesis is also required.

Master’s Thesis

A master’s thesis is required of students enrolled in the two-year degree program. The master’s thesis is based on research in a topic approved by the DGS and advised by a faculty member with specialized competence in the chosen topic. M.A. students must register for EAST 900, which may count toward the sixteen required courses. EAST 900 may not be taken for audit. Students may register for an additional independent study to prepare topics and begin research. The master’s thesis must be prepared according to CEAS guidelines and is due in the student’s second year on a mid-December date (if completed in the fall term) or an early-May date (if completed in the spring term) as specified by CEAS.

Joint-Degree Programs

The Council on East Asian Studies (CEAS) collaborates with three of Yale’s professional schools—Environment, Law, and Public Health—and has developed joint-degree programs that offer a strong connection between two demanding courses of study while also fulfilling the requirements of each separate school. Only students enrolled in the two-year track of the East Asian studies M.A. degree program are eligible for a joint degree.

Each joint program leads to the simultaneous award of two graduate professional degrees: the M.A. in East Asian studies from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and an M.F., M.E.M., M.E.Sc., M.F.S., J.D., or M.P.H. from the relevant professional school. Students can earn the two degrees simultaneously in less time than if they were pursued sequentially.

With the exception of the joint M.A./J.D. program, which requires four years, completion of all requirements takes three years. Typically candidates spend the first year in one program and the second year in the partner program. During the third and final year of study, students register in one program each term. Joint-degree students are guided in this process by a committee composed of the DGS and a faculty member of the relevant professional school.

Candidates must submit formal applications to both the Graduate School and the relevant professional school and be admitted separately to each school, i.e., each school makes its decision independently. It is highly recommended that students apply to and enter a joint-degree program from the outset, although it is possible to apply to the second program once matriculated at Yale.


Program materials are available upon request to the Council on East Asian Studies, Yale University, PO Box 208206, New Haven CT 06520-8206; e-mail, eastasian.studies@yale.edu; website, http://ceas.yale.edu. Applications are available online at http://gsas.yale.edu/admission; email, graduate.admissions@yale.edu.

Courses

Please consult the course information available online at http://ceas.yale.edu/academics/courses and https://courses.yale.edu for a complete list of East Asian-related courses offered at Yale University.

EAST 511a / RLST 598a, Modern Korean Buddhism from Sri Lanka to JapanHwansoo Kim

This course situates modern Korean Buddhism in the global context of the late nineteenth century to the present. Through critical examination of the dynamic relationship between Korean Buddhism and the Buddhisms of key East Asian cities—Shanghai, Tokyo, Taipei, and Lhasa—the course seeks to understand modern East Asian Buddhism in a transnational light. Discussion includes analyzing the impact of Christian missionaries, pan-Asian and global ideologies, colonialism, Communism, capitalism, war, science, hypermodernity, and atheism.
Th 1:30pm-3:20pm

EAST 515a / ANTH 515a, Culture, History, Power, and RepresentationHelen Siu

This seminar critically explores how anthropologists use contemporary social theories to formulate the junctures of meaning, interest, and power. It thus aims to integrate symbolic, economic, and political perspectives on culture and social process. If culture refers to the understandings and meanings by which people live, then it constitutes the conventions of social life that are themselves produced in the flux of social life, invented by human activity. Theories of culture must therefore illuminate this problematic of agency and structure. They must show how social action can both reproduce and transform the structures of meaning, the conventions of social life. Even as such a position becomes orthodox in anthropology, it raises serious questions about the possibilities for ethnographic practice and theoretical analysis. How, for example, are such conventions generated and transformed where there are wide differentials of power and unequal access to resources? What becomes of our notions of humans as active agents of culture when the possibilities for maneuver and the margin of action for many are overwhelmed by the constraints of a few? How do elites—ritual elders, Brahmanic priests, manorial lords, factory-managers—secure compliance to a normative order? How are expressions of submission and resistance woven together in a fabric of cultural understandings? How does a theory of culture enhance our analyses of the reconstitution of political authority from traditional kingship to modern nation-state, the encapsulation of pre-capitalist modes of production, and the attempts to convert “primordial sentiments” to “civic loyalties”? How do transnational fluidities and diasporic connections make instruments of nation-states contingent? These questions are some of the questions we immediately face when probing the intersections of culture, politics and representation, and they are the issues that lie behind this seminar.
M 1:30pm-3:20pm

EAST 542b / CPLT 525b / EALL 530b, Poetry and Ethics Amidst Imperial CollapseLucas Bender

Du Fu has for the last millennium been considered China’s greatest poet. Close study of nearly one-sixth of his complete works, contextualized by selections from the tradition that defined the art in his age. Exploration of the roles literature plays in interpreting human lives and the ways different traditional forms shape different ethical orientation. Poetry as a vehicle for moral reflection. All readings are in English.
M 1:30pm-3:20pm

EAST 546a / ANTH 542a, Cultures and Markets: Asia Connected through Time and SpaceHelen Siu

Historical and contemporary movements of people, goods, and cultural meanings that have defined Asia as a region. Reexamination of state-centered conceptualizations of Asia and of established boundaries in regional studies. The intersections of transregional institutions and local societies and their effects on trading empires, religious traditions, colonial encounters, and cultural fusion. Finance flows that connect East Asia and the Indian Ocean to the Middle East and Africa. The cultures of capital and market in the neoliberal and postsocialist world.
M 9:25am-11:15am

EAST 553b / EALL 565b, Japanese Literature after 1970Rosa van Hensbergen

This course is an introduction to Japanese literature written in the last fifty years, with a focus on women writers. We read poetry and prose featuring mothers, daughters, and lovers, novels that follow convenience and thrift store workers, and poetry about factory girls. Our reading takes us from the daily grind of contemporary Tokyo to dystopian futures, from 1970s suburbia to surreal dreamscapes. We attend carefully to the ways in which different writers craft their works and, in particular, to their representation of feelings and affects. Whether the dull ache of loneliness, the oppression of boredom, or the heavy weight of fatigue, it is often something about the mood of a work—rather than its narrative—that leaves a distinct impression. We develop the tools to analyze and discuss this sense of distinctness, as well as discover ways to stage connections and comparisons between the works we read. Comparative and creative perspectives are especially welcome, and assignments can accommodate a range of media and presentation formats to suit. No knowledge of Japan or Japanese is required, nor is any prior grounding in literature. For those wishing to work with Japanese-language materials, please contact the instructor directly to organize additional Japanese-language workshops.
MW 1pm-2:15pm

EAST 575b / ANTH 575b, Hubs, Mobilities, and Global CitiesHelen Siu

Analysis of urban life in historical and contemporary societies. Topics include capitalist and postmodern transformations, class, gender, ethnicity, migration, and global landscapes of power and citizenship.
T 1:30pm-3:20pm

EAST 616a / CPLT 612a / EALL 588a / RSEE 605a / RUSS 605a, Socialist '80s: Aesthetics of Reform in China and the Soviet UnionJinyi Chu

This course offers an interdisciplinary introduction to the study of the complex cultural and political paradigms of late socialism from a transnational perspective by focusing on the literature, cinema, and popular culture of the Soviet Union and China in 1980s. How were intellectual and everyday life in the Soviet Union and China distinct from and similar to that of the West of the same era? How do we parse “the cultural logic of late socialism?” What can today’s America learn from it? Examining two major socialist cultures together in a global context, this course queries the ethnographic, ideological, and socio-economic constituents of late socialism. Students analyze cultural materials in the context of Soviet and Chinese history. Along the way, we explore themes of identity, nationalism, globalization, capitalism, and the Cold War. Students with knowledge of Russian and Chinese are encouraged to read in original. All readings are available in English.
M 3:30pm-5:20pm

EAST 640a / EALL 600a, Sinological MethodsPauline Lin

A research course in Chinese studies, designed for students with background in modern and literary Chinese. Students explore and evaluate the wealth of primary sources and research tools available in China and in the West. For native speakers of Chinese, introduction to the secondary literature in English and instruction in writing professionally in English on topics about China. Topics include Chinese bibliographies; bibliophiles’ notes; specialized dictionaries; maps and geographical gazetteers; textual editions, variations, and reliability of texts; genealogies and biographical sources; archaeological and visual materials; and major Chinese encyclopedias, compendia, and databases.
F 1:30pm-3:20pm

EAST 900a or b, Master’s ThesisEric Greene

Directed reading and research on a topic approved by the DGS and advised by a faculty member (by arrangement) with expertise or specialized competence in the chosen field. Readings and research are done in preparation for the required master’s thesis.
HTBA

EAST 910a or b, Independent StudyEric Greene

By arrangement with faculty and with approval of the DGS.
HTBA