Welcome to East Asian Studies!
In the contemporary global configuration, East Asia is a center of culture, economics, science, and technology. The Department of East Asian Studies offers a wide range of undergraduate classes at the highest standards of academic, linguistic, and cultural competence focused on China, Korea, and Japan. While the EAS concentration allows in-depth study and first-hand experience of East Asia, our certificate programs encourage students to combine their interests in East Asian languages and civilizations with other majors they pursue at Princeton.
EAS students complete coursework in literature, history, anthropology, media, and cultural studies of China, Korea, and Japan. They engage in both transnational and local perspectives, and their work spans premodern and contemporary contexts. The Chinese, Korean, and Japanese language programs offer instruction from elementary to highly advanced levels. All language classes are taught exclusively by professional instructors and operate entirely in the primary language in terms of reading materials, classroom discussion, and assignments. Students also have the opportunity to attend summer language programs in Beijing, Seoul, and Kanazawa (Ishikawa Prefecture).
Independent research is crucial to the training of EAS concentrators, who work closely and individually with their faculty advisors to complete junior independent projects and the senior thesis. These projects often involve research trips to East Asia, generously supported by a variety of University scholarships.
Princeton’s Ph.D. program in East Asian Studies has long been recognized as one of the leading graduate programs in the world. At present, we offer doctoral (Ph.D.) training in Chinese and Japanese history and literature, Korean cultural studies, Anthropology of East Asia, and in the transnational social and cultural study of contemporary East Asia.
With its current full-time faculty of 38 professors and language instructors in the EAS Department, frequent international visiting professors, and an additional 12 professors specializing on East Asia in the departments of Anthropology, Art and Archaeology, Comparative Literature, Sociology, Religion, and Politics, Princeton is home to a vibrant community of scholars and students working on the civilizations of East Asia in all their rich historical and contemporary dimensions.
