The University of Massachusetts Amherst
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Academics

Academics

What do students in the East Asian Languages & Cultures program learn?

In addition to becoming proficient in three of the most difficult languages in the world, they also learn how to think and write critically, how to present and discuss Asia intelligibly to others, and how to apply what they have learned here to their jobs after they graduate. Many of our majors spend at least a semester in an Asian country during their undergraduate careers so they also learn how to be sensitive to the cultural differences between Asian and American cultures—the most important step in becoming global citizens.

Our faculty teaches a wide array of courses in various disciplines such as political science, religion, women’s studies, theater, premodern, and modern literature, cinema, popular culture, gay/queer culture, linguistics, second-language pedagogy, and warrior and court cultures. The East Asian Languages & Cultures faculty is transhistorical and interdisciplinary in its approaches to our subjects.


Photo: A traditional Chinese "junk" ship in Victoria Harbor, Hong Kong.