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The College of Arts & Sciences
Our faculty members are a multi-disciplinary group in the humanities who conduct research and teach on topics arranged under our rubrics of "Literature & Linguistics," "Religion," and "Society & Culture," as well as offering instruction in 14 modern Asian languages, and the department also offers instruction in five classical Asian languages (Sanskrit, Pali, Literary Chinese, Literary Japanese and Literary Vietnamese).
The department works with Asian specialists of all disciplines across campus, who collectively comprise the East, South and Southeast Asia area studies programs.
The Department of Asian Studies was initially organized in 1946 as the Department of Far Eastern Studies (changed to Asian Studies in 1962). It developed from a wartime program in the language, history, and culture of China that trained people for government service. The three Cornell Asian area programs for South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia subsequently developed within the department before assuming their separate existences in the 1970s. Initially, the Department was located in Franklin Hall (renamed Tjaden Hall in 1980).
As more positions were assigned to the Department, and with the growth of graduate programs that provided universities around the world with prominent scholars of Asia, the problem of space became chronic. In the early 1970s the Department shifted to Rockefeller Hall where it now occupies the third floor.
Chao Yuen-Ren 1914, composer of the first Chinese keyboard music, was also a ground-breaking linguist who transformed the Chinese language through his scholarship on Chinese grammar and phonology.
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Voters in more than 60 countries are heading to the polls to elect new leaders in this record-breaking “super election” year. In many of those countries, democracy itself is on the ballot.
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“We felt this is an important resource that should be available to our humanists at all levels, whether they have the resources to pay for membership or not,” said Peter John Loewen, the Harold Tanner Dean of Arts and Sciences.
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Scholar Daniel Bass comments on this week's presidential election in Sri Lanka, the first since a 2022 economic meltdown that forced the resignation of Gotabaya Rajapaksa.
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Cornell, the only institution offering regular multilevel instruction in all six of the major Southeast Asian languages – Burmese, Indonesian, Khmer, Filipino (Tagalog), Thai and Vietnamese – will host a conference on the teaching of these languages on Sept. 19-21.
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"Cornell alumni are generous with their time and efforts to assist students, to answer questions from students, or connect them to people and places."
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Cornell’s graduate students may be based in Ithaca, but every summer they make discoveries in unique study sites around the globe. Asian literature, religion and culture Ph.D. student Yuanxue Jing did research at the Youyan Archives in Beijing.
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Peter John Loewen says he's excited to support faculty in their research, meet students and showcase the value of a liberal arts education.
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