Department Overview

East Asian Studies is an interdisciplinary curriculum that brings together faculty from many different Lewis & Clark academic departments to promote a more holistic and nuanced understanding of East Asia. Topics addressed in this curriculum include formation of regional cohesiveness, intraregional differences, the fluidity of physical and conceptual boundaries between East Asia and other regions of the world, and the changing conditions of extraregional relations. Focusing on China, Japan, and Korea, the program gives attention to the dynamic, interrelated, and often contentious nature of the area’s cultures, politics, and economies.

Lewis & Clark’s East Asian Studies curriculum provides students interested in East Asia an extraordinary opportunity to concentrate on nearly any aspect of this region. Working with faculty whose teaching and research interests are related to East Asia, students are exposed to a rich and substantive curriculum spanning disciplines as varied as anthropology, art history, economics, history, international affairs, literature, religious studies, and sociology.

The backbone of the major is solid training in the Chinese or Japanese language, coupled with intensive overseas study in East Asia. In the senior year, majors prepare a thesis, often based on preliminary research conducted during their overseas study, and present it to other majors and a faculty committee.

The East Asian Studies curriculum includes three areas of concentration: Fine Arts, Literature, and Languages; Social Sciences; and Religion and History. With the help of a faculty adviser, all majors choose one of these as their primary area of concentration. This choice should reflect the classes that will best support the senior thesis research.

The underlying framework guiding the overall program of study may be geographical or regional, historical, or based on exploration of a theme. Themes could include literary, musical, and visual arts; transnational relations; economic development; thought and belief systems; power and political structures; state-building and definitions of cultural identities; family and kinship studies; gender roles and class distinctions; social movements and popular protests; the problems of rapid modernization; and colonial and postcolonial relations.

A student who chooses to minor in East Asian Studies can develop a useful concentration to complement a departmental major, regardless of whether it is in the arts, humanities, natural sciences, or social sciences. As with the major, solid training in the Chinese or Japanese language forms the foundation of the minor.

Examples of senior theses

• The Perfection of Wisdom: The Constitution, Dream, and Prison of Tibetan Nationalist Discourse in the 20th Century
• International Experts and Local Concerns: An Examination of Integrated Conservation and Development Planning in Meili Snow Mountain
• Supporting the Homeless of Kamagasaki in the Midst of a Neglectful Japan
• What's Behind the Spiritual Civilization Campaign? State-Mandated Behavioral Change in Mainland China
• The Music of Stillness: Defining Shanshui Poetry in the High Tang
• Construction and Reconstruction of Loyalty and Honor: Legitimizing the Actions of Sugihara Chiune and the Japanese Government During World War II
• Pachinko, a Game That Takes Balls: An Analysis of Japanese Pinball
• Modern Girl/Social Girl: Conflicting Models of Female Resistance in Late Taisho Japan
• Asian Thematics in the Postwar American Avant-Garde: The Construction of Cultural “Otherness” in the Music of John Cage

Examples of post-graduate activities

• Graduate study in languages, history, international relations, and East Asian studies.
• Teaching English in East Asia.
• Positions in print journalism and broadcasting.
• Positions in business and law.
• Positions in bilingual organizations and agencies.