Cornell University

Graduate SchoolGraduate School

Graduate SchoolFields of Study

Asian Studies

Field Description

Overview

This program is designed for students who did not major in Asian Studies as undergraduates or who want more work in language and area studies before entering the professional, business, or Ph.D. fields. One to two years of study is required, depending on language proficiency. The M.A. Field in Asian Studies is described at greater length below. The Field offers three concentrations, and each student will choose one: East Asian studies, South Asian studies, or Southeast Asian studies. Students are, however, welcome to work between these geographical boundaries as they attain mastery of the language(s) and culture(s) of one. 

The M.A. Field in Asian Studies is described at greater length below.

Requirements for completion of the M.A. degree

Graduate study at Cornell is centered around a close working relationship between the student and his or her committee, and especially the principal advisor (the chair of the committee). Thus students admitted to the Asian Studies field are strongly encouraged to meet with their advisor/chair very early in their first semester of matriculation to develop a cogent plan for attaining their academic goals.

The Graduate School requires that students fulfill two "residence units," i.e., two semesters of on-campus study. The Field requires proof of language competency, completion of certain coursework with satisfactory grades, and submission of a thesis.

Language competency: Language expertise is considered a prerequisite for doing competent research in any area of Asian Studies. Thus students should come to Cornell with that expertise or work toward it in the course of their academic training here. The Field expects all students to attain to a minimum of a second-year level competency by the completion of the M.A. degree. Most students will go beyond that level.

Coursework and Committees: A plan for appropriate coursework should be developed in consultation with one’s committee chair. Graduate study at Cornell is centered around a close working relationship between the student and his or her committee, and especially the chair of the student’s graduate committee. Thus, students admitted to the Asian Studies Field are strongly encouraged to meet with their advisor/chair very early in their first semester of matriculation to develop a cogent plan for attaining their academic goals. 

All students must do at least two full-time semesters of coursework (most do more), which can include language classes, specialized courses in Asian Studies, disciplinary work outside of Asian Studies, seminars, and independent study or directed readings courses. Students must receive a grade of B or above in courses counted toward the degree. Five of these courses must have at least 50% Asia content.  

In exceptional cases, students who, over the course of any two semesters in the program, fail to achieve a grade of B or above in three or more courses intended to count towards the degree, or who fail to enroll in three or more courses that qualify for the degree, may be dismissed from the program by agreement of the committee chair and the Director of Graduate Studies. If a student’s committee chair resigns, the graduate school typically allows one additional semester to form a new committee. Any student who fails to form a new committee by the end of that semester may also be dismissed from the program.

With the exception of language courses, graduate-level courses at Cornell begin at the 6000-level, but 4000-level or 5000-level courses can also satisfy requirements.  Graduate students may occasionally join a 3000-level course by making special arrangements with the instructor to bring the student’s course work up to the graduate level (e.g., by requiring additional reading and/or research papers) and in some cases additionally enrolling in a directed reading course. No special arrangements are needed when enrolling for language courses at lower levels.

Thesis: All students will submit a final thesis on a project developed in consultation with their committees. The thesis may be a more developed version of a seminar paper or papers that has been expanded and subjected to additional revision and review. Theses are typically 40-50 pages or more in length.

The Graduate School requirements for the thesis are described on the “Thesis and Dissertation” web site at https://gradschool.cornell.edu/academic-progress/thesis-dissertation/. Students should consult the web site for guidelines regarding format, procedures, and deadlines regarding the online submission of the thesis and its defense.

Cornell’s Satisfactory Academic Progress policy stipulates that students in research degrees must maintain a minimum GPA of 2.25 to be in good academic standing or to be eligible for federal loans. The Asian Studies Field further stipulates that a student must achieve minimum grades of B for all courses counting towards the degree and demonstrate satisfactory performance in their annual Student Progress Review to remain enrolled in the MA program.


Contact Information

Website: https://asianstudies.cornell.edu/
Email: asian@cornell.edu
Phone: 607 255-9099

350 Rockefeller Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14853-2502

Data and Statistics

Subject and Degrees

Asian Studies

Concentrations by Subject

Asian Studies

  • East Asian linguistics (minor)
  • East Asian studies
  • South Asian linguistics (minor)
  • South Asian studies
  • Southeast Asian linguistics (minor)
  • Southeast Asian studies

Faculty

Nicholas Admussen

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: East Asian studies
  • Research Interests: contemporary Chinese literature, especially poetry and prose poetry, Chinese poetry translation

Christine Bacareza Balance

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: Southeast Asian studies
  • Research Interests: Performance, cinema and music in the Philippines

Daniel Bass

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: Southeast Asian studies
  • Research Interests: ethnicity, citizenship, labor and diaspora among Tamil tea plantation workers in Sri Lanka and India

Victoria Beard

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: Southeast Asian studies
  • Research Interests: urban poverty and community-based planning in Southeast Asia and Indonesia in particular

Anne M Blackburn

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: South Asian studies
  • Research Interests: South Asian religions; Buddhism in Sri Lanka; Sinhalese literature; nationalism and religious conflict; South Asian Islam

Daniel Joseph Boucher

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: East Asian studies
  • Research Interests: history of Indian religions; Indian Buddhism; early Chinese Buddhism; Chinese translations of Buddhist texts; Central Asian Buddhism

Andrew Campana

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: East Asian studies
  • Research Interests: Japanese literature and media, game studies and disability studies

Allen R Carlson

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: East Asian studies
  • Research Interests: Chinese foreign policy; international relations; Chinese politics; Asian security

Abigail C Cohn

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: Southeast Asian linguistics; Southeast Asian studies
  • Research Interests: Indonesian languages, particularly Indonesian, Sudanese, Madurese, Buginese; French

Muhammad Iftikhar Dadi

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: South Asian studies
  • Research Interests: modern art and intellectual history of south Asia, popular visual cultures of south Asia

Yue Du

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: East Asian studies
  • Research Interests: history of modern China (17th century - present), particularly law, gender and state-building

Magnus Fiskesjo

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: East Asian studies; Southeast Asian studies
  • Research Interests: China/Southeast Asia borderlands; indigenous peoples; East and Southeast Asia archaeology; Neolithic and Bronze Age China

Chiara Formichi

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: Southeast Asian studies
  • Research Interests: history of Islam in southeast Asia, contemporary expressions of Islam in southeast Asia, religion and state, west Asia-southeast Asia connections

Elias Friedman

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: East Asian studies
  • Research Interests: labor, urbanization, and social movements in China and the East Asian Sinosphere

Arnika Fuhrmann

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: Southeast Asian studies
  • Research Interests: Southeast Asian literature, film and gender studies with particular expertise on Thailand

Durba Ghosh

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: South Asian studies
  • Research Interests: women and gender in South Asia; modern history of South Asia; historiography and postcolonial of South Asia

Jenny Elaine Goldstein

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: Southeast Asian studies
  • Research Interests: Environmental conservation and development in the tropics; intersections of data infrastructure and land governance; global food and agriculture systems; the financialization of land, and the role of scientific knowledge in climate change politics; Indonesia; Southeast Asia

T. J. Hinrichs

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: East Asian studies
  • Research Interests: history and culture of pre-modern China; popular culture of modern China in historical perspective

Karim-Aly S. Kassam

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: South Asian studies
  • Research Interests: bio-cultural diversity; indigenous cultures and change; climate change and its impacts; community economic development; gender analysis; human ecology

Neema Kudva

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: South Asian studies
  • Research Interests: small cities and their regions, and on institutional structures for equitable planning and development in South Asia

Sarosh C Kuruvilla

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: South Asian studies
  • Research Interests: South Asia; economic development and industrial relations

Jane Marie Law

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: East Asian studies
  • Research Interests: Japanese religions

Nancy P. Lin

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: East Asian studies
  • Research Interests: modern and contemporary Chinese art and architecture, with a particular interest in the relationship between art and urbanism

Tamara L Loos

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: Southeast Asian studies
  • Research Interests: Southeast Asian history

Shaoling Ma

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: East Asian studies; Southeast Asian studies
  • Research Interests: Sinophone and trans-Asian literature and media

Lawrence J. McCrea

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: South Asian studies
  • Research Interests: Sanskrit; South Asia religious and intellectual history, with particular interests in poetics and aesthetics; South Asia knowledge systems in the medieval and early modern periods

Kaja Maria McGowan

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: Southeast Asian studies
  • Research Interests: Indonesia; gender studies; colonialism; landscape

Robin McNeal

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: East Asian studies
  • Research Interests: ancient and modern Chinese history; modern Japanese history; Chinese literary sources

Christopher J. Miller

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: Southeast Asian studies
  • Research Interests: contemporary art music in Indonesia, or "musik kontemporer," and in particular the cultural dynamics through which it gained its distinctive profile, encompassing both the Western- oriented and traditionally-based dynamics through which it gained its distinctive profile, encompassing both the Western-oriented and traditionally-based

Viranjini P Munasinghe

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: South Asian studies
  • Research Interests: South Asia; anthropology

Victor Gilbert Nee

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: East Asian studies
  • Research Interests: sociology - China

An-Yi Pan

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: East Asian studies; South Asian studies
  • Research Interests: Manjusri cult and representations of the Bodhisattva in China

Juno Salazar Parrenas

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: Southeast Asian studies
  • Research Interests: human-animal relations in Malaysia and Thailand; environmental studies; feminist studies; commercial volunteerism; aging animals and aging people in Southeast Asia.

Thomas B. Pepinsky

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: Southeast Asian studies
  • Research Interests: Southeast Asian politics; comparative politics; international political economy; authoritarianism; Islam

Lucinda Ramberg

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: South Asian studies
  • Research Interests: religious conversion in the context of the revival of Buddhism in South India

Kristin Anne Roebuck

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: East Asian linguistics; East Asian studies
  • Research Interests: modern Japanese history, history of the body, medicine and law, race and sexuality, Japanese international relations

Suyoung Son

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: East Asian studies
  • Research Interests: cultural history of early modern china (1500-1900)

Peidong Sun

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: East Asian studies
  • Research Interests: memory and the social history of the Cultural Revolution in China

Eric Tagliacozzo

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: Southeast Asian studies
  • Research Interests: Southeast Asian studies and culture

Ding Xiang Warner

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: East Asian studies
  • Research Interests: Chinese literature; Chinese poetry; Chinese translation

Marina A. Welker

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: South Asian studies
  • Research Interests: corporations and capitalism; internal development; global networks; non-governmental organizations; political economy; social theory; business history of Southeast Asia

John Bradford Whitman

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: East Asian linguistics; East Asian studies
  • Research Interests: Japanese and Korean linguistics

Andrew C Willford

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: Southeast Asian studies
  • Research Interests: sociocultural anthropology; ethnicity; globalization; Hinduism

Ivanna Sang Een Yi

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: East Asian studies
  • Research Interests: Korean literature and culture, Korean traditional music and performance

John Aloysius Zinda

  • Campus: Ithaca
  • Concentrations: Asian Studies: East Asian studies
  • Research Interests: environmental protection and development efforts in rural China, focused on southwest China, especially Yunnan