The Asian Studies Program at Kenyon offers a joint major and a concentration. In the major, students combine their study of Asia with major requirements in one of several departments: Art (specifically, art history), History, Modern Languages and Literatures (specifically, Chinese), or Religious Studies. In addition, students will find courses in Asian studies in anthropology, music, philosophy, political science, and sociology. The program also sponsors films, invites speakers to the College, organizes field trips for students, and promotes other social and cultural events to stimulate campus awareness of the societies of East and Southeast Asia, India and its neighbors, and the Islamic world.

With Asia as its point of reference, the curriculum encourages students to deal with Asian peoples as actors on the scene of regional and world history, rather than as objects of non-Asian peoples' enterprises and observations. An important goal of the concentration is the development of a critical understanding of the ways in which people of the interrelated regions of Asia have historically defined and expressed themselves.

Beginning Asian Studies
Students hoping to spend all or part of their junior year in China or Japan should begin to study the appropriate language in their first two years at Kenyon. New students interested in Asia who have not yet declared a major or a concentration may enroll in any 100- or 200-level course offered by an Asian studies faculty member, or should consider taking ASIA 201 (The Silk Road), which provides an introduction to the entire region.

For more information, contact the current director Joseph Adler, email: adlerj@kenyon.edu, or telephone: 740-427-5290.