About the Asian Studies Program

The Program in Asian Studies was founded in 2000, and has grown quickly since. In 2001-2002 the program received a Focus Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support our efforts to build and strengthen the place of Asian Studies in the curriculum through a series of faculty workshops. The Asian Studies Program at the College of Charleston is now the leading program of its kind in the state of South Carolina and one of the few of its kind in the Southeast.

Ten area-studies specialists contribute to College of Charlestons Program in Asian Studies, with home departments in Languages, History, Art History, Religious Studies, Philosophy, and Political Science. Six of our faculty are South Asia specialists--one in History, two in Art History, one in Philosophy, and two in Religious Studies. Several other faculty, contribute to the program in various ways, including regular course offerings (Comparative Literature, Literature in Translation, History).

A growing number of our students in Asian Studies conduct individual research as either independent studies or Bachelor Essays; a few recent projects include: "Japanese Rituals and the Ethics of Personhood;" "Conceptions of Religious Causality in Tibet;" "Sleeping, Dreaming and Dying in Tibetan Buddhism;" "Ideas of Female Impurity in Hinduism and Judaism;" "Patronage and \ Collection-Building in Japanese Woodlbock Prints at the Gibbes Museum of Art;" "Indian Immigrant Fiction in the US." Five Political Science majors this year are organizing a delegation to represent India at the college-wide Model United Nations. Asian Studies also supports visiting speakers and other events on campus, such as Hassan Rahmouni, Gurmeet Rai, Vishakha Desai, Roger Ames, Georges Dreyfuss and many others, as well as music and dance performances and film series.

The Asian Studies Program is a member of ASIANetwork since 2001, an affiliation that contributes to our focus on undergraduate education in Asian Studies in a liberal arts setting. We have recently been accepted as members of the American Institute of Indian Studies, which helps support the specialized teaching and research interests of our South Asia faculty and the development of our Asian Studies students.

To declare a minor in Asian Studies or for more information, please contact the Director of Asian Studies, Dr. Mary Beth Coffman Heston.