We study the languages, societies and cultures of major civilizations that stretch from the Arab World to Japan. Students expand their knowledge and challenge assumptions about this large and vital part of the world.
Students gain a sophisticated understanding of one of the four cultural areas—Japan, China, South Asia and West Asia—that make up our department.
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As part of the Five College Arabic Language Initiative, we offer a full sequence of courses in Arabic.
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We offer a coherent sequence of Mandarin Chinese courses from the elementary through the advanced.
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We teach Japanese using the “stage-step” method. Students learn to speak, read, write and listen in Japanese.
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Amherst has long ties with Japan’s Doshisha University, founded by Amherst graduate Joseph Hardy Neesima, the first Japanese man to earn a college degree from a Western institution.
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At weekly language tables, students share meals while speaking Chinese, Japanese or Arabic.
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Roughly translated as “Garden of Friendship,” the Yūshien is a contemplative garden in the Japanese style at Amherst. It has been ranked among the nation’s top Japanese gardens.
Learn MoreExplore the complex relationship between preservation and change—and between admiration and rejection of Ottoman and European ideas, institutions and cultures—that characterized the empire’s 19th-century reform process.
Journey through the late Tokugawa period, through the rise of the modern Meiji nation-state, colonial expansion and World War II, to postwar economic recovery and the sociopolitical challenges of early-2000s Japan.
Examine the major developments, themes and issues in woman’s history in the Middle East, in the early Islamic period, the 19th and 20th centuries, and the present day.
We award the Doshisha Asian Studies Prize for the best undergraduate honors thesis pertaining to Asia.