East Asian Languages & Cultural Studies - PhD

Our graduate programs in East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies are designed to prepare students for academic and other professional careers that increasingly demand research and expertise about East Asia. The training we offer is interdisciplinary, encompassing diverse fields in both the humanities and the interpretive social sciences. Our program helps its graduates build bridges across national, regional, and transnational studies, while still cultivating deep knowledge in Chinese, Japanese, and/or Korean languages in their modern and classical forms. Students specialize in one or more of our five core emphases: 1) Film, Media, Performing Arts and Popular Culture; 2) Gender and Sexuality Studies; 3) Literature and Translation Studies; 4) Modernity, Colonialism, and Globalization Studies; and 5) Religiosity and the History of Ideas. We offer an M.A. program with two different tracks (thesis and professional) and a Ph.D. program for which students can apply either with a B.A. or an M.A.

• Higher education

• Media

• Nonprofit organizations

• East Asian Studies

• Religious Studies

• History

• Amherst College

• Chinese University of Hong Kong

• Nanzan University

• Eight of our PhDs in the last six years have attained tenure-track jobs

• We are home to one of the only centers for Taiwanese studies in the United States

• Our faculty employ diverse methods, including digital humanities and ethnographic fieldwork, to conduct cutting-edge research

• Film Studies

• Anthropology

• Comparative Literature

• Linguistics and Translation Studies

• Religious Studies

• Global Studies

• Popular culture

• Gender and sexuality

• Translation studies

• Modernity, colonialism, and globalization

• Religiosity

• History of ideas

EALCS Website https://www.eastasian.ucsb.edu/

Graduate Program https://www.eastasian.ucsb.edu/academics/graduate-program/

East Asia Center https://www.eac.ucsb.edu/

Center for Taiwan Studies https://taiwancenter.eastasian.ucsb.edu/