Our department explores East Asian, South Asian and Middle Eastern cultures—primarily Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Hindi, Japanese, and Korean—through the lens of language and literature; social movements, nationalism and diaspora; popular culture and the media; gender, visuality and feminism; film theory, cinema and aesthetics; and the implications of religion on identity and globalization.
We offer a major where students focus on one or more languages, and chose either a Regional or Thematic pathway. Two minors are also available.
Providing advanced training in East Asian Cultural Studies and Critical Theory, our department offers a Master's track in Critical Asian Humanities.
Our course curriculum of 9 Asian & Middle Eastern languages help students fulfill their Duke University foreign language requirements.
Our department closely examines East Asia, South Asia and the Middle East by studying the languages, cultures, literature, religions, and more that make this region unique. The intellectual focus of the department consists of 10 research fields, with many overlapping into one another.
Department of Asian & Middle Eastern Studies
