A Message from the Department Chair

Welcome to the Harvard University Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations. We have a tremendously large and exciting department committed to the study of the arts, cultures, languages, literatures, histories, philosophies, and religions of East Asia.

Our language programs provide superb training in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Manchu, Mongolian, Uyghur, and Vietnamese.

Our undergraduate concentration, East Asian Studies, offers students both a general introduction to the extraordinary civilizations of East Asia as well as more focused work in students’ specific areas of interest.  We are particularly proud of the close student-faculty interaction that we are able to maintain in the program

We have also introduced a secondary field in East Asian Studies.  This will provide a wonderful opportunity for students to explore any aspect of East Asia that interests them.

Our graduate program is well-known as one of the most exciting in the country.  Our large and truly superb faculty is dedicated to providing both specialized training in the study of East Asian materials as well as a broad education in the diverse methods and approaches that can be used to understand these materials.  We are also very proud of our excellent job placement record for students.

The staff members who administer our department are amazingly efficient and tremendously friendly. 

The department is also blessed to be part of an extremely vibrant community with wide-ranging resources.  The Harvard-Yenching Library offers one of the best collections of East Asian materials in the world, the Harvard-Yenching Institute brings in a large number of top scholars from Asia every year, and the various area centers (the Asia Center, Fairbank Center, Korea Institute, and Reischauer Institute) are very active in supporting post-doctoral scholars and in organizing workshops and speaker series.

Our website provides information on all aspects of the department.  We invite you to explore our programs and consider joining our exciting community.

Thank you very much,

Michael Puett
Professor of Chinese History