The MA in Asian Languages and Civilizations may be pursued with a specialization in Chinese or Japanese. Graduate students work in a broad interdisciplinary context, requiring a study of literary, historical, and cultural texts across the millennia of Chinese and Japanese written materials. The MA requires 30 hours of approved graduate coursework or 24 hours of coursework plus a thesis.

MA Program

The MA program in Chinese is designed to offer students maximum general exposure to the long sweep of Chinese literary and cultural history as well as the opportunity to delve into the study of some particular period, field, topic or genre. With six professors covering literature and culture from early China through the medieval era to the early modern period and contemporary China, the program is comprehensive in scope. The program focuses especially on preparing students for PhD study and careers in sinology. Since 1991, more than eighty graduates of the Chinese MA program have gone on to doctoral study here or at other first-rank institutions in the U.S. See Chinese alumni stories.

PhD Program

The PhD program in Chinese offer extensive training in the modern and pre-modern literatures of China for students seeking to pursue research and teaching careers at the collegiate level. The program offers specializations in Chinese with concentrations in literary and/or cultural studies of either the pre-modern or modern periods. The PhD requires a minimum of 45 credit hours in graduate courses numbered 5000 or above in Chinese, and 30 credit hours of dissertation work beyond the required coursework. PhD students may transfer to the department up to 21 hours of acceptable graduate-level credit. Academic preparation is expected in both classical and modern language.