5: Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

General Information | Programs and Degrees Offered | Admission Information
Financial Assistance | Graduate Academic Regulations
Requirements for Specific Graduate Degrees | Departments and Programs | Faculty

Non-Departmental | Anthropology | Art | Asian and Middle Eastern | Asian Studies | Astronomy
Biochemistry | Biology | Biological and Physical Sciences | Biophysics | Cell and Molecular Biology
Cell Biology | Chemistry | Classics | Commerce | Drama | Economics | English | Environmental Sciences
French | German | Government and Foreign Affairs | Health Evaluation Sciences | History | Linguistics
Mathematics | Microbiology | Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics | Music | Neuroscience
Pharmacology | Philosophy | Physics | Psychology | Religious Studies | Russian and East European Studies
Slavic | Sociology | Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese | Statistics | Surgery

Program in Asian Studies
Course Descriptions | Program Requirements

Program Requirements

Certificate in Asian Studies   The Committee on Asian Studies offers an interdisciplinary program designed to provide graduate students with a broad and balanced understanding of the basic institutions and problems of Asia through the coordination of educational and research activities at the departmental level in the humanities and social sciences. Both M.A. and Ph.D. candidates in standard departments enrolled in this program receive, upon completion of the requirements listed below, Asian studies certificates in recognition of their special competence in the field.

A Certificate in Asian Studies is awarded to a graduate student concentrating on East Asia or South Asia and Southeast Asia under the following conditions:

  1. Satisfactory completion of departmental requirements for a graduate degree in a specific discipline, including a thesis or dissertation on an Asian topic.
  2. Twenty-four credits of course work in Asian studies, which should include an interdisciplinary seminar as offered, and six credits taken outside the student’s own department. The course work is normally applied toward satisfying the student’s departmental degree requirements.
  3. Demonstration of competence in one Asian language whenever relevant according to standards to be determined by the Committee on Asian Studies. Hindi, Sanskrit, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and Persian are available. See the undergraduate catalog for specific lower level courses.

M.A. in East Asian Studies   In addition, the East Asian faculty of the committee offers the following special M.A. program in Asian studies: the Master of Arts in Asian Studies is designed to enable students interested in East Asia—China and Japan—to engage in intensive language and area studies training over a period of two academic years. Students should expect to enter the first academic year of this program with at least one full academic year or the equivalent of the appropriate East Asian language, and to take 2l months, i.e., two academic years and the intervening summer, to complete all requirements for the degree. To complete the program students are:

  1. Required to take at least 24 non-language credits at the 500-level or above, of which no more than 18 credits are taken in a single department. Six credits can come from any school within the University.
  2. Required to achieve and/or demonstrate third-year competence in Chinese or Japanese language;
  3. Required to complete master’s thesis, and undergo an oral defense.

The University also offers a joint M.B.A.- M.A. in East Asian Studies. This is a three-year program and requires admission to the Darden Graduate School of Business Administration and to the Master of Arts Program in East Asian Studies. Students enrolled in this program normally spend the first full academic year in the program taking courses in the Darden School, and do not enroll in East Asian studies courses in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences until the following summer or fall.

For additional information contact the Director, East Asia Center, 224 Minor Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903; (804) 924-7836; or eastasia@virginia.edu.

This program is administered by the Committee for Asian Studies which is chaired by Gilbert W. Roy.

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