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East Asian Studies Resources at Penn

Center for East Asian Studies

To enhance the study of China, Japan, Korea, and the bordering areas at the University of Pennsylvania, the Center for East Asian Studies:

  • coordinates courses in several schools and departments
  • offers lectures and seminars at which faculty and students from Penn and other institutions share their research and experience
  • organizes film series, lectures, and performances to develop public knowledge and appreciation of East Asian cultures
  • integrates study-abroad and summer programs, theatrical events, and artistic exhibitions
  • disseminates information about academic meetings, fellowships, educational opportunities
  • offers outreach programs and teacher training to area secondary schools
  • provides conferences, publications, an electronic network, and other services commensurate with Penn's role in the East Asian Studies community.

The Center is also a U.S. Department of Education Undergraduate National Resource Center. As such it supports undergraduate education in East Asian Studies and serves as a resource for the region and the nation.

CEAS Reading Room

All students and faculty interested in East Asian studies are welcome to visit the new reading room. The reading room includes:

  • Journals
  • Reference books
  • Scholarship and fellowship information booklets and applications
  • Video Library

Publications List

Subscriptions:

  • Positions
  • Association of Asian Studies Newsletter
  • Association of Asian Studies Journal
  • Critical Asian Studies
  • The Economist
  • Far East Economic Review
  • Social Science Japan

Other periodicals received:

  • Korean IFANS
  • Gaiko Forum (English and Japanese)
  • The Japan Journal
  • Japan Info
  • International House of Japan
  • Japan Echo
  • Kateigaho (International Edition)
  • The NFMK News
  • Korean Foundation Newsletter
  • Koreana
  • Yale Journal of International Affairs
  • DongoPo Newspaper
  • Stanford Magazine
  • Social Science Research Council Publication
  • China Development Brief

The Center for East Asian Studies and the reading room are open from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m., Monday-Friday during the academic year. Please call ahead for summer hours. Located in Williams 641, Center for East Asian Studies.

The Center also publishes a weekly e-mail newsletter listing regional events, employment and fellowship opportunities, and conferences. For further information call the Center for East Asian Studies (215-573-4203). Please also check our web page for information on all courses in East Asian Studies, courses scheduled for the upcoming semester, CEAS video library holdings, and links to other East Asia pages.

Lectures Sponsored by the Center for East Asian Studies

  • CEAS Distinguished Lecturer

    The annual lecture brings a premier East Asia Scholar with a distinguished career in his or her field to speak to the Penn community. Through their superior scholarship and respected careers, the distinguished lecturers inspire students and faculty to excel in their own endeavors. Past lecturers have included James Cahill, Professor Emeritus, History of Art, University of California at Berkeley, and Ambassador James Lilley, Resident Fellow of the American Economic Institute and former Ambassador to the People's Republic of China and to South Korea, and former Chief Economic Representative to the Republic of China. The Distinguished Lectureship is sponsored by the Center for East Asian Studies.
  • Center for East Asian Studies / Lauder Institute Lectures

    The Center for East Asian Studies and Wharton's Lauder Institute of Management and International Studies cosponsor an annual lecture that speaks to current issues relevant to business and economics in East Asia. This collaboration typifies the role that CEAS plays in crossing boundaries between departments and schools within the University community.
  • East Asian Studies Humanities Colloquium

    Each year members of the East Asian scholarly community are invited to present some aspect of their ongoing research. Speakers include members of Penn's own pool of East Asia specialists as well as scholars from other institutions. The Colloquium offers an excellent opportunity for scholarly exchange. All graduate students with an East Asian concentration are expected to attend regularly. The series is sponsored by the Center for East Asian Studies and the Penn Humanities Forum.
  • East Asia Social Sciences Seminar

    A series oriented to contemporary law, history, and the social sciences in East Asia, the East Asia Social Sciences Seminar (EASSS) appeals to a diverse cross-section of the Penn community. During the 2000-01 academic year, members of the Law School, Wharton, the Medical School, and the School of Arts and Sciences have enjoyed the variety of speakers offering insight into their respective fields. Speakers have included Philip Short, former BBC correspondent; Nicholas Lardy, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute; Eric Feldman, former Associate Director of NYU's Institute for Law and Society; and Michael Davis, Professor of Government and Public Administration, Chinese University of Hong Kong. The series is sponsored by the Center for East Asian Studies.
  • Korean Lecture Series

    This series, sponsored by the Center for Korean Studies, forms part of Penn's commitment to Korean Studies on campus. The series is chaired by Milan Hejtmanek, Korea Foundation Assistant Professor of History and nominated Director of the Center for Korean Studies. Each year a variety of fields will be discussed, covering topics in disciplines from history to politics and government to art and culture. Lecturers in the first year of the series included Yoo Young, Korean politician and professor, Yoo Young-dai, Korea University folklorist, and Martina Deuchler, the eminent Korea historian at the University of London's School of Oriental and African Studies.

The East Asian Library Collection

Books in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean are shelved together at the west end of the fifth floor of Van Pelt Library. Adjacent to the collection is the Derk Bodde East Asian Seminar Room, named for Penn's eminent professor emeritus of Chinese. The Seminar Room contains reference books and selected core current periodicals in Japanese and Chinese. Listings for older materials in Chinese and Japanese are found in the Van Pelt main card catalogs. Materials on East Asia processed since 1968 are included in FRANKLIN, the on-line computer database. A card catalog of the East Asian collection is located directly outside of the Seminar Room near both the collection and a FRANKLIN terminal. Books on East Asia in languages other than Chinese, Japanese, or Korean are shelved topically throughout Van Pelt Library and other University libraries. Most periodicals on East Asia in all languages are kept in the Current Periodicals area or in the stacks. Working space for students is found in the Seminar Room and in carrels, which can be reserved for the year, near the East Asian collection. Next to the Seminar Room are the offices of the East Asian bibliographers Mr. Jidong Yang (Chinese materials) and Mr. Alban Kojima (Japanese materials), who may be consulted about the location of materials in East Asian languages, as well as about library purchases or inter-library loan of materials in Chinese or Japanese. Mr. Kojima may also be consulted regarding Korean materials. The bibliographer's office has two CJK computer terminals which may be used for searching the RLIN national bibliographic database. Other databases on East Asia may be searched from terminals near the Reference sections of Van Pelt or Lippincott libraries. For advanced graduate students, access to the Gest Library at Princeton University may be arranged. Those responsible for the East Asian Library and East Asian Reserve Room are:

Alban M. KOJIMA, Japanese Studies Librarian
Room 527, Van Pelt Library
(215) 898-3205
E-mail: akojima@pobox.upenn.edu

Jidong YANG, Chinese Studies Librarian
Room 528, Van Pelt Library /6206
(215) 898-3412
E-mail: jdyang@pobox.upenn.edu

University Museum, East Asian Collection

The University Museum houses a collection of important artistic and ethnographic holdings of Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan, Indian, and Southeast Asian materials. They are shown in permanent and special exhibits, and are also available for student and specialist research. The Museum's unique collection of Chinese Buddhist sculpture and Tang figurines is displayed in the Rotunda. In the adjoining gallery, the semi-permanent exhibit, "Buddhism: The History and Diversity of a Great Tradition," traces the spread of Buddhism from India northward to China and Japan, and southward to Southeast Asia. The exhibit brings together artifacts from India, Central Asia, China, Japan, Thailand, Burma, and Cambodia. A special exhibition on Mongolia opens October 20th. See the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology website for events related to this collection http://www.upenn.edu/museum/

Exhibit - Modern Mongolia: Reclaiming Genghis Khan

October 20, 2001-July 2002

Modern Mongolia: Reclaiming Genghis Khan created by the University of Pennsylvania Museum and the National Museum of Mongolian History, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, invites the visitor to experience Mongolian life from the beginning of the 20th century to today--and discover Genghis Khan's lasting legacy to his people. The exhibition runs through July 2002.

Three life-size dioramas of gers (the Mongolian word for yurt, the nomads' traditional home), feature many of the exhibition's 192 Mongolian costumes and artifacts shown in America for the first time. These gers and 35 rare archival photographs reconstruct 20th-century nomadic life. Four films made especially for the exhibition provide historic background and help to illuminate Genghis Khan's relationship to contemporary Mongolians' democratic ideals.

"Nine years before the signing of the Magna Carta in England, Genghis Khan brought Mongolians the gifts of independence, nationhood, and the basic principles from which they would one day build a modern democratic state." asserts Dr. Paula Sabloff, Senior Research Scientist at the University of Pennsylvania Museum and Curator of the new exhibition. In Dr. Sabloff's recent anthropological research, Mongolians identified the democratic principles they believe are their heritage from Genghis Khan , their beloved ancestor National independence, rule by law, equality under the law, and religious freedom were on high on their list. Curator: Paula Sabloff, Senior Research Scientist, University of Pennsylvania Museum

East Asia House

East Asia House, formerly known as East Asia College House, is a part of Penn's Living-Learning Programs and is located in Harnwell House, a high-rise residence that offers apartment-style accommodations. East Asia House brings together a multicultural group of students who are interested in the languages, cultures, and societies of East Asia and the experiences of East Asians and people of East Asian descent in the United States. Program activities for the academic year may include off-campus cultural trips, faculty dinners, language tables, a career-talk lecture series, and activities with other campus organizations. East Asia House provides residents with their own lounge as well as lodging; it occupies the 9th and 10th floors of Harnwell House. In addition to its focus on East Asian cultures, a second dimension of the House explores the Asian-American cultural experience by engaging in various activities with Asian student groups such as the Chinese Student Association (CSA), the Korean Culture Club, and the Wharton Asian Club. With a strong emphasis on resident participation at the planning and organization levels, past activities have included dances, arts and crafts workshops, martial arts classes, language conversation hours, apartment dinner exchanges, potlucks, dinner parties with faculty, and lectures on relevant topics by prominent scholars and professionals.

East Asia House has established a small library of books related to East Asian studies, currently housed in the lounge; this collection continues to expand. For additional information on East Asia House, please contact:

  • College House Programs Office in High Rise North: 898-5551
  • West Campus Residence Office in High Rise East: 898-6663
  • Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, 847 Williams Hall: 898-7466

Please visit http://harnwell.house.upenn.edu/programs/index.php#eah for the East Asia House homepage and other East Asian resources on the web.

Graduate Student Colloquium in East Asian Studies

The Graduate Student Colloquium in East Asian Studies is sponsored by the Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Membership is open to graduate students at the University of Pennsylvania and other area universities who are studying topics related to the East Asian region. This colloquium seeks to foster communication across disciplinary lines and provide opportunities for graduate students to develop and present papers related to East Asia in a comfortable, informal setting.

For more information, contact GSCEAS coordinators, Mike Laver and Tom Radice, at gsceas@sas.upenn.edu, or visit http://www.sas.upenn.edu/gsceas/ for the Graduate Student Colloquium's website.

AMES Undergraduate Student Association

The AMES Undergraduate Student Association is a student run organization built to help foster a sense of community between the faculty and students of the AMES major/minor and among the majors/minors themselves. While the focus is primarily on the AMES major/minor, all who are interested in Asia and the Middle East are free to become members and attend weekly meetings. For more information, please visit http://www.geocities.com/amesusa/. To join the general listserve (discussions, member communications), send an email to amesusa-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. To join the events listserve (info on events by the AMEUSA), send an email to amesusa_events-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

 



Center for East Asian Studies University of Pennsylvania 642 Williams Hall 225 S. 36th Street Philadelphia, PA 19104
Phone: 215.573.4203 Fax: 215.573.2561 Email: ceas@ccat.sas.upenn.edu