Aboust Us

The Department of East Asian Studies began as the Centre for Chinese Studies in 1964. Japanese Studies was introduced in 1969 and the department was renamed as the Department of Chinese and Japanese Studies. After the introduction of the Korean Studies in 2001, the department was rechristened as the Department of East Asian Studies. The department is part of the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Delhi.

The department offers four postgraduate courses: M.A. in East Asian Studies, Japanese, Chinese and Korean Language. It provides inter-disciplinary doctoral research programmes in East Asian Studies, offering opportunities in diverse areas such as history, culture, language, literature, society, economics, politics, security studies and international relations. In M.A. and Ph.D. in East Asian Studies, language is a compulsory component, and students are required to learn one of the three East Asian languages: Chinese, Japanese and Korean. The department also offers full-time Postgraduate Diplomas in Chinese, Japanese and Korean languages, besides part-time Certificate, Diploma and Advanced Diploma courses in Chinese, Japanese and Korean languages in various colleges of the University of Delhi.

The department facilitates scholarships for higher studies in China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan from various funding agencies and organisations, viz. UNESCO/People’s Republic of China-Great Wall Co-sponsored Fellowships, Taiwan Huayu Scholarship, Huawei Scholarship, Mitsubishi Corporation International Scholarship, Japanese Language scholarships for outstanding students from the Japan Foundation, Shinhan Bank Scholarships, LG Electronics, US-India-China Initiative by John Hopkins University, Harvard-Yenching Fellowships etc.

The Department is equipped with a state-of-the-art Language Lab, which has a rich collection of audio and video teaching materials. The departmental Library has over 80,000 books and a number of prominent journals in English, Chinese, Japanese and Korean languages.

The Department of East Asian Studies is fully Wi-Fi enabled for all students, staff, and faculty members.

Prof. Ranjana Mukhopadhyaya

Head, DEAS