The Department of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies is dedicated to the study of the civilizations of China, Japan, and Korea in all their richness and diversity. We focus on East Asia’s increasingly vital role on the world scene, and on the region’s long and fascinating history.
We offer Bachelor of Arts degrees in three areas: Asian Studies, Chinese, and Japanese.
As the East Asian region becomes ever more relevant globally, what happens there increasingly affects lives in the U.S. and elsewhere. Economic activity, political events, international conflicts, bilateral cooperation, and cultural evolution all play a part.
We seek to make the region more intelligible by providing linguistic, cultural, and historical contexts to current issues, and to challenge mainstream perceptions by offering students, as well as the larger community, in-depth knowledge and alternative visions of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean societies past and present.
Related Programs
The Center promotes Taiwan-related scholarly activities in the humanities, fine arts, and other cultural areas, providing a forum for the public and faculty and students from a variety of disciplines.
East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies News & Features
The Santa Barbara Chinese School was established in 1985 and has been hosted in a few different spaces over the years. It was held at UCSB in the early 2000s and moved over to the Chinese Evangelical Free Church of Santa Barbara in the 2010s. The COVID-19 pandemic prompted a transition into exclusively online lessons. Now, the Chinese School is back at UCSB in partnership with the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies.
At the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center’s Faculty Fellows showcase, three UCSB professors presented research that shatters conventional historical narratives. Their work focuses on urgent contemporary questions about power, resistance and the gap between official stories and hidden realities.
Christina Han, an associate professor of history at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, Canada, visited UCSB to present on the 17th-century Korean Sihwa ch'ongnim 詩話叢林 Compendium of Poetry Talks and the importance of collaborative, transnational scholarship in digital humanities.
Kaitlyn Ugoretz, a UCSB Ph.D. candidate, delves into the evolving practice of Shinto outside Japan, highlighting how sacred spaces are created through rituals rather than geography. Her research explores how Shinto is flourishing in the U.S. among non-Japanese practitioners, driven by global influences like anime and inclusive spiritual values.
Howard Chiang, Lai Ho and Wu Cho-liu Endowed Chair in Taiwan Studies and professor of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies at UC Santa Barbara discusses Sinophone studies and the newly published reader he co-edited with Shu-mei Shih. “Sinophone Studies Across Disciplines: A Reader” compiles essays that showcase the interdisciplinary potential of Sinophone studies as a nexus for marginalized global topics.
“HFA Speaks: For the Love of Language” brought together Sabine Frühstück, a UCSB professor of modern Japanese cultural studies, Magda Campo, an Arabic continuing lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies, and Laura Marqués-Pascual, the language program director in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese for a panel discussion. Moderated by Jackie Jauregui, the panel had a conversation about the importance of learning languages, and the related struggles of teaching it at a time of dropping enrollment nationally.
Professor Fabio Rambelli from UCSB’s Religious Studies and East Asian Languages & Cultural Studies departments, speaks about hosting “The Transcultural Exploratorium: Neuro Music and Japanese Culture” event and how he exposed the UCSB community to traditional Japanese sounds.
Musician and composer Gene Coleman spoke to a UC Santa Barbara audience about his work in Neuro Music. With compositions inspired by the brain’s auditory pathways, Coleman studies music from a neuroaesthetic perspective for creative production.
Shu-Chuan Chen’s, Professor in UCSB’s Department of East Asian Language and Cultural Studies, Chinese class offers students an immersive experience into Chinese culture. From hands-on cooking classes, New Years tea celebrations, and honoring the Lantern Festival, Chen’s class is praised by students for her ability to craft an informative yet engaging course. In this article, Chen sits with Isabella Genovese to talk about her teaching, life, and hopes .
Suigetsu, the Japanese term for reflected moon, often appears in Medieval Japanese literature and art. However, there is no consistent understanding for how the term is used metaphorically. UCLA Professor William Bodiford visited UCSB to explore this historical context and interpretation further, where he shared his own findings to do with reflected moons and explored the variance in metaphorical significance in different traditions.