Department of
Asian Languages &
Literatures
453 Folwell Hall
9 Pleasant St. SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455

E-mail: all@umn.edu

Concentrations

Students are encouraged to focus on specific bodies of theoretical writings that have emerged with respect to distinct objects of study in the humanities fields as a whole. By organizing the program through such broad rubrics as "prose and poetry" or "film and visual media," students are encouraged to understand how their specific Asian objects of study correlate with those of other areas of the world (or whether they do not, and if so, why).

The kinds of theoretical writing that is incorporated into a student’s specific trajectory through the program will include works in Asian languages but they will not necessarily be restricted to just those languages. The concentration fields are wide enough for students to be able to develop their own specific interests and bibliographic expertise. Recent scholarship on questions such as representation, performance, location, gender, and sexuality overlap with each of the concentrations below. We consider essential knowledge of the socio-political contexts in which Asian cultural forms and aesthetic productions take shape.

Prose and Poetry

Included in this category are canonical works of prose and poetry of different eras and different traditions, yet commentary and criticism, philosophical and theoretical treatises, popular and mass cultural phenomena are thereby not excluded. Through examining different prose and poetic traditions along with different theoretical approaches, possibilities for establishing new innovative interpretive frameworks are to be engendered.

Film and Visual Culture

Visual media of all the major regions and languages of Asia, including film, video, photography, anime, as well as traditional forms such as calligraphy, painting, and printing can serve as the focus of research. The film and visual media concentration works in tandem with other institutions and departments on campus. See University of Minnesota’s E-Center for Cinema for more information.

Theater and Music

We encourage studies of theater in a broad sense, ranging from drama to performance in general. The analysis of play scripts and readings of performance in popular cultures both fall within the scope of this concentration, as does the sociology of taste in the case of music. We encourage engagement with the specific cultural codes that mediate acting and performance in Asia.