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COURSES OF STUDY
ASIAN STUDIES (AN)
Bachelor of Arts
Matthew Levey, Program Coordinator
The Asian Studies program is an interdisciplinary curriculum available
to students at Birmingham-Southern College, Miles College, Samford
University, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the University
of Montevallo. The program offers a major and a minor, but it is open to
students with other majors as well. Students who study Asia add a multi-
cultural dimension to their college education which is useful in graduate
study and careers in fields as diverse as government service, international
business, banking, marketing, law, education, and journalism. This
curriculum gives the student the opportunity to study Asian societies
from many disciplinary perspectives and to develop important analytical
and disciplinary skills. Asian Studies is particularly relevant to today’s
undergraduate because it emphasizes the changing traditions of Asia,
contemporary problems faced by Asian nations, and the relations between
Asian nations, as well as between them and Western nations. The courses in
the curriculum cover East, South, and Southeast Asia.
Major Requirements
The following courses are required (13 units):
two introductory courses, defined as courses with a breadth of coverage
in either geographic/cultural or temporal range. See Sinitic Survey
Options and Indic/Islamic Survey Options below.
four courses in an Asian language relevant to the student’s primary
cultural/geographic area of interest: Chinese or Japanese for those
interested in Sinitic (East) Asia, and Hindi or Arabic for those
interested in Indic/Islamic (South, Southeast, Southwest) Asia
six elective courses, five of which must constitute a cultural or
geographic area of concentration or core in either Sinitic (East) Asia
or Indic/Islam (South, Southeast or Southwest) Asia; and one of
which is from another cultural or geographic area. Electives may
not be “introductory,” as defined above; no more than four of the
electives can be in one academic discipline; no more than one of
the electives can be an international (non Asia-specific) course. See
Sinitic Electives and Indic/Islamic Electives below.
one course in a senior conference in an area of the student’s interest
