Courses

Every semester, Duke offers a variety of courses focused on East Asia in multiple academic disciplines. These courses can be used to meet minor, major, certificate, and degree requirements for programs such as the MA in East Asian Studies.

Note: Graduate students must take courses at the 500-level or higher; undergraduate courses cannot be applied to the credits needed for a graduate degree.

Course descriptions and schedules for current and prospective students are available via DukeHub.

Explore APSI's curated list of East Asian Studies courses:

Jump to the list of FA26 courses >>
Jump to the list of SP27 courses >>
See archived lists of courses>>

East Asian Studies course-related policies and forms

Applying courses to your program of study

If a desired course is not listed below as an East Asia course, students can petition the DGS to count the course toward the MA in East Asian Studies degree requirements or East Asian Studies graduate certificate if at least 1/3 of the graded work (e.g.: exams, weekly writing assignments, major papers) is on East Asia.

Students must fill out the Request to Take Unlisted East Asian Courses Form and submit it to the DGSA before 5:00 p.m. two business days before the last day of the drop/add period.

Independent Study

Students seeking to conduct an East Asian Studies Independent Study (EAS 791) should obtain instructor and DGS approval before submitting the Application for Research Independent Study in East Asian Studies.

East Asian Studies MA milestone

Students pursuing an MA in East Asian Studies are given the option to either write an MA thesis or revise and submit two research papers originally developed during coursework to satisfy milestone requirements for the degree.

Students must declare their milestone option by September 30th of the second year.

Language policy for East Asian Studies graduate students

Up to two graduate-level language courses can be applied to the degree requirements for the Master of Arts in East Asian Studies.

Graduate students in the CAMEH or EAS programs who would like to study language through AMES and have graduate level credits count toward their degree must review the policy outlined on the AMES DUS website.

East Asian Studies graduate certificate

Students enrolled in any of Duke’s graduate degree programs are encouraged to document their area specialization by earning a Graduate Certificate in East Asian Studies.

Taking undergraduate courses as graduate students

Graduate students in any program wanting to enroll in an undergraduate-level course must meet with the DGS and gain approval.

Students must fill out the Permission to Enroll in a Course Below the 500 Level Form and submit it to the Graduate School before 5:00 p.m. two business days before the last day of the drop/add period.

Inter-institutional registration

Duke students are also eligible to enroll in classes at the University of North Carolina.

Details on receiving credit via inter-institutional registration can be found on the Registrar's website.

East Asian Studies Courses, FALL 2026

Note: this list of Fall 2026 courses is a working draft, subject to change. Please verify all listings, including instructors as well as course meeting dates and times, in DukeHub.

Asian & Middle Eastern Studies
Course #	Title	Instructor	Cross-listing
AMES 107	Introduction to East Asian Cultures: Narrating East Asia through Word and Image	Guo-Juin Hong	ICS 144
AMES 120CN	Asian Foodways in Migration	Eileen Chow	AADS 120CN, ICS 127CN
AMES 254S	Unsettling Modernity: Korea, Empire, Diaspora	Sung Eun Kim	AADS 254S, HIST 252S, LIT 254S
AMES 339	Militarism Across Asia/Pacific/America	Sung Eun Kim	AADS 339, GSF 339, HISTORY 339, ICS 387
AMES 408S*	The Geopolitics of Islamophobia from Bosnia to Xinjiang	Erdag Goknar	HIST 416S, ICS 421S, PUBPOL 413S
AMES 420S*	Critical Digital Studies	Kimberly Hassel	CMAC 420S, CULANTH 420S, ICS 439S, ISS 420S
AMES 439	Queer China	Carlos Rojas	CULANTH 439, GSF 439, LIT 439, VMS 439
AMES 503S-02*	Critical Digital Studies	Kimberly Hassel	N/A
AMES 551S*	Translation: Theory/Praxis	Eileen Chow	LIT 551S
AMES 747S	The Memory Project Archives: Theory and Practice	Guo-Juin Hong	MFAEDA 747S
AMES 790S	Special Topics in Critical Asian Humanities Methodologies	Carlos Rojas	N/A

Art History
Course #	Title	Instructor	Cross-listing
ARTHIST 432S	From the Art of the Pleasure Quarters to Tokyo Pop	Gennifer Weisenfeld	AMES 452S, VMS 432S
ARTHIST 723S*	Grant Writing and Prospectus	Gennifer Weisenfeld	N/A

Chinese
Course #	Title	Instructor	Cross-listing
CHINESE 99	Survival Chinese: Navigating Daily Conversations	Jiali Guo	N/A
CHINESE 101	First-Year Chinese I	Tianshu He	N/A
CHINESE 102	First-Year Chinese II	Shasha Yang	N/A
CHINESE 105	First-Year Chinese in Review I	Chi-Ju Hsieh	N/A
CHINESE 131	First-Year Chinese for Bilingual Learners	Ya-Chuan Chou	N/A
CHINESE 203	Intermediate Chinese I	Jiali Guo/Shu Zhang	N/A
CHINESE 204	Intermediate Chinese II	Ya-Chuan Chou	N/A
CHINESE 232	Intermediate Chinese for Bilingual Learners	Jin-Wei Hung	N/A
CHINESE 305	Pre-advanced Chinese	Shu Zhang	N/A
CHINESE 306	Advanced Chinese II	Shasha Yang	N/A
CHINESE 331	Modern Chinese Society and Culture through New Media	Tianshu He	N/A
CHINESE 333	Advanced Chinese for Bilingual Learners	Chi-Ju Hsieh	N/A
CHINESE 407S	Issues in Chinese Language and Society I	Jin-Wei Hung	N/A
CHINESE 455	Modern Chinese Culture: Narratives of Home and Abroad	Kang Liu	N/A

Cultural Anthropology
Course #	Title	Instructor	Cross-listing
CULATNH 744S*	Mobility	Engseng Ho	N/A

Dance
Course #	Title	Instructor	Cross-listing
DANCE 165CCS*	Let's Move! Dance as Knowing	Jingqiu Guan	N/A
DANCE 307S*	Dance Film: Documentary Aesthetics in Dance-Moving Image Practice	Jingqiu Guan	CINE 307S, DOCST 307S
DANCE 707S*	Dance Film: Documentary Aesthetics in Dance-Moving Image Practice	Jingqiu Guan	N/A

East Asian Studies
Course #	Title	Instructor	Cross-listing
EAS 700	East Asian Studies Core Course: Fields and Methods	Eileen Chow	AMES 700, HIST 707, RELIGION 700
EAS 791	Independent Study	Staff	N/A

Economics
Course #	Title	Instructor	Cross-listing
ECON 321*	Space Economics	Giovanni Zanalda	N/A
ECON 824*	International Trade I	Rafael Dix Carneiro, Daniel Xu	N/A
ECON 825*	Industrial Organization	Allan Collard-Wexler, Daniel Xu	N/A

Energy
Course #	Title	Instructor	Cross-listing
ENERGY 590*	Special Topics in Energy	Jackson Ewing/Sandeep	N/A

English
Course #	Title	Instructor	Cross-listing
ENGLISH 180CN*	AI, Creativity, and Slop	Richard J So	N/A
ENGLISH 390*	Asian American and Asian Diaspora Films	Xinyu Dong	AADS 390, AMES 390, CINE 290, ICS 390
ENGLISH 890S*	History Contemp Lit Criticism	Richard J So	N/A

Experimental & Documentary Arts
Course #	Title	Instructor	Cross-listing
MFAEDA 791*	Thesis Writing Workshop	Stanley Abe	N/A

Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies
Course #	Title	Instructor	Cross-listing
GSF 202S*	Introduction to LGBTQ Studies	Anna Storti	N/A
GSF 361*	Money, Sex, Power	Ara Wilson	RIGHTS 361
GSF 382S*	Intimacies: Sexuality, Nation, and the State	Anna Storti	AADS 382S

Global Health
Course #	Title	Instructor	Cross-listing
GLHLTH 761S*	Introductory Demographic Measures and Concepts	Giovanna Merli	N/A

History
Course #	Title	Instructor	Cross-listing
HISTORY 159S*	Gateway Seminar: What Did Your Grandparents Do? A Global Exploration of Individual Life Histories	Simon Partner	DOCST 159S
HISTORY 223	Survey of Modern China: 1800–Present	Yaming You	AMES 234
HISTORY 226	Ancient and Early Modern Japan	Simon Partner	AMES 167

Japanese
Course #	Title	Instructor	Cross-listing
JPN 101	Elementary Japanese	Naoko Kurokawa	N/A
JPN 203	Intermediate Japanese	Azusa Saito	N/A
JPN 305	Advanced Japanese	Yunchuan Chen	N/A

Korean
Course #	Title	Instructor	Cross-listing
KOREAN 101	Elementary Korean	Barohny Eun	N/A
KOREAN 102	Elementary Korean	Seojin Yang	N/A
KOREAN 203	Intermediate Korean	Seojin Yang	N/A
KOREAN 204	Intermediate Korean	Eunyoung Kim	N/A
KOREAN 303	Literacy and speech register in Korean	Hae-Young Kim	N/A
KOREAN 305	Advanced Korean	Hae-Young Kim	N/A
KOREAN 407S	Issues in Korean Language and Society I	Eunyoung Kim	N/A

Linguistics
Course #	Title	Instructor	Cross-listing
LINGUIST 125FS*	Languages, Margins, Borders: Representations, Practices, and Policies	Gareth O Price	ICS 125FS, SOCIOL 125FS
LINGUIST 372S*	Language and/in the Media	Gareth O Price	CULANTH 372S, SOCIOL 372S

Literature
Course #	Title	Instructor	Cross-listing
LIT 614S*	Power of the Story	Rey Chow	RELIGION 614S, VMS 619S

Music
Course #	Title	Instructor	Cross-listing
MUSIC 138	Popular Music of Asia and Asian America	Yun Emily Wang	AADS 138S, AMES 137S, CULANTH 138S
MUSIC 398S*	Meeting the World Through Chamber Music	Carolina Stinson, Hsiao-mei Ku	N/A
MUSIC 590–02*	Sound Thinking	Roseen Giles, Yun Emily Wang	N/A

Political Science
Course #	Title	Instructor	Cross-listing
POLSCI 317S*	Global Corruption	Melanie Manion	N/A
POLSCI 689L*	Computational Methods and Causal Analysis	Jiawei Fu	N/A
POLSCI 745*	Core in Political Economy	Edmund Malesky	N/A

Public Policy
Course #	Title	Instructor	Cross-listing
PUBPOL 790-05	Climate Policy and Innovation in Asia	Jonathan Stromseth	N/A
PUBPOL 820*	Globalization and Governance	Jonathan Stromseth	N/A

Religious Studies
Course #	Title	Instructor	Cross-listing
RELIGION 257	Understanding Chinese Religions	Anna Sun	AMES 257
RELIGION 780S	American Foreign Missions and Chinese Christianity	Xi Lian	WXTIAN 813
WXTIAN 716*	Christianity's Encounter with Other Religions and Cultures: The Case of East Asia	Xi Lian	N/A
XTIANTHE 990*	Mind, Minds, and God	Jonathan Tran	N/A

Sociology
Course #	Title	Instructor	Cross-listing
SOCIOL 344*	Technology and Organizational Environments	Bai Gao	N/A

**_{* All assignments must be done on East Asia to be applied to the MA in East Asian Studies or the Graduate Certificate in East Asian Studies}**

East Asian Studies Courses, SPRING 2027

Courses will be added to this list once the schedule is approved by the university registrar. Details about the schedule are subject to change and should be confirmed in DukeHub.

For a look at past semesters’ offerings, see the course archives section, below.