East Asian Studies (MA) (60EC)

About the programme

The one-year master's in East Asian Studies, a specialisation of Leiden University’s master's in Asian Studies, offers focused study of either China, Japan or Korea.

Course overview

Courses (September start)
Course	EC
Introduction to Asian Studies	10
Advanced Mandarin 1	10
Advanced Japanese 1 (60EC)	10
Advanced Korean Reading	10
China's International Political Economy	10
China's New Workers and the Politics of Culture	10
Comparative Asian Linguistics	10
Creativity and Culture in Contemporary China	10
Critical Approaches to Heritage Studies 10EC	10
Cultural Heritage in East Asia: Dealing with the Past in the Present and Future	10
Democratizing Histories (5 EC)	5
Democratizing Histories (10 EC)	10
East Asian Political Economy	10
Lives on the Margins: Korean Peninsula Migration and Identity (5 EC)	5
Lives on the Margins: Korean Peninsula Migration and Identity (10 EC)	10
Pilgrimage and Holy Places	10
Pure Land Buddhism	5
Sound as Heritage in Asia	10
State, Economy and Politics in Contemporary China and India	10
Taiwan MA Seminar	10
The Premodern in the Modern: Historicizing Gender and Sexuality	10
Topical Readings in Classical Japanese	10
Topical Readings in Historical and Literary Chinese Texts	10
Urbanism and Digitality Across Asia	10
Advanced Mandarin 2	5
Advanced Japanese 2 (60EC)	5
Topical Readings in Korean	5
MA Thesis Asian Studies (60 EC)	15
Advanced Readings in Classical Chinese	5
Art and Power in China	10
Buddhism seminar	10
Culture and Conquest: the Impact of the Mongols and their Descendants	10
China and Global Cyberspace	10
Material Culture, Heritage and Memory along the Silk Roads in Central Asia	10
Modern Japanese International Political Thought	10
Sinographics: Chinese Writing and Writing Chinese	10
The Past in the Present: Nation-building in Modern China (5 EC)	5
The Past in the Present: Nation-building in Modern China (10 EC)	10
The Politics of Destruction: Targeting World Heritage	10
Word and Image in Premodern Japanese Culture: Reworking the Classics	10
Internship MA Asian Studies	10

Detailed programme

To find out more about the programme structure and courses offered on this programme, please check the Prospectus.

Please note that this guide applies to the current academic year, which means that the curriculum for next year may slightly differ.

Ethan Mark

Senior University Lecturer

“I try to encourage my students to think critically by pushing them to interrogate the categories through which we think and by which we describe the world: where they came from, what forces constructed them, and for what purposes.”

“In a world in which we are so often confronted with the appearance of essential differences, I seek to stimulate an awareness of the interconnectedness of our identities and our histories, informed by an awareness of history itself not as a single narrative of objective facts, but as a field of ongoing contestation between competing narratives and competing political agendas.”

Admission and Application

Do you want to find out if you are eligible for this Master's Programme?

Check the entry requirements