We are a student-centered department in which research is integrated into the classroom. For undergraduates, the LCA major provides multiple entry-points for students with diverse backgrounds and interests and demands a breadth of geographic and disciplinary commitment to Asian materials within the larger rubric of the humanities. Graduate students in LCA receive rigorous training in at least two Asian languages, study current theoretical and methodological approaches to Asian humanities, and take specialized courses in their area of interest leading to independent original research. At all levels, students benefit from flexible curricula that allow them to shape disciplinary and other depth specialties according to their interests and future plans.

LCA students and faculty engage in and promote the study of Asia as a constituent part of global realities and trends. We are committed to a new vision of Asian studies in which reflections on, and solutions to, human conflict and problems emerge equally from the expressive and imaginative creations of Asia as from anywhere else.