The Department of Asian Studies and Center for Asian Studies at The University of Texas at Austin are the major facilities for the study of South and East Asia in the southern and southwestern United States. The Department of Asian Studies offers both an M.A. and a Ph.D. degree in Asian Cultures and Languages. Although many of the faculty working on Asia at The Univerity of Texas are members of both the Department and the Center, the two are academically and philosophically distinct. The Department and its degrees are intended to train students for careers in scholarly research and university and college teaching on Asia. The Center's M.A. degrees, on the other hand, are intended to provide a solid and broad background on Asia for students who will pursue careers in business, communications, government, the military, law, or high school teaching.
Asian languages are an integral component of all our degree programs.
By special arrangement, Bengali, Classical Tibetan, Telegu, Tamil and Kannada may be taught as tutorials. In addition to language work at all levels, the Department has particular strengths at the Ph.D. level in modern Chinese culture and literature, and is especially noted for the study of Taiwan fiction. For Japan, we are again strong in the areas of modern Japanese literature and society. For India our particular strength is in religion and law in the classical period. There are no other buildings between the two.