ASIAN LANGUAGES & LITERATURE FACT SHEET
Source: https://artsci.washington.edu/academics/humanities/asian-languages-literature/fact-sheet Parent: https://artsci.washington.edu/academics/arts/art-arthistory-design/fact-sheet
Over half the world’s population lives in Asia, home to many of the oldest and most vibrant cultures in human history. We explore these cultures through literary, linguistic, and textual analysis, illuminating vital connections between East and West from our vantage point on the Pacific Rim.
107
Undergraduate majors
EDUCATION
The Department of Asian Languages and Literature plays a central role in all areas of Asian studies at the University, with a total enrollment of more than 5,000 students in its courses each year.
The department provides instruction in 11 Asian languages: Bengali, Chinese, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Khmer, Korean, Sanskrit, Telugu, Urdu, and Vietnamese. We award BA degrees in Asian Languages & Cultures, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and South Asian Languages & Cultures, and we offer MA and PhD degrees with specialization in Asian Languages and Cultures, Buddhist Studies, Chinese, Japanese, South Asian, and South Asian Languages and Literature.
While attaining language proficiency, our undergraduate majors explore the cultural, literary, and linguistic aspects of Asia, past and present. At the graduate level, students acquire and create knowledge through advanced seminars and original research.
The department strongly encourages its students to study abroad through programs coordinated with the UW Study Abroad Office. Students from across the University participate in language-intensive study programs in China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Nepal, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. For undergraduate and graduate students alike, the overseas experience is a crucial element in their intellectual, personal, and professional development.
Graduates of our programs go on to successful careers in academia, business, technology, government, journalism, law, entertainment, and other professions, using their cultural and linguistic expertise to foster understanding between Asia and the rest of the world.
Students
Autumn 2025
- 107 Undergraduate majors
- 77 Undergraduate minors
- 48 Graduate students
- 6,008 Total student enrollment (2024-2025)
Degrees Awarded
July 2024 - June 2025
- 61 BA degrees
- 7 MA degrees
- 3 PhD degrees
Student Awards
2023 - 2025
- Blakemore Freeman Fellowship
- Chester Fritz International Research and Study Fellowship 2025
- Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation Dissertation Fellowship
- China Times Cultural Foundation Young Scholar Award
- Critical Language Scholarship for Chinese
- Digital India Learning Fellowship by the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS)
- Eugene and Marilyn D. Webb Scholarship
- Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships
- Frank F. Conlon Fellowship by the South Asia Center at the University of Washington
- Fred and Ann Notehelfer Scholarship
- Fulbright Doctoral Degree Scholarship
- Japan Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) Fellowship
- Joan J. Welk Fellowship
- JSIS Ayako Betty Murakami Scholarship
- JSIS China Studies Research Grant
- JSIS Eugene & Marilyn D. Webb Scholarship
- JSIS Kasai-Buerge Scholarship
- JSIS Nam Chu (Yang) Koh Endowed Ph.D Fellowship in Korean Studies
- Khyentse-Husky Buddhist Studies Fellowship
- Maurice D. and Lois Schwartz Dissertation Fellowship
- Maurice D. and Lois Schwartz Graduate Fellowship
- Nippon Foundation Fellowship
- Premchand Award in Hindi Studies by the Institute for South Asian Studies at UC Berkeley
- S. Rao and Usha Varanasi Endowed Scholarship for Studies of India by the South Asian Center at the University of Washington
- Toshizo Watanabe Fellows Tuition Scholarship
- UW China Studies Dissertation Fellowship
- UW College of Arts and Sciences Graduate Medal in the Humanities
- Washin Kai Graduate Fellowship
FACULTY
Segments of an ancient birch bark manuscript, part of a collection of manuscripts dating back to the first century CE that are the focus of the Early Buddhist Manuscripts Project.
2025- 2026
- 7 Professors
- 7 Teaching Professors
- 5 Associate Professors
- 2 Associate Teaching Professors
- 5 Assistant Professors
- 4 Assistant Teaching Professors
- 6 Lecturers
- 1 Acting Assistant Professor
- 4 Adjunct Faculty
- 10 Emeritus Faculty
Recent Faculty Awards:
- 28th Yamagata Bantō Prize (Ōsaka International Culture Award)
- UW Center for Japan Studies Faculty Research Grant
- UW e-Science Institute AWS Research Credits
- UW Office of Research Royalty Research Fund Award
- UW Simpson Center Digital Humanities Summer Fellowship
- UW Simpson Center First Book Fellowship (3 faculty members)
- UW Simpson Center Religious Cultures Award
- UW Simpson Center Society of Scholars Faculty Fellowship
RESEARCH
Faculty in the Department of Asian Languages and Literature pursue their study of Asian languages and cultures primarily through the medium of text, but they represent a wide range of disciplinary interests, including linguistics, philosophy, history, literature, visual arts, and cultural studies. They participate in collaborative research projects that extend throughout the UW community and beyond. Examples of recent collaborations include:
- Deep Learning and Quantitative Analysis of Classical Japanese Orthography: Statistical analysis of orthographic features to enable dating and attribution of scribeship in classical Japanese texts, and development of a deep-learning model to automatically extract orthographic data in order to facilitate the statistical analysis.
- Early Buddhist Manuscripts Project: Established in 1996 to edit, study, and publish the earliest collections of Buddhist manuscripts yet discovered, dating to the first century C.E.
- Early Rekhta Poetry Project: An interdisciplinary collaboration to further understanding of literary exchanges along poetic networks in eighteenth-century multilingual South Asia.
- Japanese Visiting Scholar Program: The department hosts a senior scholar from a leading Japanese research university to co-teach a graduate seminar with department faculty on a topic of shared interest.
- Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics: A major international project involving many UW faculty as authors, editors, and advisers. The encyclopedia was published in January 2017 and is now a major reference in the field.
- Korean at the Nexus of the Northeast Asian Linguistic Area(in conjunction with Cornell University): Research on the status of Northeast Asia as a linguistic area or sprachbund, with a focus on Korean’s central role among the languages of this region.
- Reading Decoloniality (with University of Warwick (UK)): An inter-institutional research hub with an open-source publication (ISSN 2977-8573), reading group and residencies that produce and disseminate international and interdisciplinary scholarship for liberation.
- UW Translation Studies Hub: A project funded by the Simpson Center for the Humanities that aims to coalesce energies on campus and beyond by building on existing and emergent faculty and graduate student research courses, and initiatives in public engagement around translation.
Areas of Research
- Ancient Chinese Syntax and Phonology
- Applied Chinese Linguistics
- Applied Japanese Linguistics
- Asian Cultural Studies
- Asian Film and Media
- Book History and Print Culture
- Buddhist Studies
- Classical and Modern Chinese Literature
- Classical and Modern Japanese Literature
- Comparative Literature
- Digital Humanities
- Early Indian Buddhism and Buddhist Manuscripts
- Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies
- Hindi Literature and Linguistics
- Indian Ocean Cultural Studies
- Indian Philosophy
- Japanese Visual Culture
- Literature and Cultures of Indonesia and the Malay World
- Medieval Hindi Religious Literature
- Modern Korean Literature
- Okinawan Fiction
- Philology
- Sanskrit Literature and Religious Texts
- Second Language Acquisition
- Sociolinguistics
- Textual Criticism
- Translation and Interpretation
- Urdu Literature
- Writing Systems
OUTREACH
The department sponsors two evening lecture series for the general public: the annual endowed Andrew L. Markus Memorial Lecture (inaugurated in 1998) and the Washin Kai lecture series on Japanese language, literature, and culture (inaugurated in 2018).
The department faculty regularly lead language pedagogy workshops for teachers, including UW in the High School; organize colloquia and cultural events; host poetry readings; give public lectures; advise local nonprofit organizations; and judge language competitions.
CONTACT
Department of Asian Languages & Literature\ location:225 Gowen Hall\ mail address: Box 353521\ University of Washington\ Seattle, WA 98195\ (206) 543-4996\ email: asianll@uw.edu\ website: asian.washington.edu
last update: December 2025