Interested in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean? We have language and culture classes regardless of your starting level, and separate major and minor tracks for each culture. Interested in Hindi-Urdu and the films and literatures of India? You can major in South Asian Studies or minor in the Hindi-Urdu language. Interested in the Arab World? You can major in Arab Cultures or minor in Arabic. We also have minors in Hebrew, Persian, or Middle Eastern Languages, and in addition offer language courses in Turkish and Vietnamese. Perhaps our most flexible option is the Interdisciplinary major and minor, which allows you to mix-and-match and explore comparisons across cultures. 

What can you do with a major in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies? Read about some of our alums, like Erin Posas (2016), doing graduate work in Environment and Sustainability with a concentration in Environmental Justice at the University of Michigan, and Matt Coss (2016), doing his PhD in Second Language Studies at Michigan State University. Or Sarah Mackenzie, who graduated in 2020 with a minor in Arabic, who won a Rhodes Scholarship! Or Will Powers (2008), who appeared on the reality TV show The Tester and had a career at Sony. Or Faith Virago (2020) who won a spot at Peking University’s Yenching Academy after completing her senior honors thesis in DAMES! Or Rashad Hauter (2007), who is now a District Court Judge at Wake County District Court! Or Jason Mortimer(2006) who lives in Japan and works for Nomura Asset Management! Find many more stories of DAMES students, faculty, staff, and alumni on our blog: https://asianstudies.unc.edu/blog/

To learn more, talk to your instructor or reach out to our Student Services Coordinator, Ash Barnes, who is also a DAMES alum! You can easily make a virtual appointment with her right now:  https://outlook.office365.com/owa/calendar/AshsOfficeHours@admin.live.unc.edu/bookings/.

I am also happy to meet in person or virtually, or to answer questions by email: mpitelka@unc.edu. 

Join us in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies!

-Morgan Pitelka, Chair

The Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (DAMES) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is accepting applications for its Fall 2022 Master’s program.

• Priority deadline—December 14, 2021
  • NOTE: If you want to be considered for FLAS and university scholarships/fellowships, you need to submit all application materials by December 14.
• Final deadline—June 14

Why Study with Us?

• The DAMES M.A. offers humanistic training to students in one of two tracks: either the broad, interdisciplinary area of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, or the more focused field of Chinese studies.
• Our program provides the chance to improve proficiency in one or more languages designated “critical” to the future of America by the State Department (Chinese, Japanese, Korea, Vietnamese, Hindi-Urdu, Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, and Turkish), as well as significant expertise in the culture of a country or region in Asia or the Middle East.
• Our students develop advanced skills beyond those already mastered as undergrads to enhance future careers in higher ed, politics, international organizations and non-profits, journalism, the military, and business and finance.
• Reach out to us with questions! We include scholars of literature and environmental humanities, experts in critical theory, historians of culture, specialists in film and visual culture, anthropologists of medicine, and experts in language teaching among other topics.

Please visit our website (https://asianstudies.unc.edu/ma-program/) for more information about our faculty, financial information, funding opportunities, and applying. If you have questions, please contact the Director of Graduate Studies at damesdgs@unc.edu.

A short but loving video from your assorted DAMES faculty offering heartfelt congratulations to the graduating class of 2021! We so enjoyed teaching you the languages and cultures of Asia and the Middle East over the past four years! Please stay in touch and let us know how we can continue to support you. ❤️❤️❤️❤️

The Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies categorically condemns the attacks on Asian Americans in Atlanta on March 16, 2021, and rejects the rise in anti-Asian violence and discrimination of the past year. These acts are rooted in a long American history of white supremacy, xenophobia, and anti-immigrant racism, and our department exists to oppose such bigotry and bias through education, language learning, international collaboration, and scholarly activism. We stand in solidarity with UNC’s newly established Asian American Center and our long-standing partner the Carolina Asia Center and offer our support to all Asian and Asian American students, faculty, and staff.

Some resources suggested by Professor Heidi Kim, Director of the AAC, among other friends and colleagues:

Asian American Community Organizations

UNC Asian American Center. Asian American Center (unc.edu)

North Carolina Asian Americans Together. North Carolina Asian Americans Together (ncaatogether.org)

Counseling and Psychological Services

UNC Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS, unc.edu)

Asian American Psychological Association COVID-19 Resources, AAPA COVID-19 Related Resources – Google Docs

Asian Americans and the Movement for Black Lives (Workshop). March 31, 2021 7 p.m.

Meeting Registration – Zoom

Asian Mental Health Collective (online community for Asian mental health support). Asian Mental Health Collective (asianmhc.org)

Asian, Pacific Islander, and South Asian American Therapist Directory

APISAA Therapist Directory — Asian Mental Health Collective (asianmhc.org)

24-Hour Asian LifeNet Hotline. Call 1 (877) 990-8585, Available 24/7. Languages available: Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, Fujianese.

Resources for Reporting Hate Crimes

At UNC

1. Report an Incident Form
2. University Ombuds Office 

External Reporting Resources

1. Stop AAPI Hate
2. North Carolina Asian Americans Together (NCAAT)
3. Fair Housing NC – Know Your Rights
4. NAPABA Hate Crime Resources

Readings and Teaching Resources

Ho, Jennifer. “Anti-Asian Racism, Black Lives Matter, and COVID-19.” Japan Forum, DOI

10.1080/09555803.2020.1821749. https://doi.org/10.1080/09555803.2020.1821749.

Hsu, Madeline. Asian American History: A Very Short Introduction.2^nd ed. Oxford University

Press, 2016.

Lee, Erika. The Making of Asian America: A History. Simon & Schuster 2015.

Lopez, Ian Haney. White By Law: the Legal Construction of Race. 10^th Anniversary edition.

NYU Press 2006.

Maeda, Daryl. Chains of Babylon: the Rise of Asian America. University of Minnesota Press

2009.

Ngai, Mae. Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. Princeton

University Press 2014.

Schlund-Vials, Cathy, Linda Vo, Scott Wong (eds). Keywords for Asian American Studies. New

York University Press 2015.

Other Resources

• https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1198DuPjqHXzVrRk66VQpqNGr14UjWqLlhfVUbPRqZwA/htmlview#gid=0
• “Teaching Against Racism in the time of COVID-19 Resources” by Professors Anna Guevarra (guevarra@uic.edu), Director and Associate Professor of Global Asian Studies, Michael Jin (mrjin@uic.edu), Assistant Professor of Global Asian Studies and History, and Gayatri Reddy (gayatri@uic.edu), Associate Professor of Gender & Women’s Studies and Anthropology at the University of Illinois Chicago.

Black American Relations with South Koreans: Historical Origins and Present Trajectories

Presentation on February 3, 4 PM by Professor Nadia Kim (Loyola Marymount University), moderated by Morgan Wilson (Ph.D. candidate, UNC Department of History).

Nadia Y. Kim, professor of sociology at Loyola Marymount University, focuses on US race and citizenship inequalities regarding Korean/Asian Americans and South Koreans, race and nativist racism in Los Angeles (e.g., 1992 LA Unrest), immigrant women’s politics of the body and emotions, environmental racism and classism, and comparative racialization of Latinxs, Asian Americans, and Black Americans. Throughout her work, Kim’s approach centers (neo)imperialism, transnationality, and the intersectionality of race, gender, class, and citizenship. Kim is author of the multi-award-winning Imperial Citizens: Koreans and Race from Seoul to LA (Stanford, 2008); of Refusing Death: Immigrant Women Fight for Environmental Justice in LA (Stanford, forthcoming Spring 2021), and of award-winning journal articles on race and assimilation and on racial attitudes.

Register for the Zoom webinar here.

Part of the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies speaker series Blackness in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, supported by the Carolina Asia Center and the Institute for African American Research

Paige Cottingham-Streater, ‘Black Americans and US-Japan Relations,’ January 21, 2021, 4 PM ET

This session will feature Paige Cottingham-Streater, executive director of the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission, “Black Americans and U.S.-Japan Relations,” and will be moderated by Morgan Pitelka, chair of the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Cottingham-Streater directs the work of the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission. The Commission is an independent federal government agency that supports research, education, public affairs and exchange with Japan. Its mission is to support reciprocal people-to-people understanding, and promote partnerships that advance common interests between Japan and the United States. Prior to joining the Commission, Cottingham-Streater served as deputy executive director of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Foundation where she worked for sixteen years.  In addition to providing strategic leadership for the Mansfield Foundation, she directed the Mike Mansfield Fellowship Program, a Congressionally-established professional exchange for mid-level federal government employees.

Previously, Cottingham-Streater was director for the U.S.-Japan Project at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, DC.  In this capacity, she supervised visiting scholars, conducted research on US-Japan issues, managed the project’s budget and published the project’s newsletter.  And prior to that she served as counsel and legislative assistant in the office of Congressman Donald M. Payne (D-NJ), where she monitored legislative initiatives involving education, civil rights law enforcement, labor, and financial and social policy.  She was also a participant in the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program (JET), a staff attorney at the U.S. Department of Treasury, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and a law clerk at U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Marshals Service.

Cottingham-Streater received a J.D. from the National Law Center at George Washington University and a bachelor’s degree from Connecticut College in government and Asian studies.

This series is organized by the UNC Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies with support from Carolina Asia Center, the UNC Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies, and the UNC Institute of African American Research.

Download flyer: Black Americans and US-Japan Relations flyer

Professor Timothy Daniels (Hofstra University) spoke on the topic of “Blackness in Malaysia and Indonesia: Stories from the Field.” The talk was part of the DAMES 2020-2021 speaker series, “Blackness in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies,” and this event was co-sponsored by the UNC Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies and moderated by Dr. Kevin Fogg (Associate Director, Carolina Asia Center, UNC).

Video of the talk (UNC login required)

THANK YOU to Professor Troutt Powell and Professor Sturkey for making the event a huge success. The video of the talk can be found here or on YouTube.

The first event in the 2020-2021 “Blackness in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies” speaker series was held on September 22, at 4:30 PM. Eve M. Troutt Powell (Christopher H. Browne Distinguished Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania) presented “Training Slaves for the Camera: Race and Memory in Representations of Slaves, Khartoum, 1882.” The talk was moderated by UNC’s own Professor William Sturkey. All events will be held virtually through Zoom.

Eve M. Troutt Powell teaches the history of the modern Middle East and the history of slavery in the Nile Valley and the Ottoman Empire. As a cultural historian, she emphasizes the exploration of literature and film in her courses. She is the author of A Different Shade of Colonialism: Egypt, Great Britain and the Mastery of the Sudan (University of California, 2003) and the coeditor, with John Hunwick, of The African Diaspora in the Mediterranean Lands of Islam (Princeton Series on the Middle East, Markus Wiener Press, 2002). Her most recent book is Tell This in My Memory: Stories of Enslavement in Egypt, Sudan and the Late Ottoman Empire (Stanford University Press, 2012). Troutt Powell is now working on a book about the visual culture of slavery in the Middle East which will explore the painting and photography about African and Circassian slavery in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Please register here.

Organized by the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, co-sponsored by the UNC Center for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies and the Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies, with support from the Institute of African American Research.

Rashad Ahmed Hauter graduated from UNC in 2007 with majors in Biology and Asian Studies, concentrating on Arabic. Professor Nadia Yaqub remembers him well as an enthusiastic student. Rashad was a first-generation college student, the child of Yemeni immigrants who “fled poverty and unrest in pursuit of the American dream” and established a business in Vance County, NC.

After UNC, Rashad attended the Campbell University School of Law and graduated cum laude. He became assistant district attorney for Wake County, trying more than 800 bench trials. Next he took up a role as a state Regional Traffic Safety Resource Prosecutor, trying more than 700 bench trials and 40 jury trials. In 2017, he founded his own private practice as a criminal defense and immigration attorney.

Most recently, Rashad is running in the special election of the Tenth Judicial District Bar (Wake County) to be a nominee considered by Governor Cooper for appointment to this position, resulting from Judge Denning’s resignation. Rashad is a wonderful reminder that studying Asian and Middle Eastern languages and cultures brings opportunities globally but also locally; in fact Rashad sometimes is able to offer his legal services pro bono for those who need an Arabic-speaking attorney.