South and Southeast Asian Studies

Home Undergraduate Program South and Southeast Asian Studies

Program Description

South Asian studies has its focus on India, but course work and research on Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka are also encouraged. Southeast Asian studies has as its focus the nations of insular Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines), but course work and research in other areas such as Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam are also encouraged.

The India and South Asia component of the program has three special resources in support of study of the traditional and contemporary civilization and cultures of India: the Satyajit Ray Film and Study Collection (Ray FASC) at McHenry Library, the Ali Akbar Khan Endowment, and the Talat and Kamil Hasan Endowed Chair in Classical Indian Music. Hindi/Urdu is offered as part of the core curriculum.

Students interested in pursuing a broad social, political, and cultural understanding of South or Southeast Asia and their place in the world context through the creation of a Individual Major should discuss these possibilities with a listed faculty member and with their College office.  A student who undertakes the individual major in South or Southeast Asian studies is expected to complete a double major in conjunction with a discipline such as anthropology, one of the arts, Earth sciences, economics, education, environmental studies, feminist studies, history, linguistics, politics, or sociology.

Requirements for the Minor

Students must complete Anthropology 130E, Ethnographic Area Studies: Culture and Politics of Island Southeast Asia, and four additional upper-division courses (20 credits), on the area of Southeast Asia, one of which may be an individual study (course 199). For details on the minor program, contact the History Department 831-459-2982 located at 201 Humanities. For details on the individual major, contact your college academic preceptor.

Anthropology 129, Other Globalizations: Cultures and Histories of Interconnection
History 106, Vietnam War Memories
History 194N, Comparative Studies in Modern Asian History
History of Art & Visual Culture 105E, Ritual in Asian Religious Art
History of Art and Visual Culture 160, Storytelling in Asian Art
Music 180A, Studies in World Music: Asia and the Pacific
Politics 140D, Politics of East Asia
Politics 156, Asian Women in Politics
Porter 121D, Sudanese Gamelan and Dance Theater
Theater Arts 161D, Asian Theater: An Anthropological Approach

Study Abroad

Students may apply to spend their junior year in Delhi or Hyderabad through the UC Education Abroad Program (EAP). Students can seek internships and enroll in special study abroad programs in addition to the ones in Delhi or Hyderabad through initiatives undertaken by UC Santa Cruz in cooperation with institutions in India.

Students may apply to the Volunteers in Asia program to teach English in Indonesia or other Southeast Asian countries contact the Kresge College Office for more information on this program.

Declaration of Minor Procedure

1. Pick up two forms:
• A declaration of major/minor form at your college office. Make sure that Section 1 (monitoring of completed GEs) is completed.
• A minor planning worksheet at the History Department, Humanities 201.
2. Meet with one of the South & Southeast Asian Studies faculty advisers to plan an individualized program of study. Obtain your faculty adviser's signature in Section II of the declaration of major/minor form and on your departmental plan of study.
3. Go to the History Department with your signed declaration of major form and your program of study. The undergraduate adviser will complete Section III. If no further advising from other departments is required, the adviser will then forward the completed declaration to the Registrar, your college office, and second department of study (when applicable).

Associated Faculty

More information can be obtained from faculty involved in the program.

• Anjali Arondekar, Assistant Professor of Feminist Studies
• Dilip K. Basu, Associate Professor of History, Director, Ray Film and Study Collection
• Donald Brenneis, Professor of Anthropology
• Edmund Burke III, Professor of History
• Linda C. Burman-Hall, Professor of Music
• Annette Clear, Assistant Professor of Politics
• Vilashini Cooppan, Assistant Professor of Literature
• Ben Crow, Associate Professor of Sociology
• Shelly Errington, Professor of Anthropology
• M. Kathleen Foley, Professor of Theater Arts
• Patty Gallagher, Assistant Professor of Theater Arts
• Jorge Hankamer, Professor of Linguistics
• Aashish Khan, Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Music
• Fredric Lieberman, Professor of Music
• Paul M. Lubeck, Professor of Sociology
• John Mock, Lecturer in Hindi & Urdu
• Radhika Mongia, Assistant Professor of Feminist Studies
• Dard Neuman, Assistant Professor of Music, Kamil and Talat Hasan Endowed Chair in Classical Indian Music
• Annapurna Pandey, Lecturer in Anthropology
• Triloki Nath Pandey, Professor of Anthropology
• S. Ravi Rajan, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies
• Vanita Seth, Assistant Professor of Politics
• Eli A. Silver, Professor of Earth Sciences
• Nirvikar Singh, Professor of Economics
• Undang Sumarna, Lecturer in Music
• Kirtana Thangavelu, Lecturer in History of Art and Visual Culture
• Megan Thomas, Assistant Professor of Politics
• Anna Tsing, Professor of Anthropology