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The Doctoral Minor in Asian Languages and Cultures is intended for students outside of the department to gain familiarity with the discipline in literature or linguistics generally while also honing an area of specialization.

  • Meet with a faculty member in the Asian Languages & Cultures program to discuss requirements and course options.
  • Request a minor agreement form from the Graduate Program Coordinator (rweiss@wisc.edu).
  • Submit the Ph.D. Minor in Asian Languages & Cultures form and obtain the approval and signature of major professor. After you have completed the preliminary Ph.D. examinations, the ALC program advisor or ALC Director of Graduate Studies will sign the warrant indicating completion of the minor.

Students in other departments who wish to minor in Asian languages and cultures must complete 12 credits above the 300 level with a cumulative GPA of 3.0 in the department. Such students are required to take one course in literature and one course in religion or philosophy. Any other courses to fulfill the minor requirement are selected in prior consultation with the student's faculty advisor, who is designated as such by the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures and is authorized to sign the doctoral minor agreement form.

Courses cross-listed in a student's major department and in Asian Languages and Cultures do not count toward the minor requirement. Elementary and intermediate language courses or "directed study" courses are not accepted toward the fulfillment of the minor requirement in Asian Languages and Cultures.

Faculty

Asian Languages and Cultures is home to nearly twenty faculty whose research and teaching specialities cover a wide range of topics, including traditional medicine in India; the Hindu roots of yoga; diversifying contemporary mindfulness practice with insights from Tibetan Buddhism; human rights in Thailand; Chinese ghost stories, traditional poetics and philology; sociolinguistics and discourse analysis of the Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, and Indonesian languages; analysis of classical Japanese tale fiction, early modern comedic narratives, manga, anime; and Japanese counterculture. Visit our faculty pages for more information on areas of expertise, current research, teaching, and publications.

Gudrun Bühnemann
gbuhnema@wisc.edu
Professor
Fields of Study: Sanskrit language and literature; Buddhism in India and Nepal; Hinduism; Tantrism and Yoga Studies

Anthony Cerulli 
acerulli@wisc.edu
Associate Professor       
Fields of Study: Hinduism; Religion in South Asia; Medical Humanities; History of Medicine in India; Sanskrit Language and Literature; Kerala History and Culture

Charo D'Etcheverry
cdetcheverry@wisc.edu
Professor       
Fields of Study: Classical Japanese literature (especially court fiction and its reception and early kabuki)

Anatoly Detwyler
detwyler@wisc.edu
Assistant Professor
Fields of Study: Modern Chinese literature and history, comparative new media, information studies

John D. Dunne
jddunne@wisc.edu
Professor           
Fields of Study: Buddhist philosophy and contemplative practice; Religious Studies; Cognitive Science of Religion; Contemplative Science

Naomi Geyer   
nfgeyer@wisc.edu
Associate Professor       
Fields of Study: Japanese Language, Language Pedagogy, Pragmatics

Tyrell Haberkorn
tyrell.haberkorn@wisc.edu
Professor       
Fields of Study: Violence, Human Rights, Sovereignty, Arbitrary Detention, Land Rights, Agrarian Struggle, Historiographies of Repression, Gender Studies, Socialism, Dissident Literature, Southeast Asia (Thailand)

Rania Huntington
huntington@wisc.edu
Professor           
Fields of Study: Ming and Qing narrative and drama, literature of the weird and supernatural, memory in literature, depiction of women in literature

Jamal Jones
jones23@wisc.edu
Assistant Professor
Fields of Study: Classical Sanskrit and Telugu literature and the broader history of religion and culture in premodern south India.

Adam L. Kern
alkern@wisc.edu
Professor           
Fields of Study: The popular literature, culture, poetry, theater, and visual culture of early modern unto modern Japan (1600-1900). Transcultural comics in Japan (manga, kibyôshi, etc) and beyond.

Hieyoon Kim
Hieyoon.kim@wisc.edu
Assistant Professor
Fields of Study: Cinema; Media Activism; Cultural Studies; History of Modern and Contemporary Korea

Byung-jin Lim     
byungjin.lim@wisc.edu
Associate Professor       
Fields of Study: Korean Language and Linguistics, Second/Foreign Language Acquisition, Computer-Mediated Communication, Korean Language Textbook Development

Junko Mori         
jmori@wisc.edu
Professor           
Fields of Study: Japanese Linguistics, Applied Linguistics, Conversation Analysis, Sociolinguistics

Eunsil Oh
eoh26@wisc.edu
Assistant Professor
Fields of Study: Gender; Work and Family; Feminism; and East Asia

Steve Ridgely    
steve.ridgely@wisc.edu
Associate Professor       
Fields of Study: Modern Japanese literature, Cultural Theory, Transasian Studies

Hongming Zhang             
hzhang6@wisc.edu
Professor           
Fields of Study: Chinese linguistics; syntax-phonology interface; prosodic phonology; poetic prosody; history of Chinese language; teaching Chinese as a second language

Weihua Zhu       
wzhu34@wisc.edu
Associate Professor       
Fields of Study: Discourse Analysis, Pragmatics, Pedagogy and Second Language Acquisition