On November 5th, Asian Studies faculty invited students to get together over lunch and discuss what can be available to Asian Studies majors and minors in the future. For several years now, the faculty acknowledged, Asian Studies has had a disproportionate number of classes focused on East Asia. Assistant Professor Yogesh Chandrani (Religion and Asian Studies department) and others are spearheading an effort to change this and include more classes on South Asia and Southeast Asia. For example, starting in blocks A and B this summer, Asian Studies will be offering a class on Elementary Hindi/Urdu, providing enough students enroll. Students welcomed this new addition, as Hindi, is not only one of the most commonly spoken languages in Asia, but is the third most-spoken language in the world, after Mandarin and English.
The faculty also asked students for suggestions on what they would like to see Asian Studies look like. One student asked whether Asian American studies could be included under the banner of Asian Studies. Another spoke in favor of having more classes that transcend borders, like a class on traditional Asian medicine for example. Assistant Professor Pallavi Sriram (Theater & Dance and Asian Studies Department) as well as Associate Professor David Gardiner (Religion and Asian Studies department) expressed interest in collaborating to make such a class possible. Lastly, there were discussions about hiring more Asian faculty across departments at CC. The Asian Student Union, for example, recently penned a letter to the CC English Department, which is in the process of hiring a new faculty member in Asian-American literature. The letter articulated support for this hire, which will be beneficial in making the department more broadly inclusive. The lunch concluded with Asian Studies faculty explaining that this is an ongoing process and that if anyone had further suggestions and thoughts, they should not hesitate to reach out to any Asian Studies faculty member to explore more possibilities.
