Junior level units for the undergraduate major in Asian Studies

There are two compulsory first-year junior units of study for the Asian Studies major. These two junior level units serve as prerequisites for senior level Asian Studies units. (These units can be waived if students have taken other Faculty of Arts junior level units from Table A).

ASNS1601 Asian Traditions: The Past in the Present (formerly ASNS1001)

Offered in semester 1. This unit introduces key features of ancient, imperial, and traditional Asian societies and cultures across different periods, down to the present. It lays the groundwork and provides a basis of comparison for students to understand the social transformations that these different Asian societies later underwent in modern times. Issues and themes may include: religion, ritual, and philosophical thought; sacred kings and capitals; hierarchy and social order; family, kinship and gender systems; art, architecture, and archaeology.

ASNS1602 Modernity in Asia (formerly ASNS1002)

Offered in semester 2. Asia has undergone dramatic and rapid modernisation since the Eighteenth Century. Religious change, state-formation, political and social movements, gender and family, consumer culture, rural development, urban culture, and modern class structure are some of the cultural, social, economic and political aspects of Asia’s social transformation. Through the study of selected Asian societies, this subject will examine some of these aspects in the contexts of colonialism, nationalism, postcolonial economic development, and globalisation.

A third junior-level unit is not compulsory for the Asian Studies major, but may serve as a prerequisite for senior-level Asian Studies units:

ASNS1101 Introduction to Chinese Civilization

This unit provides a broad introduction to Chinese Civilization, from ancient times to the present.