The proposal for a major in West and South Asian studies has already been approval, according to Bright, who compared the development of the program to building with the components of a Lego set. "We broke through to the reality that if we take a broad view of Asia, we are remarkably well-positioned." Pulling from various departments, Bright said he has 45 faculty members "with some capability and ability" to teach aspects of West and South Asian studies.
"We need to add systematically in East Asia," Bright said. He anticipates that in three years, he will have a dozen faculty available to teach components of East Asian studies, which encompasses various studies including the languages and cultures of Japan and China. Right now, he said, "I've committed to three new lines in East Asia for the humanities and social sciences."
Gordon Newby, chair of the Emory College Curriculum Committee and of Near Eastern and Judaic Languages and Literatures, said that Emory already has a significant percentage of its faculty with a primary or secondary interest in Asian studies.
"There were lots of resources available that weren't organized," Newby said. "Dean Bright was aware of the interest in Asian studies in general. We decided to go ahead and do it." Newby also said that "within the context of Asian studies, there would be room for West and South Asian studies, sandskrit, Chinese, Japanese and Buddhism as a religion and a culture."
Calling "the development of a cohesive program on Asia and the Pacific Rim ... a priority in Emory's laundry list of ambitions," Bright said he has asked Professor and Chair of Religion Paul Courtright to chair the new program. Bright expects the program to be detailed in the next course atlas for the fall semester of 1996.
The overall Asian studies program, according to Courtright, takes into account the "international and global perspective" that Provost Billy Frye emphasized last year in his essay titled "Choices and Responsibility."
"There's a lot of leadership and energy to be tapped ... there are ways you can draw on people who are already here and people you can bring in to fill in the gaps," said Court-right. "I've been very impressed with the interest and depth of commitment to make this program succeed."
Courtright plans on getting three groups together to discuss the development of the program: faculty, who will be drawn from a variety of departments; an advisory board of people from the Curriculum Committee, who will serve as consulates, advisors and networkers; and a student advisory committee interested in Asian studies, who will monitor how the program is doing. He hopes that these groups will draw on Atlanta's and other resources not only to develop the program itself, but also bring in speakers "and other interactions of mutual benefit" outside of Emory, including "poets, dancers and musicians who make Asia more visible and present."
Courtright said he will focus on four trajectories: the historic and geographical Asia, which itself is divided into the three components of West and South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia; the West and the East, which will focus on the relationships and contact of the two hemispheres that comes to the surface in the 19th and 20th centuries; the East and the West, which will study the regional and local aspects of the Asian experience and the presence of diaspora communities; and "the imagined Asia," which Courtright explained as the way Asia has appeared in the Western imagination.
As the pieces of the program fall into place, Courtright warned against rushing into its development over-night. "This is the time to consolidate and develop the program's focus and mobilization," he said. "We're trying to Bright expects the program to be detailed in the next course atlas for do this in a deliberate and responsible way ... so there will be real substance there, not just mirrors and credit cards."
Bright made the distinction that the Asian studies program should be regarded as such, not an Asian-American studies program. He called it analagous to the African and African-American studies program, saying that the two "talk to each other but are distinctly different." Citing Asian-American studies as the "next major wave," Bright emphasized that prior to that step, he wanted to focus on the study of Asia itself and "achieve a kind of academic stability" before moving on to the next step.
-- Danielle Service