East Asian Studies

The Asian/Pacific Studies Institute (APSI) at Duke University administers an innovative and interdisciplinary Master's Program in East Asian Studies. The Program offers broad choices and can be individually tailored. It meets the needs of student planning to enter professional careers such as the diplomatic corps, international law, education, and business as well as providing academic enhancement for mid-career professionals in these fields. The Program is also designed to prepare students who want to enter doctoral programs in the social sciences and humanities.

The program offers comprehensive coverage of East Asian societies, histories, and cultures, with particular strengths in literature, modern history, comparative history and culture, religious studies, and film, media, and visual studies. Duke's interdepartmental concentrations in Japanese history, East Asian colonialism, and in modern Chinese literature are among the deepest in the nation. Duke also shares close ties with East Asian Studies faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), and students can receive credit for courses taken at either institution.

The master's degree requires ten courses (30 semester hours), of which at least eight (24 semester hours) must be graduate level East Asian Studies courses, drawn from two or more departments or programs. An integrated core course is included in this requirement. In addition to these eight courses, students will take two additional courses (six semester hours) of their choosing.

Students seeking to do graduate work at Duke University for degree purposes must hold a U.S. bachelor’s degree or the equivalent of a U.S. bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution.Required documents and information:TranscriptsLetters of recommendationStatement of purposeGRE scoresGPA English Language Requirements IELTS band: 7 TOEFL paper-based test score : 577 TOEFL iBT® test: 100