History of Asian Studies at FAS, Harvard University

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) began teaching Sanskrit in 1872 in the Department of Indo-Iranian Languages created in 1880, later Department of Indic Philology in 1902, the Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies in 1951, and the Department of South Asian Studies (SAS) in 2011. Chinese was taught on a regular basis starting in 1921 and Japanese in 1931. Harvard-Yenching Institute was founded in 1928 to promote higher education in Asia and supported the development of the Department of Far Eastern Languages created in 1937, later changing to the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations (EALC) in 1972. Also in 1972, the Council of East Asian Studies (CEAS) was created to add an undergraduate concentration.

FAS has seven Asia-related centers, with three as Interfaculty Initiatives. The first was Center for East Asian Studies, later Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, founded in 1955 to promote the study of modern and contemporary China from a social science perspective. The Asia Center Publications Program published its first book in 1956, under the Center for East Asian Studies. The Publications Program moved to the Council on East Asian Studies (CEAS) in 1970s and then moved to the Asia Center upon its formation. In 1973 the Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies (RIJS) was created to build the study of Japan. Then in 1980, RIJS along with the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs created the US-Japan Relations Program. In 1981, the Korea Institute (KI) was established under the Center for East Asian Studies to develop Korean Studies and formally recognized as an autonomous institution in 1993. The Harvard Asia Center (AC) was created in 1997 as an interfaculty initiative focusing on a transnational approach to the study of Asia. With the creation of the Asia Center, the Council of East Asian Studies (CEAS) was dissolved. In 2001, the Asia Center incubated the South Asia Initiative until the Mittal South Asia Institute was created as an interfaculty initiative in 2013. In 2006, Harvard China Fund was created as an interfaculty initiative to support teaching and research about China across all schools. The Asia Center established the Southeast Asian Initiative (SEAI) in 2021. In 2023 SEAI helped start the teaching of Tagalog (Filipino), Indonesian and Thai, in addition to the already taught Vietnamese.