International and Area Studies Councils and Committees

Council on African Studies

African studies at Yale began in the late-eighteenth century with study of African languages. Yale was one of the first universities to incorporate African studies into its mainstream curriculum prior to World War II. Today, the council serves as a National Resource Center for African Studies. As the home for the undergraduate major, M.A. in African Studies, Graduate Certificate of Concentration in African Studies, and the Program in African Languages—including programs in Swahili, Yorùbá, and Zulu—the Council on African Studies is an interdisciplinary humanities and social sciences program that nurtures a community of Africanist scholars and provides training to individuals who are specializing in African topics.

Students enter the intellectually stimulating B.A. and M.A. programs with a variety of experiences and backgrounds, and find the curriculum to be an excellent first step toward an academic career or as a supplement to professional training. An important component of these programs is that they are multinational as well as multidisciplinary. Students’ interests reflect this diversity as they focus on South, West, East, or North Africa, with concentrations ranging from political science to arts and literature, economics and religion.

During the 2008–2009 academic year the Council on African Studies will sponsor a variety of faculty- and student-run events. The Program in African Languages will hold a conference, Language in African Performing and Visual Arts: Global Trends, Issues, and Perspectives, in early October 2008 and also an annual Skit Night in April 2009. PIER-African Studies, in conjunction with the Yale African Students Association, will run a biweekly series of film screenings of contemporary African cinema. The brown bag lunch seminars are a graduate student-run weekly series designed to provide an informal environment in which students, staff, and faculty at all levels at Yale and in the community can present work-in-progress. There is also a lecture series, bringing in outside speakers on topics relevant to current events.

Committee on Canadian Studies

Building on three centuries of close ties with Canada, Yale continues to play a significant role in the development of Canadian Studies in the U.S., and has graduated the second highest number of Canadians among American universities. The Committee on Canadian Studies annually brings a distinguished Canadian academician to the campus as the Bicentennial Visiting Professor, due to a generous gift from the Canadian government to Yale University in 1976. In addition, the committee offers a number of dynamic conferences, film screenings, and special courses, such as a comparative Canadian and Australian history offering.

In fall 2008 the MacMillan Center’s Canadian Bicentennial Visiting Fellow will be Nomi Lazar. She will teach two courses: Limiting Rights and Multiculturalism: Theory and Practice.

Council on East Asian Studies

The formal study of East Asia at Yale dates back to 1878. Since then, for more than a century, East Asian Studies has expanded and evolved into a comprehensive program of study that plays an essential role in the existing structure of the University. The Council on East Asian Studies (CEAS) was founded in 1961 and for over forty years has promoted education about East Asia both in the college curricula and through lectures, workshops, conferences, cultural events, and educational activities open to faculty, students, and the general public. CEAS coordinates approximately 100 activities each year, providing an important forum for academic exploration and lively discussion as an integral part of the study of China, Japan, and Korea.

With more than twenty core faculty and twenty language instructors forming CEAS, it is Yale’s most extensive program in area studies. East Asian Studies faculty members teach across departments in the social sciences and humanities. National interest and University commitment have contributed to expanded course offerings and rising student enrollments. More than 150 courses on East Asia are offered each year.

As part of the University’s continuing mission to offer programs combining international vision and richness, an undergraduate major and a master’s degree program are offered at Yale in East Asian Studies. The interdisciplinary emphasis of CEAS encourages collaborative linkages across fields and departments and contributes to diversity across the curricula and in the classroom. Study and research in East Asian Studies at Yale are supported by one of the finest library collections in the country. The Chinese, Japanese, and Korean language print resources in the library constitute one of the oldest and largest collections found outside of East Asia.

CEAS is committed to providing leadership in the study and understanding of East Asia on campus and in the region through support of educational and outreach activities with emphasis on joint endeavors across institutions both regionally and internationally. CEAS has been designated as a National Resource Center for the study of East Asian languages and cultures by the U.S. Department of Education.

During the 2008–2009 academic year, in addition to a full calendar of lectures and cultural events, CEAS will sponsor workshops on East Asian Language Pedagogy; Classical Japanese Poetry; Psychology in Japan; and Nutrition Challenges in Southern China: Public Health Approaches; along with conferences on The Olympics in East Asia: Nationalism, Regionalism, and Globalism on the Center Stage of World Sports (October 2008); East Asia in Motion: Literature, Cinema, and Dance (February 2009); Representing Things: Visuality and Materiality in East Asia (April 2009); and Chanoyu: Tea Culture in Japan (April 2009). CEAS also will welcome to campus visiting faculty in Korean studies, along with visiting scholars from China and Romania who specialize in early Chinese literary thought; Dunhuang and Silk Road cultural interflows; women and Buddhism in Dunhuang from the fourth to fourteenth century; and Chinese manuscript culture, traditional printing, and modern printing in the fifteenth to early twentieth century.

European Studies Council

As a National Resource Center for European Studies for several years, the European Studies Council formulates and implements new curricular and research programs on European politics, culture, economy, society, and history. The council supports individual and group research projects, conferences, film series, symposia, workshops, courses, and community outreach as they relate to the study of Eastern and Western Europe. European Studies offers an undergraduate major and a master’s degree program in European and Russian Studies and strongly supports the interdisciplinary study of Western Europe, as well as Russia and Eastern Europe, and their interaction. Additionally, the council offers students in the University’s graduate and other professional degree programs the opportunity to obtain a Graduate Certificate of Concentration in European Studies. European Studies is also the home of active programs in Baltic Studies, British Studies, European Union Studies, and Hellenic Studies, which offers instruction in modern Greek language, literature, and culture. The undergraduate major in Russian and East European Studies is administered by the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures.

M.A. students have the opportunity to gain insight into such diverse topics as labor migration within Europe, the changing role of socialist parties, transnational tendencies in literature and the arts, and Europe’s relations with other world regions. Areas of special focus include the European Union, Poland, Greece, the Balkans, and the states of the former Soviet Union. Polish language instruction is offered by the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures, joining Czech and Russian.

On September 11–12 the council will co-host the annual Consortium Conference on British Studies, along with the University of Chicago and the University of California-Berkeley. The fifth in a series of film conferences focusing on a pivotal year in European history will be held on October 16-18. Titled, Film in 1936: a Critical Year for the Confrontation with Fascism, the conference will mark the election of the Popular Front in France, the start of the Spanish Civil War, the Berlin Olympics, the Italian invasion of Ethiopia, and the abdication of Edward VIII in England. Films from the USSR, Spain, France, Germany, and the UK will be interlaced with panels of experts from across a wide range of Yale departments. A conference on The Empire of Political Economy will be held jointly with NYU on November 14-15, 2008. An interdisciplinary gathering of historians, historical sociologists, and political theorists will focus on the origins, trajectory, and effects of the British Empire with a special emphasis on South Asia. On April 16-19, 2009 the council will host a conference on Colonialism and European Identities, organized by Yale faculty from six departments who will address central questions about the concept of European empires in comparison with other cultures and across epochs.

International Affairs Council

The International Affairs Council (IAC) was founded in 1995 to nurture degree programs, scholarship, and research with a strong interdisciplinary and policy-oriented international focus. The programmatic interests of the council center on development policy, security studies, and the teaching of international issues.

The council administers the M.A. in International Relations. The fifty to sixty students in this program combine fundamental training in core disciplines of international relations with an individualized academic concentration relevant to current international issues. The International Relations program includes a cluster of policy-related courses, initiated in 2006–2007, many of which focus on issues of development and security policy.

Open to all graduate and professional students at Yale, the IAC also offers two Graduate Certificates of Concentration, one in Development Studies and a second in International Security Studies.

At the undergraduate level, the council is the site of the International Studies degree. The IS degree is designed for those students who want to combine the rigorous discipline-based requirements of a first academic major with an interdisciplinary grasp of key global transformations in socio-economic, environmental, political, and cultural dimensions.

The council also hosts several projects and speaker series, including the International Development Policy seminar; the Women, Religion, and Globalization Initiative; the Global Health Workshop; the MacMillan Center Initiative on Religion, Politics, and Society; and the Gaddis Smith seminar series, which gives students an opportunity to invite speakers of their choice to campus. The IAC is also the home of the Yale Journal of International Affairs, a noted graduate student journal.

Council on Latin American and Iberian Studies

Established in 1962, the Council on Latin American and Iberian Studies continues a long tradition of Yale collaborations in Latin America, Spain, and Portugal. The council offers an undergraduate major in Latin American Studies and a Graduate Certificate of Concentration in Latin American and Iberian Studies for graduate and professional students at Yale. It is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as one of eighteen National Resource Centers for Latin American and Caribbean Studies. The council works to strengthen intellectual exchange and innovation through a broad array of courses, cultural events, scholarly lectures, international conferences, and academic research. More than ninety Yale faculty teach courses with substantial Latin American content. Recent years have seen expansion of programs in political currents in Latin America, culture and performance (music, theater, the arts), along with increased collaboration in the areas of forestry and the environment, law, and human rights. The council offers travel fellowships to undergraduate and graduate students, hosts visiting scholars, supports faculty curriculum development, and sponsors the development of new resources for language teaching in Spanish, Portuguese, Nahuatl, and Quechua. The council promotes linkages with other U.S., Latin American, and Iberian institutions to bolster cooperation and understanding of these interconnected regions. Through a comprehensive outreach program, the council works with local, regional, and national K–16 educators and students and members of Latino community organizations, cultural centers, business, and media to develop and implement programs, services, and resources designed to advance understanding of issues pertaining to Latin America and Iberia.

In 2008–2009 workshops and conferences will include Coming to Terms With the Past: A Latin American Perspective; La Corona Epigraphic Study Group; A Celebration of the Machado de Asis Centenary; Latin American Global Writing? Escritura Global Latinoamericana: A Symposium; The American Portuguese Studies Association’s Sixth International Conference; A Public Forum on Fifty Years of Revolution in Cuba: Significance, Transcendence and Legacies; Nuevas Fronteras: New Trends and Transformations In Modern Mexican History; Agrarian Reforms in Latin America; and Yuyanapac: To Remember, A Photo Exhibit.

Council on Middle East Studies

As globally significant developments in the Middle East unfold daily, the Council on Middle East Studies (CMES) continues its role as an academic platform in which students and faculty can debate the myriad contemporary, historical, political, and cultural issues of relevance to the Middle East and North Africa and beyond. As a National Resource Center for Middle East Studies (funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s HEA Title VI), CMES serves as a central resource for the Yale community, the region, and the nation on issues pertaining to the Middle East.

The new major in Modern Middle East Studies (MMES) will be offered for the first time in 2008–2009. Twenty-one full-time ladder faculty members will be participating in the major who will offer, together with the visiting scholars , 26 courses (not including language courses) that students can choose from during the next year. Ellen Lust-Okar (Associate Professor of Political Science) and Colleen Manassa (Assistant Professor at NELC) will be jointly DUSs of the new major.

CMES will continue to offer a Graduate Certificate and has appointed Hala Nassar (Assistant Professor at NELC) to advise graduate students and focus on increasing interest in the program.

The council will also continue to support Turkish and advanced Persian to round out the full complement of courses in the major languages of the region. CMES has been pivotal in the organization of major international conferences on wide-ranging topics—such as the region’s relations with the U.S., Middle Eastern immigration to the Americas, and the social and historical geography of the Middle East. To build on the existing faculty base at Yale, CMES hosts a number of visiting scholars each year, supports expansion in the instruction of Middle Eastern languages, and assists in supporting the acquisition of new materials in the Near Eastern Collection at Yale’s Sterling Memorial Library. CMES also offers a weekly lecture/luncheon series, a yearlong film program, and many other educational events, all free and open to the public.

The council initiative to promote richer understanding of contemporary issues in the Middle East is growing considerably & it continues to enhance interdisciplinary teaching and research on the contemporary Middle East through the following components: Yale-Middle East Visiting Faculty; Iranian Studies; Turkish Studies; Public Health; and ERICE (Empowerment and Resilience in Children Everywhere).

This year’s special events include Reconfiguring a Region: Opportunities and Challenges in the Middle East, being held September 26–27 at Luce Hall, and will include a comprehensive panel of Middle Eastern discussants, to allow for a diverse exchange of ideas and concepts. Additionally, a workshop will be held in conjunction with the World Bank in January of next year, organized by Professor Ellen Lust Okar. Plans are in the works for a large-scale Medical Anthropology conference in the fall of 2009, spearheaded by Professor Marcia Inhorn, incoming CMES chair.

Visiting scholars to the council this year include Marwan Khawaja from the American University in Beirut and Tarik Ramahi from al-Quds University in Abu Dis/Jerusalem, who will both teach one course during the academic year and will act closely with Yale faculty in the Public Health Initiative. In addition, Sallama Shaker, the deputy foreign minister of Egypt, will join the council and teach two courses at Yale College and the Divinity School respectively.

South Asian Studies Council

The South Asian Studies Council promotes the University’s teaching and scholarship on all aspects of South Asia and its diasporas. Drawing on faculty from across the University, the council’s members annually offer courses in the humanities, social sciences, and the languages of South Asia, including Sanskrit, Hindi, and Tamil.

A variety of directed independent language study programs are possible, depending on interest and availability. Languages so taught in 2008–2009 will include Urdu, Telugu, Tibetan, and Bengali. Travel fellowships awarded by the council allow students to perform research and social service in South Asia, while graduate students are also being supported to attend professional meetings to present their research on South Asia.

Yale undergraduate students now have the opportunity to elect South Asian Studies as a second major. The major combines the study of pre-modern, modern, and contemporary South Asia and emphasizes the study of South Asian languages. Several visiting scholars will be teaching new courses on anthropology, history, politics, religion and cinema of South Asia in 2008–2009.

Throughout the academic year the council sponsors lectures, conferences, and cultural events related to South Asia. Early in fall 2008 the council will host a performance and lecture on Orissi dance tradition by the well-known artiste, Madhavi Mudgal, the first of several events bringing classical Indian musical and dance performance to Yale during the year. Through the year, in addition to courses on Indian cinema, the council is sponsoring a film series, special screenings of the films of eminent filmmaker Kumar Shahani, and a talk and screening by famous film historian and documentarian Nasreen Munni Kabir. Several visiting speakers in fall 2008 will present talks on various aspects of contemporary Indian economy, polity, history, and culture, from the food crisis and rural poverty to economic growth and the history of ideas, women, religion, and attire.

In the spring, the council will host a series of visits and talks by eminent Indian journalists and twentieth century historians speaking on Indian elections, Indian information technology industries, and India’s new business classes and models of enterprise. A workshop on Tamil Literary Culture, Past and Present, will be held in spring 2009, and later in the term, the council will sponsor an international conference on Terrestrial Environments and their Histories in Modern India. At this conference, scholars will examine, in particular, the relationship between environmental issues, conservation science, democratic institutions and macro-economic processes in India, linking contemporary concerns to pre-colonial and modern trends and processes of environmental and political change in the region.

Council on Southeast Asia Studies

Yale established its Southeast Asia Studies Program in 1947—the first area studies program in the United States to embark on the study of Southeast Asia in all disciplines. Southeast Asia Studies at Yale became an endowed program in 1961, and today helps to maintain one of the most extensive library collections in the country. Students with interests in the countries of Burma/Myanmar, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, may turn to the Council on Southeast Asia Studies, whose mission is to promote research, education, and intellectual exchange on the politics, cultures, and economies of the region, both historical and contemporary.

The council coordinates and sponsors a variety of annual activities, including a yearlong lunchtime seminar series, workshops and presentations organized by subsidiary consortiums of students and faculty such as the ongoing Yale Indonesia Forum and the Yale Vietnamese Studies Group, as well as special lectures, conferences, film screenings, and cultural programs.

The council provides research and language study fellowships to eligible Yale students, and continues to edit and publish its long-running Monograph Series, the first volume of which was printed in 1961. This series includes books on the history, cultures, and politics of Southeast Asia, as well as economic and anthropological subjects relevant to the region.

The council supports study of the region’s diverse languages, including full-time instruction in both Indonesian and Vietnamese, and a variety of directed independent language study programs depending on interest and availability, in Burmese, Dutch, Khmer, Tagalog, and Thai.

Since spring of 2003 the faculty and students of the Southeast Asia Language Studies Programs have organized and hosted an annual cultural festival, featuring displays and performances of regional arts, crafts, music and dance, along with a buffet dinner of Southeast Asian cuisine. The festival evenings have been open to the University and the public, and each year have attracted large and enthusiastic crowds of Yale students, faculty, and community participants from New Haven and throughout Connecticut.

The council provided start-up funding and, together with the Department of Music, continues ongoing support for the Yale Gamelan Suprabanggo, which held its inaugural Yale concert in January 2008. The Gamelan Performance Ensemble, under Director Sarah Weiss, is currently comprised of students from Yale College, the Yale School of Music, Yale employees, and New Haven residents.

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