WELCOME TO CEAS

The Center for East Asian Studies at the University of Chicago (CEAS) serves as an interdisciplinary nexus and clearinghouse for East Asian studies and an important resource for faculty and students across the University.  CEAS supports academic activities, research, outreach, and public events to promote greater understanding of China, Japan and Korea.  CEAS has been designated a Title VI National Resource Center by the U.S. Department of Education.

Featured Video

"Haiku and the 'Desire to Write': on Masaoka Shiki and Marcel Proust"

J. Keith Vincent, Associate Professor of Japanese & Comparative Literature, and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies; Boston University

Masaoka Shiki and Marcel Proust spent the final years of their lives confined to their sick rooms with tuberculosis and asthma. Each was painfully aware of the shortness of his own life and the great stretches of time it would take to finish the work he had set out to do. As death approached, Shiki wrote thousands of haiku, the shortest of all poetic genres, while Proust completed a novel of three thousand pages. In this talk, Professor Vincent juxtaposes Shiki and Proust; short and long. Professor Vincent discusses the haiku-like quality of some of Proust's longest sentences, how Shiki used haiku to remember and relive his past, and how both showed in writing how, as Proust put it, “A change in the weather is sufficient to create the world and ourselves anew.” Finally, he explores the meaning of what Roland Barthes, writing about Proust and Shiki, called a "desire to write" that drove these writers breathlessly on to translate their short lives into something that would last.

News

UChicago Global recently announced it's Provost's Global Faculty Awards for the 2023-2024 academic year.

The Center for East Asian Studies congratulates Professor Haun Saussy (University Professor, E

The University of Chicago Center for East Asian Studies sponsors an annual prize of $250.00 awarded for the best University of Chicago B.A.

The University of Chicago annually recognizes faculty for their incredible teaching and mentoring of students.  The Department of East Asian and Languages and Civilizations's Paola Iovene was recen

The Department of History's Yasser Nasser was recently published in Cold War History.

Upcoming Events

CEAS by the Numbers

63
Years - CEAS was Founded in 1959
73
Affiliated Faculty - Across the University
85
Events in 2021-2022 - Lectures, Conferences, Film Screenings and More
327
East Asian-Related Courses 2021-2022 - Offered Across Disciplines