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Named after | Richard W. Weatherhead |
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Formation | 1949 |
Location |
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Director | Lien-Hang T. Nguyen |
Parent organization | Columbia University |
Website | weai |
The Weatherhead East Asian Institute (WEAI) at Columbia University is a community of scholars affiliated with Columbia's schools, bringing together over 50 full-time faculty, a diverse group of visiting scholars and professionals, and students from the United States and abroad. Its mission is to train new generations of experts on East Asian topics in the humanities, social sciences, and the professions and to enhance understanding of East Asia in the wider community. [1] Since its establishment in 1949 as the East Asian Institute, the WEAI has been the center for modern and contemporary East Asia research, studies, and publication at Columbia, covering China, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, Mongolia (Inner Asia), Tibet, and, increasingly, the countries of Southeast Asia.
The Weatherhead East Asian Institute (WEAI) and East Asian Studies at Columbia has been recognized by a wide variety of funding sources, including the U.S. Department of Education, which, since 1960, has designated Columbia as an East Asian National Resource Center.
Faculty and scholars at the institute are distinguished by their interdisciplinary and multinational focus. Resources available to the institute community include Columbia University's renowned C.V. Starr East Asian Library and the institute's extensive ties to the business, diplomatic, legal, and media communities in New York City, the nation, and abroad. The institute is also one of the leading centers for developing K-12 teacher resource and training programs in the United States.
In 2003, the institute was renamed the Weatherhead East Asian Institute to honor the generosity of the Weatherhead Foundation. The Weatherhead endowment supports a significant expansion of Institute programs, including the creation of postdoctoral fellowships, visiting professorships, a faculty research program, graduate training grants, student internships, a resident fellows program, and symposiums and workshops. The endowment will also support graduate fellowships for students pursuing advanced degrees in East Asian-related fields. [2]
The Weatherhead East Asian Institute administers the Master of Arts in Regional Studies—East Asia (MARSEA) program at Columbia. The MARSEA program, completed in two full-time semesters, is tailored to meet the needs of individuals entering professional careers, mid-career professionals, students preparing for entry into doctoral programs, and those pursuing a professional degree, such as the J.D. or M.B.A., who want to gain social science expertise in the modern politics, international relations, modern history, and cultural and social formations of the region with a country focus. [3]
The institute is also responsible for three major publication series. The first, Studies of the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, was inaugurated in 1962 to bring to public attention the results of significant new research on modern and contemporary East Asia. The books in this series are published by academic and trade presses and represent scholars of East Asia from around the world. The second series, Weatherhead Books on Asia, is published by Columbia University Press and comprises high-quality translations of works in Asian languages for scholars, students, and the interested general reader. The third series, Asia Perspectives: New Horizons in Asian History, Society and Culture, is also published by Columbia University Press and includes books on Asian subjects that cross the usual boundary between scholarly monographs and more encompassing general works for the classroom and the educated general reader. [4]
The Weatherhead Foundation, which has supported the East Asian Institute since 1980, was founded by A. J. Weatherhead, Jr. in 1953 and is currently headed by his son, A. J. Weatherhead, III. The Weatherhead Fund at Columbia is named in honor of another of the founder's sons, the late Richard W. Weatherhead, who earned an M.A. in history from Columbia, followed by a Ph.D. in 1966.
The family foundation concentrates on endowments for higher education. Since its establishment, it has supported Case Western Reserve University, [5] Columbia University, Harvard University, [6] the University of Texas at Houston, and Tulane University." [7]
The Columbia University School of Social Work is the graduate school of social work of Columbia University in New York City. It is one of the oldest social work programs in the US, with roots extending back to 1898. It began awarding a Master of Science degree in 1940. As of 2018, it was one of the largest social work schools in the United States, with an enrollment of over 1,000 students.
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The Harvard–Yenching Institute is an independent foundation dedicated to advancing higher education in Asia in the humanities and social sciences, with special attention to the study of Asian culture. It traditionally had close ties to Harvard University and the now-defunct Yenching University, and its offices are located on the Harvard campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but it is not part of Harvard.
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The Asian Cultural Council (ACC) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing international cultural exchange between Asia and the U.S. and between the countries of Asia through the arts. Founded by John D. Rockefeller III in 1963, ACC has invested over $100 million in grants to artists and arts professionals representing 16 fields and 26 countries through over 6,000 exchanges. ACC supports $1.4 million in grants annually for individuals and organizations.
The Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP) is the research arm of the social sciences at Columbia University, formerly known as the Paul F. Lazarsfeld Center for the Social Sciences. ISERP works to produce pioneering social science research and to shape public policy by integrating knowledge and methods across the social scientific disciplines. ISERP organizes an active intellectual community at Columbia University through its Faculty Fellows program, research centers, projects, and training initiatives.
Gerald L. Curtis is an American academic and political scientist interested in comparative politics, Japanese politics, and U.S.-Japan relations.
Susan J. Pharr is an academic in the field of political science, a Japanologist, and Edwin O. Reischauer Professor of Japanese Politics, director of Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies and the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations at Harvard University. Her current research focuses on the changing nature of relations between citizens and states in Asia, and on the forces that shape civil society over time.
Takatoshi Ito is a Japanese economist. He is a professor of the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University and a senior professor of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies.
Carol Gluck is an American academic and historian of Japan. She is the George Sansom Professor Emerita of History at Columbia University and served as the president of the Association for Asian Studies in 1996.
Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, formerly known as the Ash Institute, was established in 2003 and is part of the Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States.
Columbia Global Centers are research outposts established by Columbia University in different locations around the world, as part of its initiative to further establish an international research university. The first of these centers opened in March 2009 in Beijing, China, and Amman, Jordan, and Columbia opened facilities in Paris, France, and Mumbai, India, in March 2010 and Istanbul, Turkey in November 2011. Locations in Nairobi, Rio de Janeiro and Santiago de Chile were opened in 2012 and 2013. An additional location in Tunis opened in 2018.
Benjamin L. Liebman is the Robert L. Lieff Professor of Law and the director of the Hong Yen Chang Center for Chinese Legal Studies at Columbia Law School. He is widely regarded as one of the world's pre-eminent scholars of contemporary Chinese law.
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Madeleine Zelin is Dean Lung Professor of Chinese Studies at Columbia University. At Columbia, Zelin is affiliated with the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, the Department of History, the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, and the Columbia Law School.
Nicola Di Cosmo is the Luce Foundation Professor in East Asian Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study. His main field of research is the history of the relations between China and Inner Asia from prehistory to the modern period.
Jamsheed K. Choksy is a Distinguished Professor, former Chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, former Chair of the Department of Central Eurasian Studies, and current Director of the Inner Asian and Uralic National Resource Center at Indiana University - Bloomington. Choksy completed his undergraduate degree from Columbia University in 1985, where he studied with Ehsan Yarshater, Richard Bulliet, Ainslie Embree, James Russell, and Peter Awn. He went on to doctoral work at Harvard University from 1985 to 1991 where he studied with Richard Frye, Roy Mottahedeh, Clifford Lamberg-Karlovsky, and Annemarie Schimmel, and was elected a Junior Fellow (1987-1991). From there, he embarked on a career in academia, beginning as a Visiting Assistant Professor at Stanford University (1991-1993) and subsequently a tenure track professor at Indiana University in 1993, eventually holding appointments in a variety of different programs in that university. He has been a NEH Fellow and Member at the School of Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (1993-1994), a Guggenheim Fellow (1996), a Mellon Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Palo Alto (2001-2002), and a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar (2018-2019).
Leta Hong Fincher is an American journalist, feminist and writer. She is currently a research associate at Columbia University's Weatherhead East Asian Institute.
Thomas J. Christensen is an American political scientist. He is the James T. Shotwell Professor of International Relations at the School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University.