Asian studies

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Asian studies is a field in cultural studies that is concerned with the Asian peoples, their cultures and languages. Within the Asian sphere, Asian studies combines aspects of sociology, and cultural anthropology to study cultural phenomena in Asian traditional and industrial societies. Asian studies forms a field of post-graduate study in many universities.

In his book Introducing Cultural Studies, Ziauddin Sardar lists the following five main characteristics of cultural studies:

Cultural studies aims to examine its subject matter in terms of cultural practices and their relation to power.
It has the objective of understanding culture in all its complex forms and of analysing the social and political context in which culture manifests itself.
It is both the object of study and the location of political criticism and action.
It attempts to expose and reconcile the division of knowledge, to overcome the split between tacit (cultural knowledge) and objective (universal) forms of knowledge.
It has a commitment to a moral evaluation of modern society and to a radical line of political action.