Chloe Wright
Junior Editor
With a growing number of Sewanee students choosing study abroad in Asia, a new Sewanee summer study-abroad-program offers new opportunities for deep immersion in Asian history and culture: Japan and Taiwan: Buddhism and Tea.
Professors Marcus Murphy and Alison Miller, the program’s coordinators, are excited about how much each student can do, see, and learn. “The goal of the trip is really to help students delve into the rich and diverse cultures of Japan and Taiwan, process the colonial relationship between the two countries, and how they fit into the larger context of East Asia,” said Dr. Miller, director of Sewanee’s Asian Studies Department. “Students can approach the two specific topics surrounding the trip – Buddhism and Tea– coming at it from their individual perspectives within their majors.”
Each student participant will work on a research project and pull from their experiences abroad to explore subjects including International and Global Studies, Art History, Environmental Studies, or other areas. For example, as an intended Asian Studies minor, I’m planning to work on a paper about how Japan and Taiwan market their tea industries/products for Euro-American audiences, which hints at the colonial experiences in both East Asian countries. The trip is multifaceted, which will allow me and other students to take knowledge learned during the trip and apply it towards their degree in an enriching way.
Dr. Miller said the trip will introduce participants to a broad array of possible areas of further study in Asia. “It’s the biggest region geographically and essential in global economics. If you’re interested in anything from national security to food culture to environmental studies, it’s a really important region to understand. We hope to offer this program again, and I’d love to see interest in non-European international studies grow on Sewanee’s campus.”
Data suggests that interest in Asian studies is already growing at the University. Sewanee has recently seen more students opting to go to Asia instead of Europe for study abroad experiences, according to the Office of Global Citizenship. In the 2022-23 academic year, 73% of Sewanee students who studied abroad in the 2022-2023 academic year chose to live in Europe – a seven percent drop from prior years. That may be the payoff of steady recruitment efforts by staff and faculty from non-European departments, who have pointed out Asia’s growing economic and political importance.
“I think it’s really important that our students are connecting with other parts of the world,” said Professor Murphy, assistant director of the Office of Global Citizenship. “By all means, it can be difficult to get students interested in Asian Studies, but the people who have gone to Japan and Taiwan had an amazing experience and wanted to go back and learn. The question is often how do you get across that distance and help students get motivated to learn about Asia.”
If someone is looking for more opportunities to live abroad in Asia, the recently established Freeman Asia Internship Program is seeing lots of success in sending students to intern in countries such as Mongolia, Japan, Vietnam, and Korea. Plenty of job opportunities are available, from publishing to economics and business.
Academics at Sewanee are also offering students expanded ways to experience East Asian culture through language. Dr. Yanbing Tan, associate Professor of Chinese since 2017, said she is proud of Sewanee’s new Chinese language and studies minor drawing interest. “I’m happy to report that there are several students who declared this minor, and I hope to see more students getting it. We have a steady number of students taking Chinese language courses,” she says. “These are very positive signs, and we also tend to attract a very diverse student body. It’s interesting to see students in their senior year also want to take some Asian culture courses because they think this is a good way to conclude their Sewanee journey.”
During the Advent 2024 semester, Dr. Tan will be teaching a class on modern Chinese culture and is planning courses on premodern Chinese theater along with the tensions between China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Regarding the extent of Asian Studies, Dr. Miller will be teaching the Sacred Arts of Japan and Asian Art History, and Professor Murphy is continuing to teach Chinese.
There will also be four events in April centering around Asian/Asian-American experiences in Sewanee and around the world. The Office of Global Citizenship will email reminders regarding the upcoming events in the coming weeks.
Purple writer Chloe Wright will report on her summer trip in the Purple’s fall issues.