Oberlin College Awarded Luce Foundation Grant to Enhance East Asian Studies By Marci Janas
			NOVEMBER 8, 1999-- A recent grant from the Henry Luce Foundation will allow Oberlin College to fund a new junior faculty position in East Asian Studies. The Luce Junior Professor of East Asian Studies will focus on contemporary East Asia through either anthropological or sociological scholarship, thus significantly expanding East Asian studies curricular offerings in the social sciences and introducing a new emphasis on Korea and Northeast Asia. "This position is ideal for Oberlin," says Clayton Koppes, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. "It enables the East Asian Studies Program to put more focus on contemporary issues in East Asia and to strengthen the attention it can devote to an area that has been underrepresented in the curriculum--Korea and Northeast Asia. This position solidifies Oberlin's East Asian Studies Program as one of the very strongest among liberal arts colleges." East Asian Studies is the oldest of Oberlin’s area studies programs, established in 1965 as an interdisciplinary program designed to provide extensive training in language and to introduce students to the civilizations of China and Japan. Course offerings are available in art, history, politics, religion, and music, but the grant from the Luce Fund for Asian Studies will establish and strengthen the social sciences, emphasizing contemporary East Asia. David Kelley, associate professor of history and East Asian studies--and director of the East Asian Studies Program--says the new position fills an important need by integrating Korea into the curriculum, "especially from the vantage point of its own culture rather than solely through the eyes of other nations. We want the person to teach about Korea in a survey context, but the position is aimed at a kind of regional and comparative perspective, focusing on the societies and cultures of Northeast Asia--Japan, China and Korea." According to Kelley, the Luce Junior Professor of Asian Studies will be expected to provide an introduction to the societies and cultures of Korea in an East Asian context; offer thematic courses that explore societal and cultural connections across the region or that focus more specifically on Northeast Asia or Korea; and introduce seminars or colloquia that provide opportunities for advanced-level research in East Asian studies using social-science methodologies and approaches. A search for applicants is under way. "Campus interviews will probably occur in late January or February," Koppes says. The Foundation made the award to Oberlin in the form of a grant from its Luce Fund for Asian Studies, which was initiated this year, according to Henry Luce III, chairman and C.E.O. of the Foundation, "to foster the study of East and Southeast Asia at selective American liberal arts colleges, as well as to reinforce the liberal arts generally." David Love, associate vice president in Oberlin's Office of Sponsored Programs, says 53 colleges submitted preliminary grant applications this year. Of that number, 20 were invited to submit final proposals. The Luce Fund for Asian Studies awarded grants to 10 other colleges besides Oberlin this year.
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