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The AM degree is administered by the Committee on Regional Studies–East Asia (RSEA). This program provides a basic preparation for specialization in the East Asian field, both for future PhD candidates and for those preparing for non-academic careers. The program is flexible to meet individual needs, and students should meet with their academic advisors to determine the courses best suited to their goals. 

The First Two Years

Typically, the program consists of the following:

First Year

• An advanced language course in Chinese, Japanese, or Korean, or, for students who have not previously studied the language, an appropriate beginning course.

• Six half-courses on East Asian history, politics, economics, literature, or other as­pects of the culture, or courses offering methodological or comparative insights on East Asia.

Second Year

• A full course continuing the Chinese, Japanese, or Korean language.

• A seminar devoted to the writing of a thesis on a chosen topic.

• Five other approved half-courses.

• Students with a special interest in Vietnam are normally required to attain proficien­cy in the Chinese or Japanese language.

Course Content

• In order to count for credit in RSEA, a course must have substantial East Asian con­tent; a paper written for the course must be on a topic related to East Asia (either one or more countries of East Asia). Students must verify in advance with the program administrator or chair whether courses that do not specifically focus on East Asia will be accepted by the program as counting toward the degree.

Credit for Core Courses

• Core courses may count for credit if they have a graduate section and/or require ex­tra work by the graduate students, in particular a longer paper (or papers), and if ex­aminations are graded separately from those of undergraduates.

Language Requirement

• Students are required to demonstrate proficiency in one East Asian language to the level of a completed third-year course. Tests are administered by the Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations Language Program before the beginning of classes in September to ascertain each student’s degree of proficiency. Those who are native speakers or have achieved such a level are considered to have ful­filled the language requirement. They will need to provide a form to that effect from the appropriate language teaching staff of the Department of East Asian Lan­guages and Civilizations.

• In order to count among the required minimum eight courses in East Asian studies, courses in the same language in which the required proficiency has been demon­strated must be taken at the fourth-year level or above. Courses in a second East Asian language must be at the second-year level or above.

• For students without prior language background, it usually will be necessary to con­tinue formal language study, at Harvard or elsewhere, through the summer follow­ing the first year in residence.

Advising

• RSEA master’s degree students are assigned a faculty advisor as close as possible to their expressed academic interests, who may or may not be a member of the RSEA Committee, with whom they should meet to discuss their proposed course of study before study cards are filed. They should also consult with the program ad­ministrator to ensure that their course selection will fulfill the requirements of the degree. RSEA students are free in addition to consult with other faculty members in their areas of academic interest and, should their focus of interest change, may pe­tition the committee for a reassignment of their faculty advisor. The RSEA AM the­sis is also written under the supervision of an appropriate faculty advisor, when the student determines a thesis topic.

Thesis

The presentation of an approved research seminar paper fulfills the thesis requirement. The standards the thesis must reach in order to be accepted as a piece of scholarship that fulfills the committee’s requirements and demonstrates the candidate’s qualifications to be awarded the AM degree in Regional Studies–East Asia are as follows:

• The paper should demonstrate original research and/or fresh interpretation and should employ, in significant degree, original sources in one or more East Asian languages.

• The paper should, where relevant, demonstrate the candidate’s familiarity with previous scholarship related to the subject under discussion.

• The paper should be written in a scholarly fashion, including footnotes and bibliography.

• A typical paper is expected to consist of a text of fifty to sixty pages in length or, in special circumstances, of a length approved as appropriate in advance of submission by the committee.

• The AM qualifying thesis normally is written as a requirement for an appropriate seminar-level course. It will be necessary to expand and/or make changes in the paper so as to meet the RSEA Committee’s requirements. An alternative for some students is to write the paper in a 300- or 3000-level course (see below) under the direction of an appropriate faculty member. Under any circumstances, the candidate should consult with his or her regional studies advisor as well as with the instructor under whose direction the AM seminar paper is written during the course of the pa­per’s preparation. Adherence to these guidelines will minimize the possibility of re­jection of a paper submitted for the degree when it is too late to make changes, and the consequent denial of the degree. The award of the degree will still, however, be dependent on the final acceptance of the thesis by the two readers delegated by the committee.

• Due dates for submission of the AM thesis, for the May, November, and March de­grees, will be determined by the RSEA Committee; please check with the RSEA pro­gram office for specific dates.

RSEA 300/310

• RSEA 300 is a course of reading and research that students may take under the super­vision of a faculty advisor. It is by petition to the program; forms are available for this purpose in the RSEA office. Students wishing to take this course must have a well-defined program of a paper topic and the consent of a faculty advisor. RSEA 310 may be taken, again under the supervision of a faculty advisor, by students wishing to pol­ish a paper written for a seminar or reading course with the purpose of turning the pa­per into a master’s thesis. If RSEA 310 is taken, it should not be included among the eight courses in East Asian studies that count toward the AM degree in RSEA.

One-Year Master of Arts (AM)

• Students wishing to complete the AM degree in one year instead of the usual two must have the permission of the chair of the committee. This permission must be sought at the beginning of the academic year. The petition must be accompanied by a list of courses the student plans to take over the course of the year. Students plan­ning to complete the AM degree in one year should bear in mind that they may not take RSEA 300 for the purpose of revising their seminar paper and turning it into a master’s thesis and having it count as one of the eight courses toward the degree.

Residence

• Candidates are ordinarily expected to be registered as full-time students in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences for sixteen half-courses, at full tuition. Under extraordinary circumstances, and only with the prior permission of the Com­mittee, candidates may apply to finish the degree in one year, satisfying residency requirements with eight half-courses at full tuition.