ASU offers numerous courses related to Asia in various disciplines. A few of those course have been mentioned below with a short description. A more thorough schedule for these courses and many more can be found using ASU Class Search.
Art History
ARS 498 – Modern and Contemporary Art of India and South Asia
Professor: Ralph Gabbard, PhD
Explore diverse artistic forms in painting, sculpture, performance, installation, public art, and video across India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bhutan, spotlighting regional artists and curators.Course Description: This course will explore modern and contemporary art in India and South Asia (Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bhutan) We will cover all the genres including painting, sculpture, performance, installation, public art, and video art. Together we will discover the voices of Asian artists, art historians, collectors, and curators who are shaping modern or contemporary art in South Asia.
ARS 394 – Modern and Contemporary Art of China
Professor: Ralph Gabbard, PhD
Covers Chinese modern and contemporary art from 1911 to present, examining painting, sculpture, installation, performance, and video.Course Description: In this course, we will explore the modern and contemporary art of China in all its various media, including painting, sculpture, installation, performance, and video. The course will focus on art from 1911 until today.
ARS/REL 394/598 – Illustrated Manuscripts & Related Objects from Asia
Professors: Claudia Brown and Nandita Punj
Traces the evolution of manuscript culture in Asia, examining materials, techniques, and functions through historical and digital resources.Course Description: The transition from the oral to the written word is a significant and complex global phenomenon that took diverse forms and shapes temporally and spatially. In fact, the form and shape that the written word takes has continued to change and evolve. In today’s world, technology has considerably altered the ways in which we approach and acquire knowledge but leafing through the tactile pages of a book still offers satisfaction and comfort to many. So, what is the historical trajectory of the book? Which are the earliest surviving manuscripts and what was their format and content? How were they produced? Did scribes and artists work together? How did manuscripts travel? Considering the interconnected regions that comprise present-day Asia, this course will examine the development and fluorescence of the rich manuscript cultures specific to these regions. Students will be familiarized with techniques of writing and illustration, materials and pigments, format and function, as well as terminology used to describe manuscripts. Using a variety of sources such as exhibition websites, digital humanities projects, archival and private manuscript collections, and academic scholarship on regional manuscript cultures, we will query the issues of materiality, production, form, function, and agency. There is no prerequisite or textbook for this course
- ARS 574 – Art of Japan
Professor: Claudia Brown
Examines Asia's rise as a global economic power, analyzing historical and cultural contexts behind regional political and economic transformations.
Religious Studies
REL 350 – Hinduism
Professor: Nandita Punj
Offers a compact introduction to Hindu beliefs, iconography, rituals, gender roles, and modern issues from ancient to contemporary times.Course Description: Hinduism is one of the most complex and oldest documented religions on earth with some traditions and practices traced as far back as the third millennium BCE. More than one billion people — most of them living in India — adhere to Hindu believes and practices in which the worship of myriads of gods and goddesses (devata) is integrated with concepts of the Oneness of all beings (brahma). Major Hindu doctrines teach values of order and status (dharma), causality and merit (karma), rebirth and salvation (samsara and moksha). This course will give you a compact introduction to Hinduism. We will look at Hindu teachings: scriptures and myths; iconography: images and monuments; practices: worship, festivals and rituals; history: ancient origins, colonial impacts and modern issues; religious pluralism versus communal conflicts, the role of women in Hindu culture.
REL/HST 260 – Introduction to Islam
Professor: Han Hsien Liew, PhD
Surveys Islamic history, beliefs, and practices across Africa and Asia, exploring key themes like Qur’an, law, Shi’ism, and gender.Course Description: This course is a survey of Islam through an examination of its history, beliefs, and practices. It engages with themes such as the Qur’an, Shi’ism, political thought, women, sexual minorities, the development of law and rituals, as well as the formation of vernacular Muslim cultures in Africa, East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Focus will be on providing a historical perspective on how Islamic beliefs and practices developed over time from the Prophet Muhammad’s day to modern times.
REL/HST/POS/SGS 396 – Islam and Politics
Professor: Han Hsien Liew, PhD
Examines Islamic political thought across eras, focusing on issues such as jihad, democracy, and political Islam through primary texts.Course Description: This course addresses explores how Muslim thinkers have conceived of their religion and its place in the political realm from the time of the Prophet Muhammad to the present. It aims to show how Muslims in different periods of Islamic history developed diverse forms of political thinking in response to socio-political developments specific to their respective times and places. Themes to be addressed include the Sunni-Shi’i split; jihad; Islam and democracy; and political Islam. Readings will consist of translated Muslim writings in various genres such as theological and legal treatises, biographies, recorded speeches and sermons, letters and correspondences, and advice literature.
History
HST 598 – Readings in Asian History
Professor: Yasmin Saikia, PhD
A graduate seminar exploring South Asian historiography through postcolonial and subaltern lenses, emphasizing decolonial methodologies.Course Description: This graduate seminar interrogates the historiographical constructions of South Asia through a critical examination of competing epistemic frameworks and methodological paradigms. The course navigates the interstices between colonial archives, nationalist counternarratives, and subaltern interventions to problematize teleological accounts of historical development in the region. By engaging with dialectical tensions between structure and agency, continuity and rupture, the seminar foregrounds the politics of knowledge production within South Asian historiography.
Students will examine the genealogies of various theoretical approaches—from Orientalist constructions and Cambridge School interpretations to postcolonial critiques and decolonial methodologies—while interrogating how these frameworks reconfigure understandings of historical temporality and spatiality. The seminar deconstructs hegemonic historiographical practices by centering subaltern epistemologies and excavating silenced narratives of caste-based, gendered, and religious marginalization.
Through critical engagement with seminal theoretical interventions and primary source materials, participants will analyze historiographical debates surrounding colonial modernity, anticolonial resistance, partition violence, state formation, and contemporary social movements. The course problematizes binary constructions of tradition/modernity and secular/religious while exploring the heterogeneous temporalities and spatialities that constitute South Asian historical experience.
By the conclusion of this seminar, students will develop sophisticated interpretive frameworks for navigating the palimpsestic nature of South Asian historiography and contribute to ongoing theoretical conversations about historical representation, archival politics, and the decolonization of historical knowledge.
HST/REL 111 – Introduction to Asia
Professor: Sungik Yang
A broad survey of Asia’s history, religions, cultures, and politics, covering China, Japan, Korea, India, and Southeast Asia.Course Description: "If you want to learn more about Asia's fascinating history, culture, and religious traditions, this course is for you! We will examine the history,religions, cultures, states, and societies of China, Japan, Korea, South Asia(primarily India), and Southeast Asia. By completing this course, you will be familiar with the basic elements of the region’s major civilizations, including(a) the region’s geography and human habitats; (b) its extraordinary ethnic,cultural, and linguistic diversity; (c) its major religious, philosophical, and artistic traditions; (d) its historical evolution from classical kingdoms to modern nation-states; and (e) its place and role in the contemporary world."
HST 303 – Film and Politics in Asia
Professor: Sungik Yang
Explores modern Korean history through cinema, analyzing films as historical texts and cultural reflections of Korea's transformation.Course Description: "K- Pop and the Korean Wave have brought the glitz and glamor of Korea onto the global stage, but it wasn't so long ago that Korea was an impoverished, war-torn, authoritarian country that most people wrote off as a perpetual basket case. And yet, Korea has made a remarkable transformation into a modern, industrialized democracy whose cultural products now have gained ardent fans around the world.
This course will explore the contours of modern Korean history through one of those cultural products: Korean films. We will examine the momentous events and developments in Korean history, how Korean movies depict them, and how the films themselves are products of the time in which they were made. We will learn not just about history, but about how the depictions of history themselves can be scrutinized."
Chinese
CHI/SLC 434 – Buddhist Poetry
Professor: Nick Williams
Introduces Buddhist teachings through poetry from India, Tibet, and Japan, including works by Indian nuns and Japanese haiku masters.Course Description: I introduce the essentials of Buddhism and then examine how Buddhist believers expressed and reinterpreted Buddhist doctrines in poetry across Asia. The course covers basic historical and cultural background but then focuses on reading primary sources such as poems written by Indian nuns, the Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa, and Japanese haiku.
Women's Studies
WST 378 (85387) – Global Feminist Theory
Professor: Lila Sharif
Examines feminist theories from the Global South, engaging with gender, race, class, and nation in global social movements.Course Description: In-depth studies of global feminist theories and exploration of the intersections of gender, race, ethnicity, class, and nation through critical analysis. (Has General Gold and Maroon designation i.e. general studies, literal and critical Inquiry and Global awareness.)
WST 501 (65024) – Foundational Feminist Thought
Professor: Indulata Prasad
Introduces key feminist theories and research foundations in women's and gender studies, with global and intersectional perspectives.Course Description: Provides key concepts and theories that have shaped the field of women and gender studies. Also provides an overview of resources for research in women's studies scholarship at ASU and prepares students to participate in the field.
Both these courses draw on varied feminist theorizations from the global south to understand, engage, and respond to the interconnected nature of social inequality and social change.
Provides key concepts and theories that have shaped the field of women and gender studies. Also provides an overview of resources for research in women's studies scholarship at ASU and prepares students to participate in the field.
Global Technology and Development
GTD 511 – Global Development Policy and Practices
Professor: Netra Chhetri, PhD
Investigates global development issues—health, education, food security—through case studies, policy critique, and alternative models.Course Description:Curious about how development policy shapes lives globally? This course invites you to critically explore global development policy and practices through themes like health, education, forestry, governance of the commons, and food security. Using real-world case studies, we examine how well-intentioned strategies can un intended outcomes —and what alternative models might look like. Perfect for students interested in understanding the complexities of 21st-century development.
- GTD 598 (88528) – Technology and Development in Southeast Asia
Professor: Itty Abraham
Explores the relationship between technology and socio-economic development in Southeast Asia; full description in progress.
Thunderbird School of Global Management
TGM 515 – Navigating Global and Regional Business Environments (Asia)
Professor: Doug Guthrie
Examines Asia's rise as a global economic power, analyzing historical and cultural contexts behind regional political and economic transformations.Course Description: Asia has emerged as one of the most powerful economic regions in the world, home the three of the world’s five largest economies (China, Japan, India). The Region’s rise over the last 60 years has transformed the geo-political economic system in fundamental ways. We begin by looking at and Asian history and culture, which form the backdrop for an analysis of these societies. We study the economic transformation that has unfolded in Asia over the last 60 years. Finally, we consider what these changes mean for several key issues that Asia faces, from politics to economics to manufacturing supply chains to human rights.