Centers for Area Studies
Center for East Asian Studies | Center for Eastern European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies | Center for Latin American Studies | Center for Middle Eastern Studies | South Asia Language and Area Center | South Asia Language Resource Center
In the mid-twentieth century Chicago and other universities began the first programs in area studies in response to international upheavals after the two world wars. Area studies provided students with intensive training in the languages, geography, and cultures of the Middle East and Asia, with the aim of fitting graduates for positions in the military or foreign service.
Over the last fifty years the expansion of the area studies model has broadened these war-time aims to include an exploration of questions of globalization, the environment, media policy, gender, family and reproduction issues, and journalism.
Since the 1980s federal funding has switched to the Department of Education and each individual Area Studies Center accordingly runs an educational outreach program hosting teachers' workshops and providing resource materials to local and international organizations. As recipients of Title VI funding these centers are able to offer Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowships and grants to their students for language tuition in lesser taught languages such as Czech, Tamil, Turkish, or Korean.
In the News
- "Area Centers Receive Grant for Three Years of Funding," by William Harms, University of Chicago Chronicle, 14 August 2003
- "University's South Asia Language Center Will Serve as Home Base for Collaborative Pedagogical Efforts," by Seth Sanders, University of Chicago Chronicle, 15 May 2003
- "Chicago Consular Corps Welcomed to International House," by Peter Schuler, University of Chicago Chronicle, 9 May 2002