Welcome to SSEAS

We offer training in 14 languages, and undergraduate and graduate degree programs in the histories, religions, cultures and textual traditions of a third of the world’s population. Our faculty specializes in all periods from the classical to the modern, in the fields of literature, history, and religious studies, and conducts research in India, Pakistan, Tibet, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

Department Statement on Anti-Asian Hate Crimes

We in the Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies join Chancellor Christ and our colleagues in Asian American and Asian Studies in condemning the shocking attacks on Asian and Asian American/Pacific Islanders.  We deplore the rising tide of anti-Asian hate crime and the rhetoric and performance of white-supremacy, racism, and misogyny in which it is rooted   that dehumanizes Asian and Asian/Pacific Islanders and particularly women.

We condemn the recent targeted killings of Asian and Asian American women in the 17 March mass shootings in Atlanta, Georgia.  We share in the sorrow of the families and communities of the victims.

We urge all in our community to join us in our stand to combat the rising trend of abuse, violence, discrimination against, and exclusion of the Asian and Asian/ Pacific Islander population on our campus, in our community, and in the nation.

We honor the contributions that Asians and Asian Americans have made in countless professions, including in public health, as frontline workers who risk their lives to help all members of our community, and who continue to contribute their expertise, their care, their labor, and even their own safety to protect our community and to ensure food security in this ruthless pandemic.

We call on all members of our campus community to recognize and validate these contributions, and to embrace and provide space for the diversity of cultures and heritages of Asian and Asian American/Pacific Islanders on this campus and beyond.

Support SSEAS

Your tax-deductible contribution to the Department of South & Southeast Asian Studies helps fund language teaching, student scholarships, and everything we do.

Humayun's Tomb

Recent News

Lecturer Pool – South and Southeast Asian Studies – Dept. of South and Southeast Asian Studies

The Department of South and Southeast Asian Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, invites applications for qualified, temporary, non-tenure track lecturers, to teach courses in South and Southeast Asian Studies, should a need arise. To apply, please visit here.

Professor Emerita Joanna G. Williams 1939-2022

Professor Emerita Joanna G. Williams, distinguished scholar of South and Southeast Asian art, passed away at her home in Berkeley on June 16, 2022, at the age of eighty-four. She was one of the foremostscholars of South and Southeast Asian art and architecture and,indeed, one of the…

Luis González-Reimann 1948–2022

It was with great shock and sadness that we members of the SSEAS family learned of the sudden and unexpected loss of our former Ph.D. student and cherished colleague Dr. Luis González-Reimann, who passed away as a result of a heart attack while on a…

Completed PhDs

Priya Kothari
2023
Between Divine Path and Devotional Community: Preaching the Bhāgavata Purāṇa in the Vallabha Sampradāya of Western India

Nicole Ferreira
2022
Mobile Pasts: Memory, Migration, and Place in Afghan Identity, 1451-1770

Kashi Gomez
2022
Ghanaśyāma and his Co-wives: Language, Gender, and Identity in Sanskrit Archives from Eighteenth-century Tanjavur

Thiti Jamkajornkeiat
2022
Peripheral Dialectics: History and Theory of Left Internationalism in Postcolonial Indonesia (1943-1966)

John Pickens
2022
Preliminary Practices and the Formation of Tibetan Buddhism

Janet Um
2022
Daṇḍin’s Avantisundarī: A Study in Genre and Sociability

Sophia Warshall
2022
Imprints and Impressions: a study of Javanese stūpika

For the complete list Click Here

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