As of July 1, 2020, the Department of Asian Studies (DAS) is changing its name to the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (DAMES).
The faculty voted unanimously in the fall of 2019 to change our name to more accurately reflect our teaching, research, and role within the university. This does not represent a shift of our curricular focus, but rather an attempt to transparently acknowledge that this unit that started its life as the Curriculum in East Asian Studies has grown over the years—with the addition of Hindi-Urdu and South Asian Studies, the addition of Arabic and Arab Cultures, as well as the addition of Hebrew, Korean and Korean Studies, Persian, and Turkish—into a much broader academic department. The name change is timely because we are currently recruiting applicants for our new graduate program, called the M.A. in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.
Please spread the word about our new name and our new graduate program, and reach out to us with questions, comments, or just to share news.
-Morgan Pitelka, Chair, DAMES
Re-posted from: https://asianstudies.unc.edu/we-have-a-new-name/