Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University

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Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University The Council on East Asian Studies provides an important forum for academic exploration and support r Light Fellowship and other funding sources.

The Council on East Asian Studies (CEAS) at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut was founded in 1961 and continues a long tradition of East Asian Studies at Yale. CEAS provides an important forum for academic exploration and support related to the study of China, Japan, and Korea. For over fifty years, it has promoted education about East Asia both in the college curricula and through lectures and workshops, conferences, cultural events, and educational activities open to faculty, students, K-16 educators, and the general public. CEAS has been designated a National Resource Center for the study of East Asian languages and cultures by the United States Department of Education. CEAS is one of the many programs and initiatives at the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale. With more than thirty core faculty and more than twenty language instructors spanning twelve departments on campus, East Asian Studies remains one of Yale's most extensive area studies programs. Its interdisciplinary emphasis encourages collaborative linkages across fields and departments and contributes to diversity across the curricula and in the classroom. Approximately one hundred and fifty courses on East Asia in the humanities and social sciences are offered each year. CEAS administers Bachelor of Arts (BA) and Master of Arts (MA) Programs. While the BA Program focuses on the study of either a country or an area within East Asia, the MA Program focuses on the study of China, Japan, or a transnational region in East Asia. CEAS continues to develop ways to expand Korean Studies in both the undergraduate and graduate curricula. In 1999, the Council initiated a Postdoctoral Associates Program, bringing talented individuals into the community of scholars at Yale to conduct research and teach advanced undergraduate seminars. In addition to supporting Chinese, Japanese, and Korean language curriculum development, CEAS encourages study of East Asian languages at approved programs abroad through the Richard U. It promotes development of language initiatives such as Directed Language Study in least-taught languages; Foreign Language Across the Curriculum offerings such as Japanese- and Chinese-language sections for survey courses; and web-based language training. East Asian Studies endowments make it possible for CEAS to support Yale graduate student conferences, student organization programming, and over 40 student research projects per year. Every year CEAS also welcomes domestic and international scholars to campus as guest lecturers, visiting fellows, research scholars, and professors. CEAS is committed to providing leadership in the study and understanding of East Asia on campus and in the region through support of educational and outreach activities with emphasis on joint endeavors across institutions both regionally and internationally. Study and research in East Asian Studies at Yale are supported by one of the finest library collections in the country. The Chinese, Japanese, and Korean language print resources in the East Asia Library at Sterling Memorial Library constitute one of the oldest and largest collections found outside of East Asia. For information on how to join the CEAS-LIST to receive email messages regarding East Asian studies-related activities at Yale University and beyond, please visit http://yale.us5.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=8f8c1b6ee565468a2d780b0bf&id=638ec3d248. For more information about Yale University's global initiatives, please visit the“Yale and the World” web site at http://world.yale.edu. Council on East Asian Studies at Yale University
Room 320, Henry R. Luce Hall
34 Hillhouse Avenue
P.O. Box 208206
New Haven, CT 06520-8206
Phone: 203.432.3426
Fax: 203.432.3430
[email protected]

TOMORROW: How to Understand “Many Treasures Tower” in the Lotus Sutra4:30pm - 6pmLuce Hall, Room 203It is a curious hist...
10/15/2026

TOMORROW: How to Understand “Many Treasures Tower” in the Lotus Sutra

4:30pm - 6pm
Luce Hall, Room 203

It is a curious historical development that “Many Treasures Tower (Jpn. tahōtō 多宝塔),” the Buddhist stupa discussed in Chapter 11 of the Lotus Sutra, was built frequently as architectural structures in large numbers only in Japan. It was also only in Japanese history that the stupa established its own fixed architectural style. This seems noteworthy or even strange because the popularity of the Lotus Sutra has been established in many other East Asian countries.

My paper aims to answer this question by thoroughly contextualizing Many Treasures Tower of the Lotus Sutra in two ways. First, I look at how the sutra’s description of Buddhist stupa is connected to the popularity of stupa worship in ancient India that overlaps with the production of early Mahayana sutras, including the Lotus (roughly about 1st and 2nd centuries AD). Secondly, I observe the Lotus Sutra’s discussion of the stupa worship in the intertextual context with other major early Mahayana scriptures, such as Vimakakīrti and Diamond sutras.

My observations identify a particular interpretive strategy developed by Japanese sectarian scholarship that encouraged the building only in Japan of the Lotus Sutra’s Many Treasures Tower as actual architectural structures.

BA (Econ), Keiō Univ.; MA (Int’l Affairs) SAIS, Johns Hopkins Univi..; MPhil & PhD (Religion), Columba Univ. After serving as the departmental chair at Religion Dept. at Columbia Univ., Abé moved to Harvard and has been teaching at Harvard’s Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures. His recent publications include essays on Dragon Princess and Many Treasures Tower in the Lotus Sutra, Kūkai’s irrigation project, and books on Ryōkan’s biography and Kūkai’s thought that was grounded in the mandalas.

TOMORROW: Pastoralist Households and the Work of the Mongol Empire12pm - 1:15pmRosenkranz Hall, Room 202The Mongol Empir...
10/13/2026

TOMORROW: Pastoralist Households and the Work of the Mongol Empire

12pm - 1:15pm
Rosenkranz Hall, Room 202

The Mongol Empire (13th–15th centuries CE) was the largest contiguous empire in history, yet relatively little is known about the non-elite pastoralists who lived in its imperial heartland. Comparative anthropological frameworks have sometimes excluded pastoralist empires like the Mongols from serious consideration as empires at all. This stems partly from an assumption that pastoralists relying on animals alone could produce little taxable surplus for a state to draw on. Tsagaan Ereg, a household settlement from the Mongol period in north-central Mongolia, offers material evidence against that assumption. Its residents combined traditional herding with small-scale metallurgical craft production, farming, and participation in regional exchange networks. This evidence of what is termed multiresource pastoralism reflects a fundamentally nomadic approach to changing circumstances. At the household level this looked like diversifying subsistence strategies; at the state level, the same flexibility shaped how the empire integrated new peoples and technologies.

Read more at ceas.yale.edu

TOMORROW: After Liberalism? Political Myths, Order-building and The Return of History in East Asia2:00pm - 3:30pmLuce Ha...
10/06/2026

TOMORROW: After Liberalism? Political Myths, Order-building and The Return of History in East Asia

2:00pm - 3:30pm
Luce Hall, Room 203

In recent years, questions have been posed regarding the durability of the current rules-based (liberal) international order and what this means for the practice of international relations. In this novel study, Benjamin Ho, an assistant professor from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University (Singapore) argues of the importance of political myths shaping preferences of international order in Northeast Asia, focusing on three key states, namely China, Japan and South Korea. He shares that existing political myths provide stronger narrative justification compared to national interests (defined purely materially) for these countries to adopt or reject certain aspects of the international order. States will view the international order as good or just if the characteristics of such an order support and allow for preservation for domestic myths. On the other hand, states will view the international order unfavourably if the characteristics of this order run up or challenge their ability to preserve domestic myths. Notwithstanding the various global conflicts the world is witnessing today, Ho contends that states continue to desire order - as opposed to disorder - in global affairs and the enduring role of mythos in structuring political relations with one another.

Read more at ceas.yale.edu

TOMORROW: The Rural Roots of China’s Macroeconomy: Why Rural China Mattered before and still Matters for China and for t...
10/04/2026

TOMORROW: The Rural Roots of China’s Macroeconomy: Why Rural China Mattered before and still Matters for China and for the World

4:30pm - 6pm
ISPS, Room A002 (77 Prospect St)

Urban high rises and technology dominate discussions about Chinese economy, but many of the salient features of Chinese economy, such as overcapacity, surging export, have roots in rural China. This talk traces how the developments in rural China have shaped China’s economic model and its growth patterns.

Yasheng Huang is a professor and holds the Epoch Foundation professorship of global economics and management at MIT Sloan School of Management. From 2013 to 2017, he served as an associate dean in charge of MIT Sloan’s global partnership programs and its action learning initiatives. His previous appointments include faculty positions at the University of Michigan and at Harvard Business School.

Read more a ceas.yale.edu

TOMORROW: The Rural Roots of China’s Macroeconomy: Why Rural China Mattered before and still Matters for China and for t...
10/04/2026

TOMORROW: The Rural Roots of China’s Macroeconomy: Why Rural China Mattered before and still Matters for China and for the World

4:30pm - 6pm
ISPS, Room A002 (77 Prospect St)

Urban high rises and technology dominate discussions about Chinese economy, but many of the salient features of Chinese economy, such as overcapacity, surging export, have roots in rural China. This talk traces how the developments in rural China have shaped China’s economic model and its growth patterns.

Yasheng Huang is a professor and holds the Epoch Foundation professorship of global economics and management at MIT Sloan School of Management. From 2013 to 2017, he served as an associate dean in charge of MIT Sloan’s global partnership programs and its action learning initiatives. His previous appointments include faculty positions at the University of Michigan and at Harvard Business School.

Read more at ceas.yale.edu

TOMORROW: Landscapes and Cityscapes of Power: The Rise of Territorial States in Ancient China12pm - 1:15pmRosenkranz Hal...
10/04/2026

TOMORROW: Landscapes and Cityscapes of Power: The Rise of Territorial States in Ancient China

12pm - 1:15pm
Rosenkranz Hall, Room 202

Ancient China between 700–300 BCE was an age of dynamic state-building that witnessed the rise of a radically new type of state organization: the territorial state. For the first time in Chinese history, state power came to be grounded in centralized administrative and infrastructural control over lands, populations, and resources. As a crucial component of this process, the state reshaped and redefined the spaces it ruled to convert physical landscapes into governed territories. This talk explores how such territorial states emerged and how they transformed the natural and urban landscapes they occupied by examining the history of the Qi state in eastern China, one of the major regional powers of the era.

Chris Kim is a historian of early China whose interdisciplinary research explores state-building, political economy, and urbanism in the Zhou dynasty. His current book project, Building the Qi State, examines the spatial, economic, and infrastructural dynamics of state power in Qi over the course of its transformation from a peripheral polity in present-day Shandong Province to a major territorial power of eastern China in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, c. 700-300 BCE. Chris is also working on a range of related projects including Eastern Zhou kingship, early Chinese coinage, and the cross-cultural exchange of metallurgical knowledge in the greater Yellow Sea region in antiquity. He received his PhD from Columbia University and MA from Harvard University. Before coming to Yale, he was a visiting assistant professor at New York University.

TOMORROW: Performing Enlightenment: Buddhism and Theater in Early Modern China4:00pm - 5:30pmLuce Hall, Room 203In late ...
09/30/2026

TOMORROW: Performing Enlightenment: Buddhism and Theater in Early Modern China

4:00pm - 5:30pm
Luce Hall, Room 203

In late Ming and early Qing China, a major revival of Buddhism coincided with a growing fascination with theater. In Performing Enlightenment, Mengxiao Wang examines how Chinese Buddhist monastics and laypeople actively engaged with and transformed the dramatic arts. Drawing on a wide range of religious and literary sources, the book argues that Buddhist practitioners reconciled the tension between spiritual cultivation and worldly entertainment by reimagining theater as a creative mode of devotion. In this process, playwriting, stage performance, and theatergoing all emerged as legitimate pathways to enlightenment.

Mengxiao Wang is Assistant Professor of Chinese Literature in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Southern California. She received her Ph.D. from Yale University and was the Sheng Yen Postdoctoral Fellow in Chinese Buddhism at UC Berkeley. Her research explores the intersections of literature and Buddhism in early modern China, with particular attention to theater, ritual, gender, and book history. Her first monograph, Performing Enlightenment: Buddhism and Theater in Early Modern China, was published by the Harvard University Asia Center in 2026.

TOMORROW: New Book Roundtable | The Narrowing Sea: Fukuoka, Pusan, and the Rise and Fall of an Imperial Region4:30pm - 6...
09/30/2026

TOMORROW: New Book Roundtable | The Narrowing Sea: Fukuoka, Pusan, and the Rise and Fall of an Imperial Region

4:30pm - 6pm
Humanities Quadrangle, Room 136

Join us for a roundtable discussion on Hannah Shepherd's new book, The Narrowing Sea: Fukuoka, Pusan, and the Rise and Fall of an Imperial Region (University of California Press, December 2025).

The roundtable, chaired by David Engerman, will feature the author in conversation with Ruth Barraclough, historian of Korean history at Columbia University; Alexis Dudden, historian of Japanese and Korean history at University of Connecticut; and Fadzilah Yahaya, historian of Southeast Asia here at Yale.

This event is generously sponsored by the Council on East Asian Studies. We hope to see you there!

TOMORROW: From Colonization to Carnage: Secessionist Threats, External Support, and Repression of Ethnic Minorities4:30p...
09/29/2026

TOMORROW: From Colonization to Carnage: Secessionist Threats, External Support, and Repression of Ethnic Minorities

4:30pm - 6pm
Luce Hall, Room 202

When facing ethnic secession threats, why do states sometimes choose nonviolent strategies such as gradual demographic engineering while other times use extreme violence like mass killings? Existing theories provide limited explanations, especially at the local level. We propose that the presence of external support for secessionists and their internal capabilities matter. Without imminent threats of external support, states prefer nonviolent approaches like internal colonization, gradually altering the demographic makeup in frontier regions near external rivals to strengthen control over minority-concentrated territories. However, when external support becomes immediate and militarized, the urgency to prevent territorial loss drives states to employ mass violence. By targeting communities with strong separatist capabilities, states can quickly quell movements and deter further mobilization. Our research, using new data on China’s mass colonization programs and ethnic violence during Mao's regime, supports this argument. It demonstrates how external and internal territorial pressures shape minority policies in multi-ethnic states.

Read more at ceas.yale.edu

TOMORROW: Through Famine and War: Lower-Class Lives in Medieval Japan4:30pm - 6pmLuce Hall, Room 203「日本中世の下層民衆—飢饉と戦乱のなかで...
09/24/2026

TOMORROW: Through Famine and War: Lower-Class Lives in Medieval Japan

4:30pm - 6pm
Luce Hall, Room 203

「日本中世の下層民衆—飢饉と戦乱のなかで生き延びた人々―」
12世紀～16世紀の日本は、武士が台頭し、戦乱が頻繁に起こった時代であるとともに、飢饉などの災害も頻発する時代であった。 戦乱や飢饉によって苦しい生活を強いられた民衆たちは、このような時代をどのように生き延びていったのか。 中世身分制の最末端におかれた「非人」集団の動向を中心に紹介したい。

"Through Famine and War: Lower-Class Lives in Medieval Japan”
From the twelfth through the sixteenth centuries, Japan witnessed the rise of the samurai class, frequent warfare, and recurrent disasters such as famine. How did ordinary people manage to survive in such troubled times? This lecture explores that question with particular reference to the history of the “hinin” (lit.“non-human”) groups, who stood at the very bottom of the medieval status system.

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