Southeast Asian Studies Program

The Southeast Asian Studies Program (SEAP) at the University of Washington (UW) has provided leadership and resources for the study of SEA in Washington State and the Pacific Northwest for almost 50 years. Our mission is to promote the study of Southeast Asia (SEA) by graduate and undergraduate students and to further the understanding of SEA in schools and colleges, in our region and the nation. The SEA Center (SEAC) and SEAP are housed in and supported by the Jackson School of International Studies (JSIS). SEAP offers a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Asian studies and a Master of Arts (MA) in international studies with a focus on SEA. Other MA and doctoral students with research and career interests in SEA pursue degrees in 16 departments and seven professional schools across campus.

SEAC has 52 faculty who teach about the 11 countries of SEA in various disciplines across the Arts and Sciences, the Medical Sciences, and the professional schools. SEAC now offers comprehensive language study in Indonesian, Tagalog, Thai, and Vietnamese, with introductory and intermediate Burmese being offered through self-directed, tutorial study since 2004. The program is supported by one of the most extensive library collections of contemporary SEA materials in the country, with over 132,400 materials in the collection. SEAC's preeminence as a national resource center for SEA studies will be reaffirmed in the 2006-2010 period with new offerings in advanced language training in Tagalog and Vietnamese. SEAC plans an expansion of our programming on Islamic law, history, political science, and literature, to include modern Islamic music. The UW has built one of the nation's most accomplished SEA programs in the social sciences and professional schools. Now we seek equal prominence in the SEA humanities.

We are making the expansion into the musical and performing arts traditions of Islamic SEA our primary goal for the 2006-2010 period. This coincides with heightened undergraduate and graduate student and heritage community interest in the UW's strong Philippine and Malay/Indonesian programs. Additional plans for the 2006-2010 grant period include new advanced language courses, a taskforce on human trafficking and human rights in SEA, a conference on the ethnography of mainland SEA, workshops on contemporary history, environment, and politics in the Philippines and Vietnam, a workshop on Islam, Democracy, and the Military in SEA, new graduate student conferences, library development, faculty and staff professional development, diversity training, and expanded course offerings.

SEAC's ongoing commitment to K-12 and post-secondary educational programming places SEAC at the center of learning about the region in Washington State. In 2006-2010, SEAC will train and certify its first cohort of Master Teachers in the Arts and Religions of SEA. SEAC will bring exhibitions of art, material cultures, and performances to the general public through collaborations on campus, with K-12 teachers, with local community colleges, and with the local arts community. SEAC also plans annual follow-up events for teachers and the public to last spring's Islam Asia Modernity conference.