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Undergraduate Programs Information

Major or minor in Asian Studies.

Graduate Programs Information

Including: Master of Arts in Asian Studies, Master’s in Asian International Affairs, and Graduate Certificates in Asian Studies.

Student Testimonials

Christina Geisse

The Asian Studies Program was incredible because most professors were undertaking their own research, passionate about their subject of study, and enthusiastic about sharing their knowledge with students. It felt fresh and profound at the same time. Inspiring! 

Christina Geisse
Kim Sluchansky

I was able to delve deep and focus on the areas of Asian Studies that truly interested me, and therefore gained a much more thorough and developed understanding of my fields of interest, which are applicable to my current career path. Also, the professors are extremely helpful and want their students to succeed. They were very supportive both while I was at UH and after I graduated.

Asram Maha Rosei Angkor Borei

New Findings from Lower Mekong Archaeological Project (LOMAP)

The Lower Mekong Archaeological Project (LOMAP), co-directed by Miriam Stark, Professor of Anthropology at UH Manoa and Director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, and H.E. Chuch Phoeurn, Secretary of State, Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, Kingdom of Cambodia, published their latest findings about Angkor Borei.

LOMAP was initiated in 1996, and this international collaborative archaeological project brings together scholars from several countries to investigate the early historic period of southern Cambodia. The project undertakes fieldwork in conjunction with field training for Cambodian students. Work to date has concentrated on archaeological sites in the Angkor Borei region (Takeo province, Cambodia) and at the site of Angkor Borei itself. Interestingly, the Khmer name “Angkor Borei” means “Ancient City”; short distance south of the town lies the hill of Phnom Da, on which the ancient Khmers built religious structures at different points in the past.

The newest research from Angkor Borei, to which Miriam Stark is a contributing author, sheds light on resource utilization and regional interaction:

Abstract: “Angkor Borei is a protohistoric (ca. 500 BCE − 500 CE) site in southern Cambodia (Takeo Province), on the western edge of the Mekong Delta. Cambodia’s protohistoric period, concurrent with the Iron Age elsewhere in mainland Southeast Asia, is a period characterised by major socio-political transformation: early state formation, incorporation into the South China Sea network, and urbanisation. First occupied in the mid-first millennium BCE, Angkor Borei became the delta’s largest regional centre during the Funan period (c. 1st-6th century CE). This study builds on previous skeletal chemistry research, increasing the sample set by additional 15 individuals, to refine our understanding of the residential behaviour and exploitation strategies of the Angkor Borei mortuary sample. Using strontium, oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen isotope measurements from tooth enamel and bone, and incorporating bioavailable baseline strontium isotope data, we find that the majority of individuals have a childhood 87Sr/86Sr signature consistent with locally acquired food resources. For those individuals with outlier 87Sr/86Sr values, utilisation of the broader regional environment is suggested without the need to infer long distance migration. The evidence for population stability at Angkor Borei during this dynamic period of increasing regional societal complexity indicates that the catalysts for change are manifold. Many factors are likely to have contributed to the genesis of early state society including social differentiation, cultural exchange, mercantile activity, residential mobility, and settlement growth, rather than one ‘external’ prime causative factor.”

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