Recent News
The Department of Asian Languages & Literature is thrilled to join the College of Arts & Sciences in congratulating Tran Huynh Bao Ho, a double-major in Korean and Asian Languages & Cultures with a minor in Naval ROTC, for receiving the 2024 Dean's Medal in the Humanities.
The Dean’s Medal is awarded by the College of Arts & Sciences each spring to four graduating seniors — one from each of the College’s four divisions — based on academic performance and faculty… Read more
Lucy Li, Interim China Studies Librarian at the Tateuchi East Asia Library (TEAL), has written the latest article for the Northwest Asian Weekly's quarterly op-ed series featuring contributions from faculty, students, and affiliates of the Department of Asian Languages & Literature. In her article, titled "To thrive, libraries must jointly harness human and… Read more
Professor Kaoru Ohta, Teaching Professor of Japanese in the Department of Asian Languages & Literature, was featured last week in the Northwest Asian Weekly. The article, titled "Japanese and Chinese lead language learning trends in WA state" (May 29, 2024), explores changing trends in Japanese and Chinese language instruction in Washington, from K-12 through the college… Read more
From high school to college, interest in learning a language can come from cultural obsessions, to hopes for a career in business, to fascination in personal ancestry. Kaoru Ohta, teaching professor of Asian languages and literature at the UW, is quoted.Featured
on Northwest Asian Weekly
Assunta Ng, founder and publisher of Northwest Asian Weekly, has sold the 41-year-old newspaper to a group of Seattle-area investors. Ng, who will continue to advise the partners during the transition as publisher emeritus, said she believes the buyers share the same basic mission she started out with more than 40 years ago. “So I’m excited for them to take over and see what they can achieve,” she said.… Read more
Sophia Lu, a member of the Department of Asian Languages & Literature's Chinese Flagship Program and a fourth-year student majoring in Bioengineering and minoring in Naval Sciences, has recently been awarded a Boren Scholarship. Boren Scholarships are competitive awards that fund the intensive… Read more
The Department of Asian Languages & Literatures congratulates Dr. Richard Salomon, Professor Emeritus of Sanskrit, on his election as an honorary member of the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW). As Austria's largest non-university research and science institution, the OeAW strives to promote science in every respect, across a broad range of fields and disciplines.
Congratulations, Professor Salomon!
Dr. Zev Handel, Professor of Chinese Linguistics and Chair of the Department of Asian Languages & Literature, delivered the 2024 Washin Kai Spring Lecture to a packed auditorium on April 3.
Professor Handel's lecture, titled "Chinese Characters across Asia: Continuity and Transformation in Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese," explored how the building blocks of the Chinese script were adapted to represent the words and sounds of Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese – languages as… Read more
Dr. Nazry Bahrawi, Assistant Professor of Southeast Asian Literature, was interviewed for a feature story in BBC StoryWorks, titled "Found in translation: Letters from a multilingual island." The article explores Prof. Bahrawi's translation philosophy and practice in the context of Singaporean multiculturalism and multilingualism, and features an excerpt from his English-language translation of the 18th-century Malay tale Hikayat Raja Babi. … Read more
In Singapore’s growing microcosm of modern multiculturalism, literary translators bridge people across walks of life. These skilled story-weavers shoulder the responsibility of making our far-reaching roots accessible to readers around the world. Nazry Bahrawi, Assistant Professor of Asian Languages and Literature, is quoted.
Featured… Read more