Skip to Main Content

International Area Studies Team

This is the International Area Studies Team of Woodruff General Library at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia

Chinese Studies by Guo-hua Wang

The Emory Woodruff General Library officially started to collect Chinese resources in Chinese in 1997, while the English language collection on Chinese Studies began much earlier. The Chinese Studies program has experienced rapid growth during the past 20 years, with expanding library collections to support such program growth. The Chinese Studies librarian has been building the Collections with books, journals, newspapers, documentary films, movies and online databases. The collections cover subject areas including Chinese language, culture, literature both classics and modern, history, politics, religion, philosophy, arts, public health and social sciences.

The Chinese Studies librarian also provides a full range of library services to support our faculty’s teaching and research, and student learning. The librarian leads library instructional sessions to educate students about library resources to benefit their research papers and projects.  The librarian also conducts individual research consultations to users as needed

South Asian Studies by Gautham Reddy

The South Asian Studies collection at Emory University Libraries primarily support faculty and students in the departments of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies (MESAS), Religion, and History. South Asian Studies began at Emory in 1995 and was originally part of the Asian Studies program, which also included East Asian Studies. In 2001, South Asian Studies joined Middle Eastern Studies to form the MESAS department. In addition to MESAS, there is also the West and South Asian Religions program in the Graduate Division of Religion, a course of study that focuses on Islamic, Hindu, and Buddhist traditions from a range of methodological perspectives. The South Asian Studies collection also supports the History department, particularly the PhD program in Asian History with its emphasis on colonialism, postcolonialism, and the making of the modern. Other users of the collection include the departments of Anthropology, Comparative Literature, English, and Political Science, as well as the Candler School of Theology.

 The first bibliographer for South Asian Studies was hired in 1999 to develop collections in accordance with the research needs and strengths of faculty in a variety of South Asian languages including Sanskrit, Hindi, and Tibetan. Emory became a participant in the Library of Congress’ South Asian Cooperative Acquisitions Program (SACAP) in 2000. The Libraries’ profile for the program focuses heavily on religious texts in Sanskrit and Tibetan, Telugu literature, and English-language texts on South Asian history and religious traditions. Emory receives 53 South Asian journals as a participant in SACAP. Many other journals are available through the Libraries’ subscriptions to aggregators that provide electronic journal packages. Aside from SACAP, Emory also acquires titles from other vendors, through acquisitions trips to South Asia, and gifts to the Libraries.

Jewish Studies by Tarina Rosen

We collect important English language books in all areas of Jewish Studies as well as some books in European languages. We also collect journals, mostly e-journals, and film and video. The library first had a subject librarian for Jewish studies in the 1980's.

Hebrew language books:

Began collecting books in Hebrew in the 1980’s. Started the Hebrew approval plan with Jerusalem Books in 2005 after single ordering books from their catalog for several years. The approval plan covers books in the major areas of Jewish Studies including Hebrew literature, criticism and linguistics, Zionism, Israel, Jewish diaspora, Jewish religion and law.

Yiddish language books:

We expanded the Yiddish collection in the 1990's by purchasing books from the National Yiddish Book Center.

Judeo-Arabic materials:

In the early 2000’s we purchased the entire microfilm of the Cambridge Cairo Genizah and the Jewish Theological Seminary Cairo Genizah. We acquired supporting reference books dealing with genizah studies. In addition, we acquired the microfiche set Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic Printing in Baghdad.

Japanese and Korean Studies by Lawrence P. Hamblin

Woodruff Library’s Japanese and Korean Studies materials have gradually been added to the collection to support the research and teaching needs of faculty in the East Asian Studies Program. Emory’s Japanese Studies program started in 1991, and courses in Korean language were first offered in 2007. These collections continue to evolve based on faculty and student needs across programs.

 The strengths of the Japanese Studies collection align with the research interests of current and past faculty, and are largely found in Japanese culture, history and literature. Specific strengths include: history of the early modern and modern (especially the Edo/Meiji) periods, with a focus on international relations; haiku; twentieth-century women’s writings, both fictional and non-fictional; feminism; and education. The library also has extensive holdings in Japanese language and linguistics and a substantial collection of manga, as well as feature-length Japanese films. The Korean Studies collection, being established much more recently and therefore significantly smaller, focuses primarily on the Korean language, though materials continue to be added in the areas of political and social movements and popular culture.

 Holdings of print journals in Japanese and Korean Studies deal with literature, political science, religion, economics, and the arts. Emory subscribes to Japanese electronic databases of reference texts, article indexes, and newspaper archives; English-language articles relevant to Japanese and Korean Studies can also be found in larger integrated databases such as JSTOR.

Latin American & Caribbean Studies by Philip S MacLeod

The Latin American & Caribbean collections of Emory University Libraries originally developed in support  of the Spanish Department. Emory hired its first dedicated Latin American & Caribbean Studies bibliographer in 2001.  This dedicated position is principally responsible for the fields of Latin American history and Iberian & Latin American literatures and languages.   The collections also support the undergraduate and doctoral programs of a number of departments, most notably: Anthropology, Political Science, Art History, French, English, Comparative Literature, and Religion. Other departments and schools are users of the collection, these include: Music, Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies, Sociology, Environmental Studies, Public Health, and the Gozuieta Business School.

 

The Latin American & Caribbean Studies collections strongest holdings  are for Latin American literature and Latin American history. Other traditional strengths of the collections are the Rio de la Plata region, slavery and the African presence in Latin America, as well as materials on Jewish Latin America.  Since 2000, Emory has made a commitment to substantially increase the size of its Brazilian holdings. A more recent emphasis is collecting materials from Mexico especially concerning history of the colonial period and works on indigenous peoples. The Caribbean region (Spanish, English and French speaking nations) continues to be of importance for the collection.  The film & video holdings are another strength of the collection totaling at least 2500 items (films and documentaries).

Middle East and Islamic Studies by Neda Zeraatkar

The Middle East and Islamic Collection at Emory University mainly support students and faculties in the Middle East and Islamic Studies Department whose areas of expertise include archeology, anthropology, gender studies, history, linguistics, literature, and religion. the study of the region integrally, focusing on historical, cultural, linguistic, and religious continuities from the Ancient Mediterranean and Indo-Pakistani sub-continent, through the Islamic period up to the present day in the fields of language studies, Islamic studies, history, and literature. In addition, the materials are mostly in Arabic, Hindi, Persian, Turkish, and Urdu.

Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies by Tarina Rosen

REEES:

We collect important English language books in REEES as well as some books in European languages. We also collect journals, mostly e-journals, and film and video. The library first had a subject librarian for REEES in the 1980's.

Russian language books:

Began collecting more intensively in the 1980's with the establishment of an approval plan for Russian language books. We currently have an approval plan with MIPP International. It covers history, politics, international relations, sociology, communication, language and linguistics, literature, film studies, philosophy, religion and art and architecture.  In the 1980's we purchased and processed a large collection of retrospective materials including serial back files to fill in gaps from the 1960's and 1970's