To understand Southeast Asia as a region, students need to make sense of and engage with its diverse expressive forms of culture (including visual arts, literature, and performance) which are crucial in building and maintaining individual as well as group identity both within and across national or ethnic boundaries. Additionally, the region will be studied with an emphasis on historical, religious, and ethnographical perspectives.

Students are to conduct original research that should form the basis for a thesis, to be written under the supervision of a member of the program who also functions as the chair of their Thesis Committee. At the beginning of the second year students should write a research proposal outlining their research project.  Approximately ten pages in length this proposal should describe the aims of the research and provide a broader theoretical framework.  After this is approved students begin to conduct individual research in the field or in the library. The finished thesis should be a minimum of 40-50 pages in length. Before filing the thesis with the Graduate Division students must pass a formal oral examination.