East Asian Studies at Manchester comprises Chinese Studies and Japanese Studies. It has academic staff, and language teaching teams in Chinese and Japanese. Besides PhD and MPhil programmes in Chinese Studies and in Japanese Studies for those who specifically focus on one or other of these cultural areas, East Asian Studies offers scope for MPhil and PhD topics concerning the East Asian region, broadly defined (including South-East Asia, especially when related to areas and cultures which use Chinese writing characters), while transcending specific cultural boundaries or seeking to utilize the academic specialism and guidance of scholars in East Asian Studies to engage with academic topics within the region. In such contexts East Asian Studies staff can offer postgraduate supervision in a variety of areas related to religion, education, popular culture, art, history, gender studies, identity formation, literature, social dynamics, social and business networks, as well as medical history and policy, either in terms of specific East Asian cultures or relating to topics defined as crossing national and cultural boundaries within the wider East Asian context.