With the dawn of the 21st Century, Asia has become the fastest growing continent on the globe. Diverse and fascinating, the Asian societies are rising in economic prominence, and are exerting increasing political, social and cultural influence on the world. Founded in 1984, Asian Studies at Northeastern is an interdepartmental program that focuses on the histories, cultures, and politics of the dynamic nation-states of East, Southeast and South Asia, while also exploring their transnational interactions and their global diasporas, especially to the United States. In so doing, it encourages students to look carefully and critically at the complex ways that people in Asian countries have been involved with one another and with the rest of the world in both the past and the present.