Oriental Studies offers an insight into cultures that are often overlooked at school. A range of languages are available, including Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese, Persian, Sanskrit, and Turkish. The course encompasses the study of culture, religion, and modern developments.
Students can also choose to read for a degree in Arabic and Islamic Studies, Egyptology, Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies or Jewish Studies instead of a pure language degree such as Arabic or Chinese. Oriental Studies have been taught at Oxford for hundreds of years with a Regius Professorship of Hebrew having been established in the 16th century and the Laudian Professorship established 90 years later in 1636.
The structure of the course depends on a student’s chosen language and culture. Arabic, Chinese, Persian, Turkish, or Japanese, students spend their first year taking intense language classes, as well as culture and history classes. The second year is usually spent studying at a university abroad, which is organised by the university. Students in the other strands spend their whole time in Oxford and have a large range of modules available to them. After their first year, students can choose to take up a subsidiary language, such as Korean if they are on the Chinese Studies course.
Oxford has great facilities and resources for Oriental Studies. It is home to the Nizami Ganjavi Library (a mere 55,000 volumes available!) at the Oriental Institute (the “OI”) and the KB Chen China Centre to name just a couple.
There are no specific A Level (or equivalent) requirements for this course, but it may be helpful to have studied a modern or classical language.
