The department of Asian History covers a wide historical range that spans from the Korean Peninsula in the east to Anatolia in the west.
The department’s faculty members specialize in Chinese and Southeast Asian history, and are able to teach students about these areas through the latest academic trends. However, students are encouraged to develop interest in the history of the entire Asian region.
The undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral theses submitted to this department have varied according to the studied area and time. If such theses involved Chinese history, the discussed historical periods ranged from the ancient to the modern communist era. Theses covering other areas may have covered, for example, the modern histories of Thailand, Vietnam, and India or the medieval history of Western Asia. We encourage and support students to independently discover their own research themes and conduct initiative-based research.
Among the various courses offered by the department, more time is spent on seminars discussing Chinese and Southeast Asian history. Students in these seminars read Chinese, English, or Thai/Tai historical materials prior to discussion. The study of history should not contain vain speculation. Rather, it should be based on historical facts, which are derived through the interpretation and analysis of historical sources. Students of these seminars are required to learn the proper methods of reading and interpreting such sources in addition to discussing the societies and peoples of history. These methods provide students the opportunity to gradually increase their ability to conduct independent historical research.
Please direct any inquiries to toyoshi@nagoya-u.jp or the appropriate faculty member (e-mail addresses are provided on the School of Humanities website).
For inquiries involving the “Journal of oriental history, Nagoya University,” please contact the Society for the Study of Oriental History, Nagoya University.