Asian and Middle Eastern Studies

Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Cambridge allows you to engage with some of the world's oldest and most influential civilisations. The discipline encompasses the languages, literatures, histories, and cultures of a vast and diverse region, from Arabic and Persian to Turkish, Hebrew, and the languages of South and East Asia. Studying these traditions in depth requires learning the relevant languages, engaging with original texts across literary, historical, religious, and philosophical genres, and understanding the historical and contemporary contexts in which those traditions have developed.

This four-year full-time programme gives you the opportunity to explore contemporary global cultures through sustained study of language, culture, and history. Cambridge's Oriental Faculty brings together specialists in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Ottoman, Hebrew, and South and East Asian studies, and the programme benefits from the extraordinary depth of specialist expertise in the university. You will develop genuine linguistic competence in your chosen language or languages alongside engagement with the cultural and historical traditions they carry.

The ability to read original texts, to situate them in their social and intellectual context, and to bring them into dialogue with contemporary questions is central to the programme.

You will develop skills in close reading, historical analysis, cross-cultural interpretation, and rigorous academic argument. The languages you acquire, combined with the depth of cultural and historical understanding the degree provides, make you unusually equipped to operate in international and intercultural contexts.

Graduates go on to careers in diplomacy, international organisations, journalism, law, business in the relevant regions, translation and interpreting, academic research, intelligence, and the cultural and heritage sector. Postgraduate study in area studies, international relations, linguistics, or a related field is a common next step.