East Asian Studies and World Philosophies

East Asian Studies and World Philosophies is a combination that asks some of the deepest questions about how human beings have understood existence, knowledge, ethics, and society, and answers them not from a single tradition but from across the world's major intellectual cultures. East Asian studies brings you into contact with the histories, languages, literatures, and contemporary dynamics of China, Japan, Korea, and their neighbours. World philosophies takes this comparative impulse further, examining philosophical traditions from across Asia, Africa, and the Americas alongside the Western canon, and asking what philosophy looks like when it is not assumed to begin in ancient Greece.

Studying at the School of Oriental and African Studies, an institution with unrivalled depth in Asian and African scholarship, you will benefit from specialist teaching across both disciplines. The programme includes a foundation year that prepares you thoroughly for degree-level intellectual work before you proceed to the main programme. You will engage with Confucian, Buddhist, Daoist, and other East Asian philosophical traditions, reading them in translation and in their historical and cultural contexts.

You will compare these with Western, South Asian, African, and other philosophical traditions, developing the ability to identify both resonances and genuine differences in how different cultures have approached fundamental questions. East Asian studies brings language learning, area knowledge, and historical awareness, grounding philosophical inquiry in specific cultural and political realities.

Graduates of this degree go on to diverse careers in which the combination of analytical rigour, cultural breadth, and intellectual curiosity is valued. The civil service, international organisations, and think tanks are common destinations. Journalism, publishing, and cultural organisations draw on the communication skills and contextual awareness the degree develops.

Teaching, at both secondary and university level, is a further direction, particularly for those who continue to postgraduate study in philosophy, area studies, or religious studies. The degree's distinctiveness is an asset in a graduate job market that values candidates who think differently and across conventional boundaries.