Music and World Philosophies
Music and world philosophies is a combination that opens an unusually expansive intellectual space, bringing together the academic study of music, including its history, theory, performance, and ethnomusicological dimensions, with the serious study of philosophical traditions from beyond the Western mainstream. World philosophies encompasses the great philosophical systems of South Asia, East Asia, the Islamic world, and Africa, engaging with the thinking of traditions that have generated profound and sophisticated accounts of knowledge, reality, ethics, and the nature of mind that are rarely encountered in standard European philosophy curricula.
This three-year, full-time programme at SOAS, an institution with unique expertise in the cultures, languages, and intellectual traditions of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, gives you access to scholarly knowledge in both areas that is genuinely rare in British higher education. The foundation year provides additional preparation for those who need it before entering the main degree content. You will engage with music as both a scholarly subject and a practice, exploring musical traditions from multiple cultures alongside the theoretical frameworks of ethnomusicology, and you will study philosophical traditions in depth, developing the ability to read texts from different traditions with genuine understanding.
Graduates of this combination develop an unusual breadth of intellectual formation, combining musical knowledge and sensitivity with philosophical rigour and cross-cultural understanding. Careers in the arts sector, education, cultural institutions, music journalism, broadcasting, international organisations, and academic research are natural destinations. The SOAS context and the depth of engagement with non-Western traditions give graduates a distinctive perspective that is valued wherever intercultural understanding and intellectual flexibility are needed.
Further postgraduate study in ethnomusicology, world philosophy, area studies, or music is a natural extension for those who wish to develop specialist expertise or pursue academic careers.