African and Oriental Studies

Specializations within this programme

• Art and Culture in Asia and Africa
  This program has been offered to students since 2013. It is aimed at studying the spiritual heritage of Asian and African countries. Students get acquainted with the peculiarities of painting, architecture, sculpture, landscape gardening, arts and crafts, religion and customs of the peoples of China, Korea, Japan, the Middle East and Africa. The course offers general training in the theory of art and museum practice. Students are offered many narrow specialized courses that introduce them to different genres and art forms, including music, porcelain and ceramics, textiles and silk weaving, costume, procedural art (the tea ceremony, arranging flowers and creating aromatic compositions). Preparation in Art History gives the students an opportunity to work as experts on traditional and modern oriental art, curators of art projects, customs experts.
• History of Asian and African Countries
  This program is aimed at a comprehensive study of the history and ethnology of Oriental and African countries. It takes a systematic approach to the study of history of the East and North Africa from the ancient times to the present. Students gain an in-depth understanding of the political, socio-economic and cultural development of the peoples under study. They focus on special features in the development of consumer culture, traditions and customs of Oriental and African countries. During the course the students gain a profound understanding of the evolution in political, socio-economic, religious and philosophical concepts of the East and their impact on people's minds.
• Languages and Literature of Asia and Africa
  This program is aimed at a comprehensive study of the languages and literature of Oriental and African countries. In the process of study, students learn the essence of linguistic phenomena and linguistic terminology. Courses offered in this program cover current problems in modern linguistics and its concepts. Students become familiar with the peculiarities of Oriental Philology, methodology and methods of analysis of Oriental Languages. They also learn theoretical basis of modern literary criticism, literary history of Asia and a range of specific features of eastern poetics. They are introduced to the translation theory and the peculiarities of texts in the target language. Theoretical understanding is accompanied by practical work: translation, analysis and commentary on different text genres in the literatures in Oriental languages. In the process of study the students are given a unique opportunity to try themselves out as discoverers: fragments of inscriptions in the ancient Egyptian language as well as texts in the ancient Chinese language, including classical Chinese literature in a variety of national versions that were created in East Asian countries are studied and analyzed.