The Courses on Asian and Transcultural Studies (CATS) is an English language, research-oriented package of courses that combines interdisciplinary education with a transregional focus on Japan and South (East) Asia but in a global context.
This transregional outlook is based on the perspective that cultures are not contained within ethnically closed, linguistically homogenous and territorially bounded spheres. Instead they are constituted through transformations and entanglements that follow from contacts and relationships between various agents, concepts and institutions. Asian and Transcultural Studies in this understanding thus combine methodological and theoretical approaches from a broad spectrum of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences.
The study package seeks to expand the regional and disciplinary competences students have obtained in previous studies. All the students from Kyoto University as well as exchange students from overseas partners are encouraged to participate in these courses. They will acquire empirical knowledge on historical and contemporary moments of exchange as well as on theories and methodologies to frame and analyse such processes. The courses are offered in English and presuppose some level of academic English but are designed as a place to further improve academic English skills in the context of content-based learning.
The CATS package is situated in the “Asian Platform for Global Sustainability and Transcultural Studies” (AGST), which is part of the “Kyoto University – Japan Gateway Project,” funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). It will form the backbone of a new study program, Master of Arts in Transcultural Studies, a joint degree program of the Graduate School of Letters at Kyoto University and the Heidelberg Centre for Transcultural Studies, Germany, to be launched in Spring 2018. Students in this this study program will conduct their studies at both institutions to receive a single, joint diploma after fulfilling their studies.
This joint degree program will require students at Kyoto University to have a background in a discipline of the humanities or social sciences, fluency in academic Japanese language, English language capabilities of TOEFL iBT 90 or above, and a basic understanding of German (A1).
Syllabus (PDF) (19.5MB)
[Contact]
Ms. Shoko Kurata
Office for Promotion of International Exchange, Graduate School of Letters
Faculty of Arts Bldg. 1F
E-mail: kurata.shoko.3e [at] kyoto-u.ac.jp (please replace [at] with @)
TEL: 075-753-2734
