Oriental Studies: University of Cambridge

The teaching of Middle Eastern languages in Cambridge is well established: it dates back half a millennium to the foundation of the Regius Professorship of Hebrew in 1540 and the Sir Thomas Adams's Professorship of Arabic in 1632. The study of languages from further east dates from the latter half of the nineteenth century. Interest in the languages of Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt flourished from the early years of the twentieth century.Positions in Japanese were established in 1947. Today all sections of the Faculty are vigorously active in research and can offer supervision in a wide range of fields. Virtually all members of staff enjoy an international reputation and six are Fellows of the British Academy.

Key research areas:

• Aramaic and Syriac studies
• Aramaic and Syriac literature and philology; Targum; Neo-Aramaic dialects (Prof G Khan, Prof R Gordon)
• Assyriology
• Ancient Mesopotamian history, literature, religion, philology (Akkadian and Sumerian), art and archaeology
• (Dr A McMahon, Prof N Postgate)
• Chinese studies
• Literary and modern Chinese languages, Chinese literature, philosophy, history, linguistics
• (Dr S Daruvala, Dr J McDermott, Dr P-Y Lin, Dr R Sterckx, Prof H van de Ven, Dr B Yuan)
• Egyptology
• Ancient Egyptian and Coptic literature, philology, art, architecture, archaeology, and history (Prof J Ray and others)
• Hebrew studies
• Biblical, post-Biblical, medieval and modern Hebrew literature and philology; North-West Semitic epigraphy and Ugaritic (Prof G Khan, Prof R Gordon)
• South Asian studies
• Classical and Modern South Asian Languages, textual and oral traditions, literatures (including Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit); cultural history, philosophy and religion (Dr E Kahrs)
• Middle Eastern and Islamic studies
• Arabic and Persian languages (classical and modern); Middle Eastern literature, contemporary politics and society, Islamic history and international history (Prof Y Suleiman, Dr K Bennison, Dr B Musallam, Dr J Montgomery,Dr C van Ruymbeke, Dr K Fleet, Dr C Melville)
• Japanese studies (by dissertation only)
• Classical and modern Japanese language and literature, religion and thought, cultural history and the history of the book; modern Japanese society, history and politics (Prof R Bowring, Prof P Kornicki, Dr B Kushner, Dr M Morris, Dr B Steger, Dr J Swenson-Wright).

Further information:

• www.oriental.cam.ac.uk