International Studies
The Bachelor of Arts in International Studies provides students with the tools to investigate globalisation, and its regional effects, from a humanities perspective. They study these effects through the prism of four disciplinary perspectives: culture, history, politics and economics, coupled with in-depth knowledge of one of eight world regions. The humanities perspective is ensured by placing an understanding of the historic and cultural context central in the programme, and linking this directly to the political and economic conditions. Students learn to apply the acquired knowledge of the four disciplinary approaches in the analysis of a geographical area of their choice with the aid of a language native to that area.
The programme’s combination of multidisciplinary knowledge, geographical specialisation, language training, and a global perspective, provides students with a unique understanding of the interactions of global, transnational, national, and subnational conditions and developments. Disciplinary understanding is introduced in three stages. The programme starts with a general introduction of the relevant theoretical and methodological approaches. It goes on to provide students with practical knowledge of the historical, cultural, political and economic conditions in a specific geographical area, and completes the disciplinary understanding by placing these conditions in their international context.
The areas offered in the degree, and their corresponding languages are:
Area | Foreign Language |
---|---|
Africa | Arabic, French, Portuguese, Swahili |
East Asia | Japanese, Korean, Mandarin |
Europe | Dutch, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish |
Latin America | Portuguese, Spanish |
Middle East | Arabic, Modern Hebrew, Persian, Turkish |
North America | French, Spanish |
Russia and Eurasia | Russian |
South Asia and Southeast Asia | Hindi, Indonesian |