Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and Classics

Asian and Middle Eastern studies combined with classics is one of the most ambitious intellectual undertakings available in UK higher education: an engagement with three of the world's oldest and most consequential civilisational traditions. Classical studies brings you into contact with ancient Greece and Rome, the literary, philosophical, and political cultures that have shaped Western thought for more than two millennia. Asian studies opens the traditions of East, South, and Southeast Asia, encompassing languages, literatures, religions, histories, and contemporary societies of extraordinary depth.

Middle Eastern studies does the same for the Arabic, Persian, and Turkish-speaking worlds, the birthplace of three of the world's major religions and home to political and cultural dynamics of fundamental global importance.

At the University of Oxford, this four-year programme is taught through the tutorial system, which means you will receive intensive individual academic supervision alongside seminars and lectures, working with scholars who are among the leading authorities in their respective fields. Oxford has exceptional strength across classical and oriental studies, and the combination of rigorous language training, historical scholarship, and cultural analysis that the degree provides is unmatched. You will study at least one ancient and one modern or classical language from the Asian or Middle Eastern traditions, alongside historical, literary, and cultural courses in all three areas.

The degree develops the highest level of textual and analytical skill, the ability to work with primary sources across multiple languages and traditions, to synthesise complex material, and to construct well-evidenced arguments about deeply contested questions. These are capabilities that mark out graduates in this field as exceptional thinkers.

Graduates pursue careers in diplomacy and the foreign service, international organisations, law, journalism, academia, intelligence, cultural institutions, and business with significant interests in Asia or the Middle East. Postgraduate study in oriental studies, international relations, area studies, or classical languages is a natural continuation for those who want to pursue research or specialist professional careers in these regions.