New with effect from September 2012: American, International, and Asian Studies

With effect from September 2012 the Faculty of Humanities has a number of new master’s programmes, including American Studies, International Studies and two specialisations within Asian Studies.

American Studies

The MA in American Studies in Leiden focuses on Afro-American history and literature, political history and foreign policy, and immigrant and ethnic studies in the US. You can research major issues in the history, literature ad culture of the US, but an in-depth study of specific historical and literature subjects is equally possible.

International Studies

The new International Studies specialisation focuses on the diversity and complexity of the rapidly changing present-day world. The underlying relationships between worldwide, regional and national ideas and policies across time and space are key issues within this specialisation. Together with European Union Studies, International Studies forms part of the new International Relations department.

Asian Studies

If you are broadly interested in Asia, the two specialisations in History, Arts and Culture of Asia and Politics, Society and Economy of Asia offer diverse opportunities for in-depth study. You can opt for a humanities or social science study of one or more of the countries in this region without needing to have a command of an Asian language. Asian Studies also offers a one-year East Asian Studies programme, that follows on from the two-year Chinese Studies, Japanese Studies and Korean Studies programmes.

Even more new specialisations

Besides the subjects mentioned above, from September 2012 you will also find in the Leiden prospectus:
Two new specialisations within Linguistics:

• Language and Communication
• Language diversity of Africa, Asia and Native America

new specialisation within Middle Eastern Studies:

• Modern Middle East Studies

And a new specialisation within History:

• Archival Studies

Further changes

In addition, some of the existing master’s and specialisations will be renamed or regraded, although the content of the specialisations will remain the same. These aim of these changes is to give prospective master’s students a clearer picture of the range of Humanities studies.
The names of the master’s programmes are in line with the Humanities faculties of other Dutch universities. The Leiden specialisations are, however, unique programmes.