Western History

The Department of Western History trains students to do research in the history of the Western world, namely Europe and North America from ancient to contemporary times, and that of the regions which have been strongly influenced by them. To this end, the department places emphasis on equipping students with foreign language skills and academic methodology both necessary to gather and analyze historical information. Students are ultimately expected to develop their ability to understand the diverse values ​​that underlie our international society as educators, researchers, and members of society. 

A strong emphasis is placed on learning foreign languages: as part of our compulsory curriculum, second- and third-year students are trained to read technical literature in major European languages. A two-year seminar beginning in their third year will also help students to develop their skills to gather source materials independently, to apply their language skills to, and make an analysis of, source materials, and finally to integrate their findings into a graduation thesis.

The full-time faculty members, with their own specialised research areas, offer a wide coverage of regions and eras. In addtion, many classes are offered which are taught by part-time instructors on specialised topics of a wide array of regions and eras.