Regional sciences
The regional studies or regional studies (less often: area studies ; English area studies ) deal with society, culture and history of a certain world region as well as its languages, their associated literatures and linguistic analysis. In addition, current politics plays a not insignificant role. Regional studies are therefore characterized by a strong interdisciplinary approach and can be assigned to cultural studies .
Significant regional studies offered at many universities as an independent academic subjects are, for example, Chinese Studies , Japanese Studies , Indian Studies , Latin American Studies , Taiwanologie , Vietnamese Studies , East Asian Studies , African Studies , Korean Studies or Scandinavian . Language acquisition regularly plays an important role in studies. Studies in which different world regions are viewed comparatively are referred to as comparative regional research (English: Comparative Area Studies).
A distinction must be made between philologies , such as English studies , which deal specifically with the English language and literature, while American studies is an actual regional science .
See also
- German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) - social science research institute based in Hamburg
- ZILAS Central Institute for Latin American Studies - Interdisciplinary research institute based in Eichstätt / Ingolstadt
literature
- Masao Miyoshi, Harry Harootunian (Eds.): Learning Places, The Afterlives of Area Studies. Duke University Press, Durham et al. a. 2002, ISBN 0-8223-2826-7 (original: Asia-Pacific. Culture, Politics, and Society ).
- Birgit Schäbler (Ed.): Area Studies and the World. World regions and new global history (= global history and development policy. Volume 5). Mandelbaum, Vienna 2007, ISBN 978-3-85476-241-6 .