Wall mural from the Takamatsuzuka Tomb, Asuka, Japan, seventh century CE.

The M.Phil. in Traditional East Asia at Oxford aims:

1. To build classical expertise on top of  knowledge of a modern East Asian language and ensure that the student becomes research capable in both the modern and classical languages, and for those more capable at entry, to add a second, modern East Asian language for research purposes;
2. To acquaint students with current scholarly concerns that have regional applicability across East Asia and examine those concerns in a comparative setting;
3. To acquaint students with many of the most important classical texts from their chosen specialism (China, Japan, or Korea);
4. To enable students to understand and use a range of classical references and historiographical research methods for the treatment of pre-modern primary sources;
5. To lead students to do more specialised study from a wide range of possible options and thereby exercise their new skills.