Message from the Dean

Nara Women's University was founded in 1908 (Meiji 41) as Nara Women's Higher Normal School. From the end of the Meiji era to the present day of Reiwa, it has a history of more than a century as a school for women. The Faculty of Letters also has a long history, dating back to the early Taisho period when the Humanities Section was established during the Higher Normal School era. After the war, in 1949, Nara Women's University was established as a new national university under the National School Establishment Act, and the Faculty of Letters existed from the beginning.

When compared to the interdisciplinary faculty names or the faculty names using katakana words that are becoming popular today, some people may think that the name "Faculty of Letters" is old-fashioned. At the same time, the Faculty of Letters is often considered to be a place to study only literature where limited specialized studies can be done. Those impressions may be commonly shared, but the actual Faculty of Letters is a place to learn about the wider world of knowledge that has been accumulated over a long period of time, and also a place to create new perspectives and interpretations. Studying at the Faculty of Letters also means looking at humans from multiple perspectives, exploring what kind of existence humans are, and what the relationship between humans and society is. In actual research, we approach various things created by humans (such as history, thought, language, literature, social and cultural phenomena, etc.) from a variety of methods and perspectives.

There are three departments in the Faculty of Letters at Nara Women's University: Department of History, Sociology and Geography, Department of Language and Culture, and Department of Human Sciences. The Department of History, Sociology and Geography offers three courses; History, Geography and Sociology. In order to explore the world of relationships, space and images from ancient to modern times, East and West, systematic education and research is conducted from the three perspectives of time, space and relationships. The Department of Language and Culture offers two courses: the Japanese and Asian Literature Course and the European and American Literature Course. These courses correspond to the regions related to the language and culture that students are interested in. In both courses, education and research are conducted with a view to cultural phenomena in general in addition to language and literature. The Department of Human Sciences offers two courses: the Education-Philosophical Anthropology Course, which comprehensively studies human beings, and the Psychology Course, which mainly studies human psychology. In these two courses, students can learn deeply about the human beings who create history, society, literature, language, and many other things. The Department of Human Sciences also offers the Childhood Education Specialist Program for those who aim to become kindergarten or elementary school teachers.

No matter which department or course you choose, you can take classes that match your interests, and a variety of learning opportunities are guaranteed.⑯Through your four years at Nara Women's University's Faculty of Letters, explore the academic world to your heart's content. This will encourage your own growth and lead to a new discovery of yourself.

Yoko Yoshida