Haruo Soeda, Dean of the Graduate School and Faculty of Literature and Human Sciences
Welcome to the website of the Graduate School and Faculty of Literature and Human Sciences at Osaka City University.
Osaka City University is a well-established university with origins dating back to the 19th century. The Faculty of Literature and Human Sciences was initially founded as the Faculty of Law and Literature shortly after WWII in 1949, before being independently established as the Faculty of Literature and Human Sciences in 1953. The Graduate School of Literature and Human Sciences was also established in 1953, as the graduate school of the undergraduate faculty. Over the course of nearly 70 years since then, we have continued to explore people and their languages, cultures, histories, and societies from the perspectives of diverse academic fields.
Osaka City University and Osaka Prefecture University will be merged together into Osaka Public University (tentative name) in April 2022, but the educational curriculum and faculty system will continue on from the Graduate School and Faculty of Literature and Human Sciences of Osaka City University in 2021.
However, there will still be some changes at the Graduate School and Faculty of Literature and Human Sciences. While we continue to value traditional foundational studies, we have also endeavored to develop interdisciplinary and applied fields of academic enquiry in order to move with the times and meet contemporary societal needs. Most recently, we opened the Department of Cultural Management in the 2019 academic year, alongside the Department of Philosophy and History, the Department of Human Behavioral Sciences, and the Department of Language and Culture. In conjunction with this, from the 2020 academic year, the Graduate School of Literature and Human Sciences now also has four departments: the Department of Philosophy and History, the Department of Human Behavioral Sciences, the Department of Language and Culture, and the Department of Cultural Management. These changes enable us to provide a more complete environment for education and research, encompassing both foundational and applied study.
In these unpredictable times, and in the context of the increasingly globalized knowledge-based society, the Graduate School and Faculty of Literature and Human Sciences strives to nurture students who recognize their own merits and potential, combined with a respect and appreciation of others. Our graduates will have the capacity to work to overcome wide-ranging social changes in collaboration with diverse people, so that they can become the creators of a more sustainable society in which human beings can live fulfilling lives. In that sense, our graduate school and undergraduate faculty is in fact highly practical.
The Graduate School and Faculty of Literature and Human Sciences also places an emphasis on small-group education. Undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty members all work closely together, sharing time and space with each other, learning diverse languages, and sharing and discussing each other’s different local cultures and histories. In so doing, students and faculty members have opportunities to study the structures of society, observe human behavior, and reflect on the meaning of human life and cultural richness, allowing this to inform their actions moving forward.
I am pleased to welcome you to the Graduate School and Faculty of Literature and Human Sciences. We are looking forward to working alongside students to investigate the patterns and intricacies that exist within diverse forms of human culture