Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies (ToRS)

ToRS dealing with language, culture, religion, society, primarily in the world outside Western Europe and the United States. Many of the courses offered at the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies has therefore based on the humanities.

ToRS dealing with language, culture, religion and society, primarily in the world outside Western Europe and the United States. Cross-cultural skills and knowledge of the world's diversity is essential in the globalized world - politically, economically and culturally. It is ToRS 'aims to disseminate knowledge of this diversity.

The research and teaching at the institute dealing with current conditions in the 21st century's economic, social and cultural hotspots, but also contains a historical perspective that goes back to hunting and gathering societies, the first settlement and the formation of the first ancient world civilizations in the Middle East, Asia and South America.

Language skills and regional expertise provides the foundation for ToRS 'work. Each society is studied on its own terms and through its own language, but with the assumption that cultures, religions and societies can never be understood as isolated entities. Regional processes must always be seen in a larger perspective that cuts across cultures, borders and periods.

It is ToRS 'ambition to contribute to the knowledge society by increasing the understanding of historical, religious and social conditions in a world whose regions at once are closely linked and far apart. Through research, communication and education, ToRS society wiser, both on themselves and on others.

ToRS occurred May 1, 2004, when five departments at the Faculty of Arts were merged. Today based Foundation on the following eight units each with their professionalism:

• Department of Asian Studies
• Department of Eskimology and Arctic Studies
• Department of Native American Languages and Cultures
• Department of Minority Studies
• Department of History of Religion
• Carsten Niebuhr Section
• Center for Comparative Cultural Studies
• East European Section

Video of the student Viktor:

ToRS 'main purpose is to conduct research and education at a high international level.

The research covers many different disciplines, the most important is literature and social studies, religious studies, anthropology, archeology and history. The department thus contributes to the knowledge society - and not least to the understanding of a wide range of cultural, historical and current relationship in a globalized world, by virtue of its many and frequent cultural exchanges have a greater potential for conflict than perhaps ever before.

The department wants to communicate this knowledge by training and further training candidates and by having extensive interaction with the business community, the media, schools, institutions and in general all parts of society, which is dependent on knowledge and understanding of historical and co-cultures.

The department offers 28 programs that have in common that they are based on regional insight into the parts of the world, located outside Western Europe and North America. Regional insight is a product which is increasingly demanded by business, media and society in general.

Therefore The department intends to make it possible to develop and maintain an expertise in regional languages, since it is the language skills that are key to studying source material, culture and society. The individual departments teach in one or more languages ​​that are relevant to their geographic area, f. Ex. Asian languages ​​such as Chinese and Japanese, Middle Eastern languages ​​like Arabic and Hebrew, Slavic languages ​​such as Russian and Bulgarian and one Western European language, Modern Greek.

The department is working to strengthen the cross-cultural and comparative perspectives, so that the regional seen in a wider context. These perspectives are integrated into allsubjects, but to strengthen and facilitate the inter-regional vision the department has established the Center for Comparative Cultural Studies, which offers electives and MA studies. The Minority Studies, a thematic study, which also transcends borders. The cross-cultural perspective is reinforced by the history of religion, which has a long tradition of exploring the relationships between regional religious expression and international movements.

Institute historical dimension accommodated in a number oldtidsfag who researches how the early civilizations arose, and based on the study of archaeological remains and ancient languages. In particular, the study of the Middle East, meso and South American prehistoric cultures play an important role in the department's research in the past.