The School of Oriental and African Studies, commonly known by its acronym SOAS (/ˈsoʊ.æs/ SOH-as or /ˈsoʊ.æz/ SOH-az)), is a constituent college of the University of London in the United Kingdom specialising in teaching and research in the humanities, languages, and social sciences relating to Asia, Africa and the Middle East. SOAS currently offers over 300 undergraduate Bachelor's degree combinations, and over 70 one-year intensively taught Master's degrees. MPhil and PhD research degrees are also available in every academic department.
Founded in 1916, SOAS has produced several heads of state, government ministers, ambassadors, Supreme Court judges, a Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, and many other notable leaders in emerging markets, future superpowers and in the Next Eleven. Located in central London, SOAS describes itself as the "world's leading institution for the study of Asia, Africa and the Middle East", and is consistently ranked amongst the top universities in the UK.
Read more about School Of Oriental And African Studies: History, Campuses, Academics, Student Life
Famous quotes containing the words school of oriental, school, oriental, african and/or studies:
“One non-revolutionary weekend is infinitely more bloody than a month of permanent revolution.”
—Graffiti, School of Oriental Languages, London (1968)
“School divides life into two segments, which are increasingly of comparable length. As much as anything else, schooling implies custodial care for persons who are declared undesirable elsewhere by the simple fact that a school has been built to serve them.”
—Ivan Illich (b. 1926)
“The Oriental philosophy approaches easily loftier themes than the modern aspires to; and no wonder if it sometimes prattle about them. It only assigns their due rank respectively to Action and Contemplation, or rather does full justice to the latter. Western philosophers have not conceived of the significance of Contemplation in their sense.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I always draw a parallel between oppression by the regime and oppression by men. To me it is just the same. I always challenge men on why they react to oppression by the regime, but then they do exactly the same things to women that they criticize the regime for.”
—Sethembile N., South African black anti-apartheid activist. As quoted in Lives of Courage, ch. 19, by Diana E. H. Russell (1989)
“His life itself passes deeper in nature than the studies of the naturalist penetrate; himself a subject for the naturalist. The latter raises the moss and bark gently with his knife in search of insects; the former lays open logs to their core with his axe, and moss and bark fly far and wide. He gets his living by barking trees. Such a man has some right to fish, and I love to see nature carried out in him.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)