Oriental Studies as an Academic Field and Its Prospects in Russia

Abstract

The article analyses the evolution of the concepts of “Orient” and “Oriental Studies” throughout history and offers a new approach to interpreting Oriental Studies as a complex academic field. It also discusses the trajectories of its further development in Russia. The author believes that Oriental Studies should centre upon the degree to which Asian and African societies embraced Westernisation, mechanisms of reception of Western culture by their traditional non-Western structures and consequences of this reception. In accordance with this interpretation, Chinese studies as well as other fields that focus on major non-Western civilisations (Indology, Middle Eastern and African studies) fall into a broader academic category of Oriental studies instead of turning into mere subfields of Area Studies. The article maintains that it is essential to move away from Western-centrism, however, this should not be substituted with the opposing extremes: the ideas of supremacy of the East over the West or the theory of the original sin of the West and its demands to “cancel” the field of Oriental studies as “colonialist” or “racist”. Not only would this trend lead to a new wave of ideologization in academia, it may also trigger a new wave of demands to “decolonise” Russia and its academic circles.