About Us

Meiji Gakuin University’s pioneering Faculty of International Studies was established in 1986. It will celebrate its 40th anniversary in 2025.

The Faculty of International Studies consists of the Department of International Studies and the Department of Global and Transcultural Studies. Students in the Faculty study for all four years at the University’s Yokohama campus. Our campus is also home to the Graduate School of International Studies and the Institute of International Studies.

The Faculty’s affiliated Institute for International Studies supports professors’ research activities in order to continually enhance the curriculum that constitutes the Faculty’s educational core. Meiji Gakuin University’s International Peace Research Institute, which has a deep relationship with the Faculty’s curriculum, is also on the Yokohama Campus. It provides information and sponsors learning events related to peace studies research.

The Yokohama International Studies Association (YISA) is the Faculty’s own alumni organization. The YISA hosts a series of regular and special events and serves as a platform for exchange between past and present students.

The forces of globalization continue to strengthen the mutual integration of peoples and regions around the world. With an eye towards the society of tomorrow, the FIS strives to educate capable people who can actively contribute to a diverse range of fields and activities in and outside of Japan.

The Faculty of International Studies, which was the first of its kind in Japan, bases its academic research and educational activities on knowledge of the humanities and social sciences.

In today’s world, cultural, economic, and political exchanges are increasingly expanding across borders and regions. As a result, we are facing more problems that cannot be addressed within one academic discipline alone.

In the Faculty of International Studies, professors with knowledge in a diverse range of specializations present their perspectives on important multidisciplinary issues facing modern society. These range from peace, human rights, democracy and minority rights to humanity and the environment, the economic gap between the rich and the poor, and cultural and religious diversity.

On the basis of such a tradition, the Faculty of International Studies strives to foster in you the ability to think independently and thereby challenge widely held “common sense” views. The Faculty does this by providing you with an education in which you will study history and use interdisciplinary thinking to question and criticize the presuppositions of such “common sense.”

The Faculty envisions an educational experience based on the liberal arts in which you will free yourself from ideas that are taken for granted and not questioned, and from the belief that there is only one correct answer. In this vision, you will change your own awareness and knowledge, and through these personal changes, you will change social injustice.

The Faculty of International Studies is rooted on Meiji Gakuin’s Yokohama campus, which is the city where our founder, J. C. Hepburn, opened his Hepburn School at the end of the Edo era. The Yokohama campus is situated in Totsuka Ward, a ten-minute train-ride from Yokohama’s city center.

Our campus is rich in nature and shows a different face with each season. You will see goats eating grass and many green spaces suggesting that we should be aware of the relationship between humans and nature. Maioka Park, adjacent to our campus, is an urban oasis where you can still see a traditional Japanese rural landscape.

Students hold a wide range of activities in our campus’ library and lecture buildings. You can join club activities on Hepburn Field, a spacious athletic field. We hold our Totsuka Festival in collaboration with local residents in May every year. At that time, the university offers a variety of events for visitors.

Situated a little away from the nearby train station, our Yokohama campus provides you with a place for quiet contemplation and helps you learn together with your classmates and teachers. The Faculty of International Studies and our Yokohama campus are waiting for you to join our growing multi-cultural community.

Education at the Faculty of International Studies is not limited to classroom-based learning. Both the Departments of International Studies and the Department of Global and Transcultural Studies offer a number of field study programs conducted outside the university campus. Other off-campus programs include study abroad, internships at international companies and organizations, and volunteer activities. The venues of these programs include the U.S., Europe, Asia, and Africa.

Armed with the ability acquired in the classroom to identify and solve problems through theories and concepts, students go out into the field and find gaps between theories/concepts and reality on the ground. They come back to the campus and deepen their understanding about the gaps they discovered, and go back to the field if they find it necessary to do so. One of the features of studying at the Faculty of International Studies is this back-and-forth process between classroom learning and experience-based knowledge.

In Japan as well as in the world, societies are changing rapidly so that many of us will live and work with people with different backgrounds. The interplay of practice-based learning and classroom activities at the Faculty of International Studies will help you acquire rich cross-cultural awareness and communication skills that will be indispensable in the future.

Currently, violent conflicts are occurring around the world due to differences between countries, ethnicities, and ideologies. These conflicts concern not only the parties involved, but also the entire world, and we face situations that cannot be dismissed as someone else’s problem. In order to understand the complex interplay of factors, it is essential to have a multifaceted perspective. In the Faculty of International Studies, in addition to a wide range of language courses, students learn a variety of analytical tools from classes such as political science, sociology, economics, anthropology, cultural studies, history, and literature. Students can imbue themselves with multiple perspectives by learning about diverse systems and cultures through area studies courses related to Asia, Europe, Africa, the Americas, the Middle East, and other regions. In addition, we encourage off-campus activities to learn from the real world. Through field studies related to seminars, domestic and international internships, and study abroad, we hope that students will become individuals who can think about and act on the importance of international studies for peacebuilding.

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