The roots of the Faculty of Letters (Bungakubu) and the Graduate School of Letters (Daigakuin Bungaku Kenkyuka) of Kyoto University can be traced back to the establishment of the College of Letters (Bunka Daigaku) of Kyoto Imperial University in 1906. The centennial of the founding was celebrated in 2006 with a series of memorial events and international symposia. This year thus marks the third year of our second century.

In the year of the founding of original college, the Division of Philosophy (Tetsugakuka) was first established, and then the divisions of History (Shigakuka) and Letters (Bungakuka) were successively created in the next two years. The three-division system was maintained thereafter until 1992 when portions of the existing divisions were combined to create a new Behavioral Studies Division (Bunka Kodo Gakka). Then in 1995 a major reorganization was conducted to create an environment in which it would be possible to address new trends in the humanities and the social sciences.
Following the transfer to the Graduate School and the accompanying policy of increasing emphasis on graduate study that was carried out in 1996, the current system of six major divisions (senko or kei), 16 chairs (koza), and 31 major departments (senshu) was instituted. The 31 graduate departments are subsumed under one of the following six major divisions, Eastern Culture (Toyo Bunken Bunka Gakukei), Western Culture (Seiyo Bunken Bunka Gakukei), Philosophy (Shiso Bunka Gakukei), History (Rekishi Bunka Gakukei), Behavioral Studies (Kodo Bunka Gakukei), and Contemporary Culture (Gendai Bunka Gakukei), which cover the gamut of disciplines comprising the humanities and social sciences. (Please see http://www.bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/departments/departments_list/)
Thanks to these recent, major reforms, both the Faculty and Graduate School of Letters have laid the groundwork from which to create innovative studies in the humanities and social sciences that are suited to changing times and at the same time preserve and revitalize older traditions. In 1997 the Faculty moved to comfortable new surroundings as construction of an eight-story building housing the Graduate School of Letters and its Library was completed. The Library of the Graduate School of Letters (http://www.bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/lib/; in Japanese), which maintains a vast collection of books and primary source materials that total nearly one million volumes rivaling the university library’s main collection, serves as a vital resource for innovative education and research.

The academic disciplines of the humanities and social sciences, which include studies of culture, history, philosophy, religion, language and society, are those that underlie the study of human existence. If we turn our attention to the central core of these studies, we see that our fundamental academic mission brings us back to the basic question: “Who and what are we?” Just as the philosopher Socrates advised his interlocutor to, “know thyself,” it is our hope that students, by deepening their own knowledge, will at the same time have the opportunity to discover themselves.
The past one hundred years have witnessed a wide variety of events, but for the Faculty and Graduate School of Letters, the formation of the school of thought that has generally been termed the Kyoto School (Kyoto Gakuha), which was centered here, is probably the most celebrated. The academic atmosphere that created the school and continues on to this day was born out of the positive stance of the teaching faculty and students toward academic freedom and self-initiated scholarship. Based on our century of tradition, the Faculty and Graduate School of Letters seek to open wide the academic portals of our six divisions to the world and continue our pioneering efforts in the further development of innovative fields in the humanities and social sciences.

April 2009

Naoyuki Osaka