Contemporary Issues of Oriental Studies: Assessments of Foreign Professors

On 10th of April 2018, the Department of Oriental Studies has held a round table, with the participation of the foreign professors, titled “Contemporary Issues of Oriental Studies” which was organized within the frames of “A Decade of Science”.

The head of the Department – Akzhigit Alibekuly – who moderated the round table has introduced the audience with the public and political processes, philosophical and social thought, today’s culture of the Oriental countries and the issues related to teaching a foreign language in the countries of the Orient.

First speech was given to Korea specialist, PhD An Sang Hoon (Danguk University, Republic of Korea). Dr. An presented on the topic of “New Trend in the World Music: K-pop”. He shared his view of “the Korean wave” that started in the second half of the 20th century, its history and the influence of the West using video materials. Dr. An listed the musical genres such as electropop, hip-hop, rock, etc. as the foundation of the k-pop and talked about the significance of the South Korean culture among the world cultures.

Japan specialist Kitaoka Daiho (Ottawa University, Canada) did a presentation titled “Writing Systems in Japanese Language”. He started from the notion of the Japanese language that belongs to the broad category of Eurasian languages and focused on the major three writing systems: kanji, katakana and hiragana. Kitaoka Daiho explained the changes that happened in Japanese language that was under the influence of the Chinese writing system based on the different historical periods.

The last words was given specialist on Arab world, PhD Ashraf Attia (Ain Shams University, Egypt). His talk was titled “Terrorist Threat and Ideological Confrontation” and it started from the issues of statehood and unity in the Arab world. Furthermore, Dr. Ashraf focused on the definition of “terrorism” and then moved to discuss its origins that stem from the Soviet-Afghan war of 1979-1989. He then spoke about the emergence of Al-Qaeda in 1990s and about the background of its leader Usama Bin Laden. Dr. Ashraf noted that the second stage of the terrorist threat is linked to the US intervention in Iraq and its repercussions that brought such terrorist group like jihad, salafid, and mujahid. The third stage of the terrorist threat was linked to the “Arab Spring” of 2011 and the emergence of ISIS. In the concluding remarks, the attention was paid to objective and subjective reasons behind the situation in today’s Syria and was argued that the destruction and human casualties that are caused by war presents a harm towards all of humanity. He concluded by assessing the role of the Astana process and Kazakhstan’s peaceful stance in solving the Syrian conflict.

The round table ended with a fruitful exchange of ideas at the Q&A section