Bilkent University

The Faculty of Humanities and Letters comprises six departments and three teaching units. The departments of American Culture and Literature, Archaeology, English Language and Literature, Philosophy, and Translation and Interpretation all have Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) programs. In addition, the Department of Archaeology, the Department of Philosophy, and the Department of Turkish Literature offer graduate programmes leading to a Master of Arts (M.A.) with thesis work. The Department of Turkish Literature and the Department of Philosophy also offer programmes leading to the degree Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.).

The Faculty also houses three non-degree-granting units (FRL, CCI, TURK) which offer university wide service courses. Foreign Languages unit offers French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Korean, and Turkish language for foreigners. The Cultures, Civilizations and Ideas unit offers humanities courses to students from various departments in the university. The Turkish Unit offers mandatory Turkish writing courses to all students who are Turkish nationals.

Though the Faculty of Humanities and Letters is composed of a diverse range of departments and programs, but in the diversity, there is unity. The humanities, said the American critic, Ronald Crane, 'are those disciplines that deal with the aspects of human experience that make us most human and therefore differentiates us from animals'. Central to these aspects of human experience is the ability of man to express himself in unique and unpredictable ways, in ways that in the end form our culture. Basic to human self-expression is language and language in its various forms has always been at the centre of attention in the humanities. But man also expresses himself through the various non-verbal arts and through cultural artefacts. All these are the objects of study in the humanities. However, the humanities cannot be characterized in terms of their objects of study alone. Equally important is aim and approach. For the humanities aim at an understanding, appreciation, and use of these objects that preserve their character as human expressions. And this is what the study of the humanities at Bilkent is all about.