On the development of Japanese studies at Vilnius university: curriculum challenges and issues

ENThe curriculum makers of Asian Studies in general and Japanese Studies in particular at Vilnius University are laying emphasis on the linguistic fluency as the basic determinant of the syllabus. Since the instructors working in the field of Japanese Studies have training rooted in the Russian Oriental school, reading classes of either modern or classical texts, ever since the introduction of the Japanese course, have been accepted as the fundamental component of the BA programme. Recently, however, new notions are being taken into consideration based especially on the fact that the students demonstrate unwillingness to work with the printed materials and reveal propensity of absorbing fragmented knowledge based on the visual information. This tendency is leading towards making a conceptual shift away from the heretofore practices of traditional Japanology.