General Information

Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt University Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences has the distinction of being the first faculty established under the name “Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences” among the existing state universities in Türkiye, unlike the Faculties of Science and Letters or Faculties of Letters.

The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, which encompasses a broad range of educational disciplines consisting of 10 departments and 31 academic branches, extending from literature to history, from art to philosophy, from Eastern and Western philologies to sociology and psychology, aims to provide the qualified human resources Türkiye needs in almost every field of the social sciences; to offer undergraduate and graduate education that meets the requirements of a contemporary education system in the relevant disciplines; to conduct scientific research in various fields directly related to human beings and society; to transform the theoretical knowledge and data obtained from these studies into practice in a way that responds to the needs and problems of daily life; to guide contemporary thought, culture, and art for the benefit of the country, society, and individuals; and finally, to ensure the delivery of interdisciplinary courses required by other faculties affiliated with our university. The Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences consists of the following departments in alphabetical order:

1. History of Science,
2. Information and Document Management,
3. Eastern Languages and Literatures,
4. Philosophy,
5. Translation and Interpreting,
6. Psychology,
7. Art History,
8. Sociology,
9. History,
10. Turkish Language and Literature.

It is planned to open the Departments of Anthropology, Geography, and Folklore in the coming years.

Our Faculty, which aims to fulfill four fundamental missions: education, research, training scientists, and contributing to society, places equal emphasis on graduate education in addition to undergraduate education, which aims to provide students with “standard qualifications.” Thus, it adopts as its mission the goal of playing an important role in training the highly specialized human resources needed. Alongside these qualities, our Faculty aims to become one of the centers that train highly qualified individuals who will enable our country to gain a competitive advantage in the international arena.

In an increasingly shrinking and globalizing world, one of the primary objectives of our Faculty is to train new scientists and teachers who are equipped with the knowledge and skills to represent our country successfully in national and international settings in the field of social sciences, who are familiar with universal values as well as local values, who are fully open to technological innovations, and who understand the importance of scientific research and development.

The institutional vision of our Faculty is to position its institutional identity internationally as a world university in line with fundamental goals such as training qualified scientists, providing a free-thinking environment for the scientists within its structure, and guiding the preservation of society’s moral and ethical values through its scientific output. Based on these fundamental principles, it aims to establish high-quality research centers within its structure, provide a free academic environment, and develop flexible and autonomous administrative structures in this context.

In order to achieve sustainable success at national and international levels, our Faculty aims, in line with the goals of our university, to bring together individuals with original ideas, claims, and visions in a suitable environment against one of the fundamental problems of non-Western societies, namely the “inability to establish a knowledge tradition,” and to create an environment that will encourage and enable the development of “epistemic communities,” which constitute the main reason underlying this problem.

The discipline of History of Science, which investigates the reflections of humanity’s continuous development and transformation over thousands of years on science and scientific facts and transfers the results it obtains to new generations for the advancement and further development of modern science, has a privileged place in the field of social sciences. The Department of History of Science, which exists within only a limited number of faculties in Türkiye, aims to fill an important gap in this field by conducting studies on the examination and uncovering of the contributions made to the world of science by scientists from every nation, as well as by Eastern societies, especially the Turks, whose contributions have long been overlooked.

The main purpose of this department, which operated for a long time in Türkiye under the name “Department of Librarianship” but whose curricula have recently been reorganized under the name “Department of Information and Document Management,” was initially only to train librarians. However, in line with the major changes experienced in the world of press and publishing over the last century, it has expanded its field of study in order to keep pace with technological developments in documentation, information, and archival studies. Today, thanks to the rapid and remarkable developments in information and communication technologies, the capacity to process, access, and transmit information has increased and accelerated considerably. The opportunities offered by computer and internet technologies to today’s readers and researchers have greatly increased the need to access the body of knowledge circulating across global information networks more quickly and to benefit from it to the fullest extent. In this period called the information age, the task of compiling, processing, and transmitting data that enables the information society to access the information it needs has led to an increasing need for Departments of Information and Document Management. In today’s world, where classical librarianship methods consisting merely of classifying and cataloguing books through simple methods and presenting them to readers have been abandoned, and where new information access systems are being established every day in accordance with the needs of our age, it has become essential for Departments of Information and Document Management to exist within universities.

1. Archival Studies,
2. Information Management,

The Department of Information and Document Management, which consists of these academic branches, was established to train the workforce that will accelerate the process of bringing together classical and modern information sources, processing them through both classical methods and contemporary technological tools, organizing them, ensuring their access, dissemination, and delivery to readers.

The Department of Eastern Languages and Literatures focuses on languages considered important within the Arab, Persian, and Caucasian cultural spheres, with which Turkish culture and civilization have been in direct contact for thousands of years, as well as the languages of Far Eastern countries such as China, Japan, and Korea, where more than half of the world’s population lives, and the Middle Eastern region, which has been the cradle of great civilizations throughout human history. The department consists of the following academic branches:

1. Arabic Translation and Interpreting,
2. Persian Language and Literature,

The Department of Eastern Languages and Literatures, which consists of these academic branches, was established to teach and study the classical literatures of the aforementioned languages and, when necessary, to translate important works written in these languages into Turkish. In addition, it aims to train individuals with the necessary language competence to ensure the healthy conduct of political, social, cultural, and economic relations to be established between these countries and modern Türkiye.

Philosophy, one of the most important fields of the social sciences, is a discipline that seeks answers to questions concerning the human being’s existential journey in the universe and human-nature and human-God relations, and that guides human thought by organizing the answers it provides to these questions within a certain systematic logic. As old as human history itself, philosophy has been developed in almost every age by philosophers belonging to various nations, religions, cultures, and civilizations. Starting from ancient philosophy, it has continued to the present day without losing any of its importance in the history of individuals, societies, states, and nations by reasoning in a wide range of areas such as Greek philosophy, Indian philosophy, Far Eastern philosophy, Islamic philosophy, logic, history of science, history of philosophy, political and social philosophy, philosophy of communication, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, modernism, postmodernism, aesthetics, philosophy of art, philosophy of mind, environmental and technological philosophy, human rights, and philosophy of history. Philosophy, which is the key to inquiry and critical thinking, has an important place in almost every area of human life.

1. History of Philosophy,
2. Systematic Philosophy and Logic,
3. History of Turkish-Islamic Thought,

The Department of Philosophy, which consists of these academic branches, aims to make significant contributions to Turkish intellectual life as a department in which classical and contemporary philosophical movements are examined in depth.

The aim of our department, which began offering education as an undergraduate program in Translation and Interpreting in the 2019–2020 academic year, is to train translators and interpreters who are capable of performing written and oral translation between English and Turkish in various fields, including literature, law, economics, medicine, media, social sciences, natural sciences, and similar areas, within the framework of scientific methods, and who possess a developed worldview, knowledge, and professional and cultural competence. For many reasons, contemporary societies are in interaction with one another more than ever before. Therefore, the importance of intercultural communication and mutual understanding is steadily increasing. For this reason, in addition to our students’ competence in both Turkish and English and their theoretical and critical knowledge in the field of translation, it is aimed that they be informed about Turkish and English cultures and social institutions. As a department, our goal is to train individuals who are professionally and humanly competent in line with the mission and vision of our university, to ensure that our graduates are preferred for employment by respected institutions and organizations, to contribute to the scientific world through nationally and internationally recognized interdisciplinary studies, and to contribute to the development of our country by cooperating with various institutions and organizations. Our department includes the following academic branches:

1. English Translation and Interpreting,
2. Russian Translation and Interpreting.

Psychology is a discipline that examines the mental processes human beings undergo and their reflections and counterparts in behavior. Compared to many other disciplines, psychology may be considered a relatively new field; however, it has an important place not only as a social science but also within the medical sciences. Psychology, which examines the mental and emotional processes that constitute human behavior in relation to various variables, is concerned not only with normal human behavior but also with abnormal behaviors that regulate an individual’s relations with oneself or with others.

1. Developmental Psychology,
2. Clinical Psychology,
3. Psychometrics,
4. Social Psychology,
5. Applied Psychology,

The Department of Psychology, which consists of these academic branches, was established to train qualified psychologists needed in our country.

Art History is a discipline that traces the historical development of plastic arts such as painting, sculpture, architecture, and handicrafts; investigates the main periods of Byzantine, Islamic, European, and Turkish arts; reveals the relationships and exchanges of these art forms with different geographical and cultural environments; and interprets these studies on the basis of information and documentation. In this regard, areas such as Turkish art beginning from Central Asia, pre-Islamic and post-Islamic periods, the Islamic-period Seljuk, Beyliks, and Ottoman Empire periods, Turkish art under Western influence, early Christian and Byzantine art, European art, and modern art are examined, while topics such as theories of art, art terminology, and technical drawing are also addressed. Therefore, the Department of Art History, which undertakes the important mission of carrying the heritage of the past into the future through the present, was established in our Faculty for the purpose of training qualified art historians, ensuring that works of art are transmitted to future generations in a healthy manner, and educating art specialists who will create new works of art.

1. Turkish and Islamic Art,

The Department of Art History, which includes this academic branch, has been established.

Sociology, one of the prominent fields of contemporary social sciences, is a discipline that examines social relations shaped by social life and the principles that determine the emergence and development processes of social institutions, primarily through documents and through field research methods such as observation, face-to-face interviews, and surveys. The discipline of sociology, which is studied through various subfields, requires the examination of many closely and strongly interrelated subjects together. These include institutional sociology, history of sociology, economics, sociology of the family, statistics, organizational sociology, urban sociology, sociology of crime, sociology of development, political sociology, sociology of literature, sociology of communication, and environmental issues. In order to train the scientists and researchers needed by our country in this field, which is gaining increasing importance and value today, the department consists of the following academic branches:

1. Social Structure and Change,
2. Applied Sociology,
3. Institutional Sociology,
4. General Sociology and Methodology,

The Department of Sociology, which consists of these academic branches, has been established.

History, language, and geographical consciousness are among the most important elements that keep a nation alive. It is a known fact that nations lacking this consciousness cannot maintain their existence. History, one of the most important branches of the social sciences, aims to build the future by moving from the past within the framework of the research and examination methods required by historical science. Turkish history, which has an extremely important place in general world history, is a rich history shaped across a vast geography, especially Anatolia, extending from Central Asia to the Balkans and from Africa to the Middle East over long centuries. In this context, the formation of a national historical consciousness throughout the country is of great importance. In this respect, since the establishment of the Department of History, which has a direct and close connection with the Departments of Philology, Geography, and Turkish Language and Literature, is essential, our Faculty includes the following academic branches:

1. Ancient History,
2. General Turkish History,
3. Medieval History,
4. History of Ottoman Institutions and Civilization,
5. History of the Republic of Türkiye,
6. Late Modern History,
7. Early Modern History,

The Department of History, which consists of these academic branches, has been established.

Turkish, one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, has been used for thousands of years across a very wide geography extending from the Balkans to Central Asia. In addition to Türkiye Turkish, it has dozens of different dialects such as Azerbaijani, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Kazakh, and Turkmen, as well as historical dialects that have significantly diverged today. Türkiye Turkish, which has an extremely rich oral and written literary heritage, has undergone significant changes throughout history and has passed through three main periods: Anatolian Turkish, Ottoman Turkish, and contemporary Turkish. Tens of thousands of literary works produced especially in the classical periods have been left to gather dust on library shelves due in part to the alphabet reform, and can now be read and understood only by specialists. It is undoubtedly through bringing these works into today’s scientific world and to contemporary readers that the history of Turkish culture and civilization can be written continuously and brought to light. Although the Departments of Turkish Language and Literature at our universities were primarily established to fulfill this task, it is observed that the number of scholars working in this field is still not at the desired level. Recognizing the historical transformation and development of Turkish literature, which is one of the most important and inseparable parts of Turkish culture, is extremely important for the future of the Turkish language. Our Faculty includes the following academic branches:

1. Old Turkish Language,
2. Old Turkish Literature,
3. Modern Turkish Language,
4. Modern Turkish Literature,
5. Turkish Folk Literature,

The Department of Turkish Language and Literature, which consists of these academic branches, aims to fill the significant gap felt in this field, to revive our literary values in cooperation with existing departments, to restore Turkish language and literature to its distinguished position among world languages and literatures, and to ensure that Turkish attains the place it deserves not only as a literary language but also as a language of science.