Competing Visions of Area Studies in the Interwar Period: The School of Oriental Languages in Berlin Larissa Schmid Oriental Studies Islamic Studies Area Studies Interwar Period Focusing on the Seminar for Oriental Languages in Berlin, the article explores competing visions on the role of area studies between two prominent Orientalists in the interwar period. It shows that tensions between blue-sky research, applied research and the provision of educational services were at the centre of this argument. In sketching the development of the academic community of Orientalists since Germany's imperial period, it will be argued that concepts of area studies continued to be linked to visions of nationalist and expansionist foreign policies, even after 1918. Philipps-Universität Marburg Marburg Deutschhausstraße 9, 35037 Marburg 2015 2015-05-22 2018-01-31 Text article urn:nbn:de:hebis:04-0003-2015-108-27874 eng 2714728-9 4 1 https://journals.uni-marburg.de/0003/article/download/2787/3466 10.17192/meta.2015.4.2787 https://journals.uni-marburg.de/0003/2015/108/2787