Course Descriptions

Semester 1

Introduction to Applied Cultural Analysis (7.5 ECTS)

This course is an introduction to the application of cultural analysis in public administration, private corporations, and cultural heritage management. A small scale field project is undertaken to acquire hands-on experience in conducting cultural analysis in different organizational settings.

Theoretical Perspectives in Cultural Analysis (7.5 ECTS)

Through this course, students will acquire advanced knowledge of topical questions of epistemology in the Humanities and Social sciences. Different epistemological approaches to cultural analysis will be explored in order to enable students to identify and discuss epistemological aspects inherent to concrete modes of cultural analysis. Additionally, students will learn how to locate current issues of epistemology in a broader historical context.

Strategies for Composing Cultural Analysis (15 ECTS)

Advanced graduate level course focusing on the theoretical principles and implications of cultural analysis. Students will acquire thorough knowledge of key problems in contemporary culture theory and acquire the analytical tools to develop and delineate problems in cultural analysis. Exploring thematic clusters such as globalization, regionalism, identity politics, knowledge society, consumption, cultural economy, state, nation, and modes of everyday life, the course enables critical reflection on the constitution of different modes of cultural analysis.

Semester 2

Methodologies for Cultural Analysis (15 ECTS)

The pivotal point of this course is the question of how problems of cultural analysis are constituted and conducted following different analytical approaches. The exploration of these questions is organized in student workshops which include training in advanced ethnographic fieldwork methods, such as interview, observation, material culture analysis and digital ethnography. Further it involves the critical reflection on possibilities and limitations of different forms of visual communication and media to convey research results. Thematically the course revolves around questions of regionalism, considering particular sites of cultural production such as materiality, narratives and rituals. The exploration of different regionalisms and their intersections clusters around specific themes such as cultures of innovation, diversity management and the cultural dimensions of planning.

Fieldwork and Project Management (15 ECTS)

This curriculum component is fieldwork driven and based on a project envisaged and developed in cooperation with a public or private organization. Fieldwork and cultural analysis is conceived and designed as a feasible and focused project, through which the student acquires professional skills in project design, implementation and management, including budgeting, controllership, cost accounting, and fiscal evaluation. Reflections on the ethics of fieldwork are included as a component in project design and final evaluation. The course objective is to enable the student to independently design and conduct a fieldwork driven project in a given working environment. This includes the reflective ability to select and develop types of field inquiry and presentation appropriate to the given assignment.

Semester 3 (mobility window)

Master's elective (choose up to 30 ECTS)

Semester 4

Master thesis (30 ECTS)

In the MA thesis the student is expected to demonstrate the skills acquired in the use of theory and methods to a specific thematic cluster. The student needs to craft, delineate and tackle a relevant research problem, to discuss key concepts and relate these to significant schools of thought and theoretical currents and to put the results of the thesis in a critical perspective.