The major in Cultural Analysis offers students an interdisciplinary approach to the critical analysis of contemporary culture. In the field of cultural studies, culture is defined as a constantly changing set of practices, to which meanings are given by the members of a society or group. These meanings are constructed, and structure the way people behave. Through the study of cultural phenomena, such as works of art and literature, TV & cinema, digital media, and popular culture, as well as the social, economic, political and historical contexts in which they are situated, students learn to analyse culture, with the aim to critically question its implied normativity. The major also provides students with a range of theoretical perspectives from which to approach cultural texts, by drawing from history and medium-specific-, aesthetic-, critical-, post-colonial- and feminist theory. In doing so, this major provides students with the critical tools to read cultural texts, and in addition makes visible the position of the researcher, in this case the students themselves, as situated in a specific cultural context which influences their own meaning making. This is a key skill for critical world citizenship in the twenty-first century. The major in Cultural Analysis prepares students for further studies in the fields of art history and cultural theory, media and cultural studies, and visual culture.
Entry requirement
The major Cultural Analysis has no entry requirement.
Coordinator: T. de Groot
- Critical Theory
- Images & Power: Foundations of Media Studies
- Late Modernity: Globalisation, Neoliberalisation & Mediatisation
Feminist Philosophy: Bodies, Binaries & Beyond or Post-Colonial Theory: Critical Perspectives from the Global South