Neuphilologische Fakultät Popular cultures
The Master’s degree programme in Popular Cultures offers a research-oriented course of studies focusing on text, image, and media studies. The degree programme is part of the Faculty of Modern Languages. It opens up the possibility of an interdisciplinary and intermedial examination of mass media phenomena while also offering a stronger practice and professional orientation by way of cooperation between several subjects and facilities.
The degree programme focuses on cultural products, everyday practices, and social phenomena observed in Europe and the USA since the 19th century at the latest with the rise of the mass media in the context of popular cultures. The contemporary and history-related Master's degree programme focuses on the dissemination of popular cultural artefacts, in particular in the modern era, but also traces popularisation effects into the pre-modern era.
Special features and characteristics
There are two versions of the Master’s degree programme in Popular Cultures as a major subject:
A more research-oriented approach of the degree programme is supplemented by a course variant with an integrated work placement/mobility option that promotes student internationalisation and practice orientation.
Students also benefit from the degree programme’s broad links to other facilities at Heidelberg University (including the Heidelberg School of Education – HSE) and external cooperation partners (including the Heidelberg College for Jewish Studies, Heidelberg University of Education, and the Popakademie Mannheim).
The subjects involved in the degree programme also maintain contact with cultural institutions in Heidelberg and the surrounding area (e.g., theatres, museums, cinemas, festivals, archives, memorials, the annual Poetry Lectureship, the German-American Institute – DAI or the Hip-Hop Archive Heidelberg) in order to create further practical offers within the degree programme and thus promote the students’ practice orientation.
Professions
The Master’s degree programme provides a basis for further scientific qualification with the aim of a doctorate and also qualifies students for research-oriented professional activities, for example in the following areas:
- Culture management
- Public relations / corporate communications
- Adult education / art education / museum education
- Dramaturgy and creative writing
- Archives / documentation
- Galleries / art academies / museums / exhibitions
- Journalism / media professions: Online and print media
- Editing / publishing
- Foundation work
- Tourism
- Research and teaching at universities
Research
Students on the interdisciplinary degree programme benefit from research-oriented teaching that is closely aligned with the research focuses of the core subjects involved. They include:
Romance Studies with the following research focuses:
- World literature, graphic novels, and world cinema with a view to local and global developments
- Literary theory, including theories of affect, fiction, and genre
- Media theories and practice, including film theory/culture, seriality, digitality, digital and everyday communication
- Cultural sciences and cultural studies, including popular culture, performance/theatricality, transculturality/multilingualism
German studies: The area of German studies: modern literature opens up a wide range of topics for research into popular cultures, such as
- Literature and its cultural history from pre-modern times to the present day
- Classics and their multi-media adaptations (film, comic, etc.)
- Sociology of literature, research on the literary industry and book market
- Literature education, museology, theatre
- Transculturality, multilingualism, and translation
- Reading and writing practices in historical change
- Digital editions
- ‘Popular literature’, serial literature, entertainment literature
- Political literature, literature, and populism
- Pop literature, literature in the new media
European art history: The professors’ specialisms result in thematic special fields and research projects in various subject areas. The following are of particular relevance to the degree programme:
- New media (photography, film, computer games, etc.)
- Picture stories and comics
- Image science theories and methods
- Popularisation strategies and phenomena in the area of fine arts (e.g., blockbuster exhibitions)
- Art and its reception in literature and media