Cultural History – (M.A.)

The Master's programme Cultural History trains you in historical research and provides you with comprehensive and socially relevant expertise.

'Culture' is the buzz word in the world today. What does this imply for historians? Culture, after all, is a fiercely contested concept. The one-year Master's programme Cultural History is designed to contribute to a better understanding of the relevance and topicality of cultural history, identity formation, cultural memory, cultural heritage, and public history. Our focus is specifically on developing insight into the relationship between material facts and cultural constructions, between historical sources and popular narrative, between history ('the past as it was') and memory ('the past as it is imagined to have been'), between historicity and heritage, and between individual experience and cultural identities. We believe that tomorrow's professionals in the broad field of culture need particular competencies to cope with important socio-political issues on an academic level. The Master's programme provides these competencies. What is the meaning of collective memory in a globalised world? What is the bearing of historical evidence on popular understandings of history? To what degree are identities historically contingent? How can history show that culture matters?