Arts and Culture Studies

Are you passionate about culture? Are you the first to get tickets to music festivals, plays and art-house films? Are you ready to join the social and political debate on the arts? Then Arts and Culture Studies might be the programme for you.

Something for you?

• Study at the best Cultural Studies programme in the Netherlands (ranked nr. 1 in national Elsevier ranking 10 times)
• Experience small-scale, interactive and international classrooms
• Enjoy an active cultural life in one of the oldest cities of the Netherlands
• Study a semester abroad or do an internship in the arts and culture sector

Arts and Culture Studies focuses on art in its various forms: visual arts, literature, music, theatre, film and architecture, as well as digital media and popular culture. After an introduction to long-term developments in western art history, we zoom in on the art worlds of Europe and the Americas in the past hundred years or so. Our approach is interdisciplinary, comparative and multi-medial: you will not only analyse art forms in and by themselves, but will also learn to compare and contrast them. Students are invited to explore art and culture from a number of theoretical, historical, political and social perspectives, incorporating European and American views on culture. You will learn to discern differences between art forms, and between contemporary and historical valuations of art, as well as how to apply theoretical concepts to analyse cultural phenomena. During the programme you're encouraged to develop your own well-founded vision on art and (popular) culture.

The first year introduces you to different forms of art and culture, from the ancient Greeks to the present. We consider depth important: we train specialists with good subject knowledge who have a well-founded vision of their own. We opt for a geographical focus: Europe and America - although cases from other regions are certainly also covered. Because you will immerse yourself in various art disciplines, you will gain a multifaceted perspective on art and culture. You will go out to see art; you will regularly visit museums, theatres, concert halls and cinemas. And you will get to know the different sides of the field and work on your academic skills, such as searching and analysing literature, writing papers and giving presentations.

In the second and third year, you will expand your knowledge and explore the subjects you find most interesting. At the end of the third year, you can do independent research and write a bachelor's thesis on it. In many courses you will be lectured by people working in the cultural sector and you and your fellow students will regularly visit cultural institutions to see how things work in practice.

Kastu feedback about the program after the visit

• At RU students have to really like to do research, to write and to analyze, because most of the assignments are written.
• RU has free writing classes at which students can attend if they struggle with academic writing (most of the students attends them).
• Students mostly can learn Dutch for free and get 50% discount to learn other languages like Spanish, Chinese or other 15 languages.
• Easy to find a job as a student – lots of shops, bars, restaurants. Student who gave me a tour said all his friends found a job in 2-3 months.