MA/MS in Arts in Society

This master's track examines the public role of art in contemporary society, treating the arts as a means of expressing, representing, and generating individual and collective identities as well as a way of critically reflecting on society. It looks at how culture can serve as a platform for polarisation and conflict, but also as a tool for appeasement, citing examples such as Brecht's theatre, Pussy Riot, NWA, and the realist novel to show how art has served as a platform against political oppression and a means to express and negotiate identity. The track studies how artistic practices contribute to forms of political resistance and highlights connections between different arts disciplines, relating arts and culture to current developments such as digitisation and AI, decolonisation, democracy and populism, and globalisation. Combining critical sociology with cultural studies, it gives students, early on, ways to study and interpret these developments.