Aesthetics and Culture Studies

This Aesthetics and Culture Studies PhD programme from Masaryk University aim is to prepare graduates for a career in the academic sphere or in commercial sphere, at positions where a high qualification is required with the specialization in the field of art and culture, journalism, politics, and education (theoretical approaches to translation, art, and digital humanities etc.). 

Throughout the Aesthetics and Culture Studies PhD programme from Masaryk University   students will get acquainted with theoretical approaches to modern aesthetics and semiotics of culture that reflect the situation of art from both synchronic and diachronic viewpoints. The Aesthetics and Culture Studies programme at Masaryk University is organized within several sections corresponding to the scholarly orientation of members of the Department of Aesthetics (analytical aesthetics, history of aesthetics, semiotics, structuralism, philosophical approaches, experimental and empirical research etc.). 

Ph.D. students are required to participate in work of several of the sections, within which they work on their Ph.D. projects. Besides acquiring knowledge from the sphere of contemporary study of culture, they also learn elementary techniques of a research in humanities. Under the supervision of experts, students in higher courses of the Ph.D. study programme participate in teaching at the Department of Aesthetics, thus gaining elementary competences of a university teacher.

Career opportunities:

The graduate of the Aesthetics and Culture Studies programme at Masaryk University is got ready to work at a wide range of cultural, social or artistic institutions, at boards of cultural or artistic journals, as a teacher. In all mentioned places he/she can aply acquired deeper knowledge about art or culture in contexts but also practical skills in identifying, describing, analyzing and proposing how to solve problems in art or everyday practice at artistic institutions.

After successfully completing his/her studies the graduate is able to:

• to deal with practical issues on the basis of theoretical knowledge of how art and culture with their traditional values communicate in the contemporary society and in the changing world of technologies

• to formulate relevant hypotheses and to check them empirically and studying them with the tools for structural and analytical description

• to interpret different works of art and broad cultural phenomena from both historical and contemporary viewpoints, showing the way to their understanding and to cultural exchange

• to share their knowledge of the particular discipline in pedagogical activities, lectures and published works;

• to work in a team of scholars and to learn the virtues of respect and co-operation