Courses and programmes

The Department of Culture and Aesthetics offers courses and programmes in Art History, History of Ideas, Literature, Musicology, Theatre and Performance Studies, and Curating.

Search among our courses and programmes

 

Art History

The need to create pictures, shape ideas and form surroundings has existed in all times and cultures. In art history, you track how this will to create has changed in form and content from antiquity to our age. You will learn about art and architecture as well as other forms of visual culture, design and the shaped environment.

More about Art History

Master's Programmes in Art History

We offer two master's programmes.

How to be around yourself - a game for up to 2 persons. Multipel, tryck på röd filt, okänd konstnär
How to be around yourself - a game for up to 2 persons. Artist unknown (around 2010).

The International Master’s Programme in Art History gives you a deepened empirical and theoretical knowledge in art history. Particular focus is placed on developing skills that enables you to navigate the international art historical field, within the academy, museums, or related professional areas.

The programme will be open for admission 16 October 2023 – 15 January 2024.

Investigation of a painting.
Photo: Emmebi Diagnostica Artistica

The International Master's Programme in Art History: Technical Art History and the Art Museum, gives you in-depth empirical and theoretical knowledge in the field of Art History with a focus on Technical Art History, the history of the art museum and its professional practice, as well as History of Collections and Archive Studies.

Courses

We offer courses at both Bachelor's and Master's level. Course offerings are different each semester.

Please see current courses at the bottom of this page.

PhD Programme

We also offer a four year PhD programme. For more information about PhD studies in Art History, please contact:

Director of Postgraduate Studies
Anna Bortolozzi
Phone: +46 (8)-16 18 23
Email: anna.bortolozzi@arthistory.su.se

 

Curating

The role of the curator has become increasingly expansive since the turn of the 21st century. Curating, synonymous throughout the late 1900s with freelance exhibition production, today encompasses a greater number of functions connecting a wide range of creative practitioners (including artists, architects, filmmakers and writers) with an audience.

More about Curating

The International MA in Curating Art was founded in 2003, as one of the first curatorial studies programmes in Scandinavia, and has been developed as an ongoing collaboration between Art History (together with the schools of Business and Law) at the university together with prominent art institutions in Stockholm.

The programme starts every autumn semester and has only one admission round, in early December to mid January.

Programme website

 

History of Ideas

The subject is about how people perceive themselves and the world, our conceptions of history, present and future. History of ideas wants to analyze and understand the emergence of intellectual and scientific culture and its relation to society, in the light of general notions and thought traditions and by means of a historical method.

More about History of Ideas

History of Ideas offer most of our second level courses as self-study courses in English as well as one basic course in Swedish history of ideas.

Please see current courses at the bottom of this page.

PhD Programme

We also offer a four year PhD programme. For more information about PhD studies in History of Ideas, please contact:

Director of Postgraduate studies
Victoria Fareld
Phone: +46(0)8-16 34 90
Email: victoria.fareld@idehist.su.se

 

Literature

Do you like to read and are interested in how literature has changed throughout history, from the oral dictation of the past to today's digital text worlds? Do you think about what literature really is? Do you want to become an expert in analyzing and interpreting texts? Then literature science is a subject that suits you.

More about Literature

We currently offer one course at Bachelor's level in the history of Swedish literature, as well as a Master's Programme in Literature, of 120 credits.

Please see current courses at the bottom of this page.

The Master’s Programme in Literature is offered in collaboration between several departments at Stockholm University. It gives you in-depth theoretical and historical knowledge, as well as the possibility of gaining practical experience in professions where knowledge of literature is important.

Programme website

PhD Programme

We also offer a four year PhD programme. For more information about PhD studies in Literature, please contact:

Director of Postgraduate Studies
Carin Franzén
Email: carin.franzen@littvet.su.se

 

Musicology

The ability to make and listen to music is as fundamental for humans as the ability for speech. By studying Musicology you will become acquainted with musical sound worlds and structures, and the ways these are used and interpreted in different social contexts. You will come to know diverse musical genres and traditions. 

More about Musicology

We offer two courses in Musicology.

Swedish Music, 7.5 credits

The Bachelor's level course is an introduction to Swedish music. It is primarily a historical survey, including close-ups on some important actors (composers, ensembles, singers ...) and periods.

Course website

Arts and formalisms, 7.5 credits

This course aims to provide in-depth knowledge of the meaning of various formalisms, as well as principally important criticisms made against them.

PhD Programme

We also offer a four year PhD programme. For more information about PhD studies in Musicology, please contact:

Director of Postgraduate studies
Johanna Ethnersson Pontara
Phone: +46(0)8-16 19 52
Email: johanna.ethnersson.pontara@music.su.se

 

Theatre and Performance Studies

Focusing on the performing arts, public performances, and performances of everyday life, Theatre and Performance Studies ‘recognize and insist on the interdependency of a related series of disciplines and also on the role of performance in the production of culture in its widest sense’. 

More about Theatre and Performance Studies

Studying Theatre and Performance

Master's Programme

Our International Master’s Programme in Performance Studies is an innovative study programme aiming to provide students with excellent competences and skills for a profession in the performing arts and cultural field. Next programme start is autumn 2024.

Programme website

Courses

We offer several courses at Master's level and one Bachelor's level course.

Please see current courses at the bottom of this page.

PhD Programme

We also offer a four year PhD programme. For more information about PhD studies in Theatre and Perfomance studies, please contact:

Director of Postgraduate studies
Tiina Rosenberg
Email: tiina.rosenberg@teater.su.se

 
Siora Photography, Unsplash.

At the Department of Culture and Aesthetics there are five research subjects with postgraduate studies, Art History, History of Ideas, Literature, Musicology or Theatre and Performance studies. The department offers a dynamic interdisciplinary research environment for post graduate research, in which the PhD students are active both within their subjects and in interdisciplinary activities.

There are around 50 active PhD students at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics. The postgraduate studies at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics consists of four years of fulltime studies with employment: The writing of a doctoral thesis (180 ECTS credits) and PhD courses (60 ECTS credits). The PhD position can be combined with other work at the department and will then be prolonged with a fifth year.

Read more about the PhD Studies at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics

Find our PhD courses

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