Program Overview

Graduate School, Arts

The Graduate School, Arts at Aarhus University offers a range of PhD programs, including the PhD program in Art, Literature and Cultural Studies.

Art, Literature and Cultural Studies

The Programme

The PhD program in Art, Literature and Cultural Studies covers a wide range of studies of the arts in the broadest sense, including:

• Visual art and culture, including more recent media such as film, video, and computer
• Theatre, including performance and dance
• Music, from classical music to modern rhythmic music and sound studies
• Literature, from national and area-defined contexts to world literature, including children’s literature
• Rhetoric, museological studies, trans- and intermedial studies, art and aesthetic theory
• General studies in culture’s history and theory, including Cultural Studies

The program welcomes studies of various topics and has no chronological or theoretical barriers. It includes historical, contemporary, and trans-historical projects, as well as projects from singular disciplines and projects aiming to bridge different disciplines.

Affiliated Centres and Departments

The program is embedded within the School of Communication and Culture and is affiliated with the aesthetic disciplines:

• Art History
• Theatre Studies
• Music Studies
• Comparative Literature
• Aesthetics and Culture
• Rhetoric, Nordic and Roman languages, English, and German
• The Centre for Museology
• The Centre for Children’s Literature and Media

Examples of Employment after Graduation

Graduates from the program have gone on to work in various roles, including:

• Researcher and teacher at Aarhus University
• Director of the playwright education at Aarhus Theatre
• Museum Inspector and Curator
• Teacher in high school
• Consultant in artistic and cultural projects
• Manager of communication projects
• Freelance writer
• Director of publishing or editorial companies

Geographic Location

The program is located at Langelandsgade 139, Bld. 1586, in the House of Young Researchers (Forskerhuset), which provides a lively environment with dedicated PhD students, a seminar room, and a kitchen. PhD students may also be located in local academic environments.

National Cooperation

The program is part of a national PhD program network in Arts and Literature, which includes:

• PhD School, Faculty of Humanities, Copenhagen University
• PhD Programme in Cultural Studies, Literature and the Arts, Copenhagen University
• PhD Programme in Literature, Aesthetics and Culture, University of Southern Denmark

The program also collaborates with various institutions, including ARoS, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, KUNSTEN Museum of Modern Art, and Ordrupgaard.

International Cooperation

The program participates in the literature network HERMES, an international collaboration between nine European and one American university. It has an annual meeting with around 30 PhD students and invited keynote speakers.

Approximate Number of PhD Students

There are approximately 35-45 PhD students in the program.

PhD Programme Director

The PhD program director is Stefan Iversen, Associate Professor.

Programmes

The Graduate School, Arts offers various programs, including:

• Anthropology, Global Studies and the Study of Religion
• Art, Literature and Cultural Studies
• Didactics
• History, Archaeology and Classical Studies
• ICT, Media, Communication and Journalism
• Language, Linguistics and Cognition
• Learning and Education
• Theology, History of Ideas and Philosophy