Aesthetics and Cultural Studies

Study of Aesthetics and culture offers to students a way of understanding of various forms of art at present, in history, in its social or philosophical contexts. Unlike other art sciences Aesthetics introduces art as social or philosophical phenomenon naturally connected with actual or local circumstances but expresses timeless values at the same time. That is why study of Aesthetics is set culturally and historically on the one hand and analytically in courses of history of Aesthetics, terminology, methodology or European culture on the other. Students are gradually able to collect pieces of branch information, evaluate them, to use proper methods in the search, to interpret critically, to discuss to the point, to discipline ourselves, to work with foreign language, to see European culture in context. The graduates are habilitated to work in galleries, cultural and social institutions, as publicists or teachers at elementary or secondary schools too.

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

• to see and understand Art as phenomenon of culture and philosophy, to amplify his/her own view at Art or culture in general
• to describe and analyze work of art in a special way using branch terminology,
• to handle texts in foreign language without using a dictionary, to find relevant data for given problem, to structure them and eliminate the less crucial ones,
• to write special text on given topic and to construct arguments for an idea,
• to identify a key idea of any text of Aesthetics and use it further or to give it others in a comprehensible way.

The graduate 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.

• No professional status

As an obligatory part of the programme is an individual practical training by supervision to an extent of 80 hours of training and 10 ours of supervision.

Standard extension of the thesis is at least 140.000 signs including typographic space, footnotes, title page, content, index, bibliography and annotation (extension for bachelor thesis 80.000 signs). Student in collaboration with his/her tutor chooses a branch topic, transform it into a question and the thesis is further understood as an answer to such a question. Students use branch literature, the thesis is not a case of an empirical research. Students prove an ability to handle branch text critically, to utilize concepts or theories found there and find relevant answers to the original question. Instructions for study completion can be found at www Seminar of Aesthetics and are defined by faculty norms and rules.

After completion of his/her Master Degree in Aesthetics and Culture Studies, a graduate can continue in study of the same or a similar Ph.D. degree programme at Masaryk University.