The MSc Cultural Sociology offers a combination of thematic areas with solid and useful methods to make the student able to perform advanced analysis of cultural phenomena and their relation to social, political, historical and economic issues. It informs the student of the symbolic meaning and dimension relevant for the description, understanding and interpretation of different social and cultural phenomena. For instance, we study how social and cultural identities are shaped by political structures and discourses, social systems, geographical and infrastructural conditions and by economic and religious forces.
The overall aim is to provide students with theoretical and methodological tools to understand culture, social relations and meaning production in local and global communities and thus enable them to independently investigate and analyze processes of social and cultural transformations.
Besides classical and contemporary sociological theories and quantitative/statistical and advanced qualitative methods for collecting and analyzing empirical data, we study how and why contemporary cultural identities and social relations are shaped by and undergo change due to migration and other transnational flows, and how changes in popular culture and social formations are influenced by social media; We investigate the relation between gender issues and changing bodily and cultural phenomena; We critically analyze how cultural values shape economic practices and how emotions shape politics and social life in general; We work with issues of change in everyday life and conditions shaping identity and, not least, with subcultures, countercultures and social movements, civil society and new state-citizen relations.
The program is named “Social transformation processes” and transformative processes make the headline of the study of Cultural Sociology.
Social transformation processes programme structure for students enrolled in 2021
The thematic fields frame the lessons each semester in terms of an integrated package of theoretical courses, methodological courses and exams including The Cultural Sociology Project, emphasizing an interdisciplinary approach that characterizes the MSc Cultural Sociology programme.
Content about the quarters
The 3rd quarter investigates cultural perspectives on time, space and identity. In focus is the symbolic dimensions of relevant issues like time, identitarianism, cultural appropriation, religion, emotions, radicalization, racism and human-animal relations and their social and cultural meanings as well as the creation of otherness, through social media and social processes of integration and exclusion.
3rd quarter also offers the course in Advanced Statistical Methods and Quantitative Methods.
During the 4th quarter the focus is on the following social and cultural phenomena: subcultures, countercultures and social movements, and the understanding of symbolic cultural organizing as meaning making and resistance. The second course offered is “Social Transformations in the Scandinavian Welfare State”, which is an elaborate introduction to the issue of the welfare state, its political, social and cultural advantages, challenges and the comparison with other state forms.
In the 5th and 6th quarters electives are offered. You can choose between a mix of a short internship (7,5 ects) and electives (7,5 ects) for 5th quarter or a long internship, 15 ects and electives (15 ects), for 5th and 6th quarter. Furthermore, during these two quarters students can choose internship or elective courses in Denmark or abroad.
During the last semester (7th and 8th quarters), you write your thesis on a topic of own choice within the field of cultural sociology.
If you have enrolled in the study programme summer 2019 or 2020 click here
If you have enrolled in the study programme summer 2018 or earlier click here