16 Arts Degree Programs in Netherlands

Learn to interpret and explain contemporary societal challenges through the lens of (Western) culture. Explore how art, science, media, and politics interrelate and shape the world, using an interdisciplinary mix of humanities and social sciences.

You have a passion for arts and culture. You might not be an artist yourself, but want to know what goes on behind the scenes of the art world. Arts and Culture Studies in Rotterdam is unique because of its multifaceted approach to arts and culture.

In the two-year Research Master's degree in Arts and Culture, you can choose between two tracks. The track in Literary and Cultural Studies offers you an advanced study of the arts. You will focus specifically on the role the arts play in processes of cultural change. Also, you will specialize in one of the involved art forms: literature, film, theatre, music or multimedia forms.

The two-year Master's track in Arts, Media and Literary Studies is a specialization within the Research Master's degree in Arts and Culture. Arts, Media and Literary Studies equips students with knowledge and skills to become researchers and experts on the role that the arts, literature and media play in society, now and in the past. The programme offers a rich multi- and interdisciplinary framework within which students can specialize in one of the following disciplines or combinations of disciplines, under close supervision of a highly qualified research faculty:

Art is inherently public. In this programme, you will study and reflect upon how public arts policy, arts management, arts marketing and education affect the realization of artistic values in society. Art is inherently public. In this programme, you will study and reflect upon how public arts policy, arts management, arts marketing and education affect the realization of artistic values in society.

A unique program in terms of its diverse and interdisciplinary range of subjects, the Arts and Culture master's programme offers you the choice of two specializationsprogramprogram: Art History and Museum Studies. Each explores different themes from a comparative and global perspective and offers a broad range of electives, allowing you to further customize your degree.

The interdisciplinary Arts, Cognition and Criticism track focuses on how culture is transmitted, innovated and critiqued through the arts, with course topics such as the arts and reflective imagination; value-negotiation through storytelling; or social and political functions of the arts. Students are trained in methods from the cognitive sciences, hermeneutics, narrative and critical theory, discourse analysis and art sociology. They develop a keen theory-based insight into the role of the arts in cultural dynamics, and hands-on capacities for critical analysis and interpretation of art-works, debates and developments in the arts, in connection to their social background.

The MA Arts & Culture is characterised by a broad focus on various domains of the cultural sector. Here you will take courses in specialisations that are in line with developments in art, media, the creative industry, and design. While some specialisations place current affairs in a historical perspective, others deal explicitly with the contemporary context of art, culture, and media.

Are you fascinated by films, music or theatre? Do you love to discuss what art is, how to interpret a particular movie, pop song and performance and to study the effects that media can have on our societies? Then Arts, Culture and Media should become your Bachelor's programme. In our Bachelor’s programme students acquire a deepened analytical, historical and theoretical understanding of (a) two art forms chosen from film, music, theatre/performance, visual arts or literature; and (b) specialized scholarly knowledge in one of two frameworks: ‘Arts, Policy and Cultural Entrepreneurship’ or ‘Analysis and Criticism.’ This broad multi- and interdisciplinary combination makes it unique.

Visual art today is strongly interlinked with today’s society, a connection which is reinforced and deepened by social and other media. In Arts, Media and Society, a specialisation of our Art History bachelor's programme, you will explore this relationship and analyse how it reflects and impacts the issues of our time, while also learning practical and academic skills that are invaluable in the current job market.

The master's programme in Arts and Culture focuses on culture in the making. Culture can refer to the products of intellectual and artistic creativity, such as scholarly and literary texts or works of art. It also indicates the cultural practices that shape the everyday life of people, and is expressed in their individual tastes and forms of associating with one another.

The Master programme Arts and Culture provides students with the skills needed to investigate the function of the arts in society. It combines in-depth knowledge in a range of specific disciplines with professional and social engagement as well as critical and creative thinking.

Culture can be understood as a complex cognitive process through which humans articulate and negotiate their individual and collective consciousness, identities, values and understanding of the world. The arts have always played an important part in this process.

Audiovisual media are essential to our society. Platforms, interfaces, and networked infrastructures have become ubiquitous and influence all aspects of private and public life, and media culture is enmeshed with politics and the living world like never before. Digital media have not only radically reconfigured how we sense the world and create, exhibit, and interact with film, television, art, and cultural objects.

At Fontys Dance Arts in Context, we teach you to create, think, and produce with your fellow students, and to place dance in different contexts. The programme offers three different profiles: Contemporary, Contemporary Urban, and Choreography. Here, you are encouraged to develop your artistic profile, both as a creator, and dancer.