Subject of the Postgraduate Programme “Cultural Studies: Modern Hellenism and the Balkans” is the postgraduate teaching through interdisciplinary approaches, the education and specialization of graduates in the application of the theoretical proposals of Cultural Studies in the scientific field of the two-way relationship between the new Greek culture and its Balkan counterparts. The distance learning Postgraduate Programme (at 100% rate) aims to provide students with in-depth training in the theoretical principles, methodology and research areas of Cultural Studies in the context of an interdisciplinary and anthropological approach to culture as a set of forms and signifying practices of various cultural manifestations.
Cultural Studies spread in the second half of the 20th century, centered on the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham, and traced the relationship between culture and power. The fledgling discipline systematically challenged the so-called high culture and the unchallenged canon of great works and creators. It focuses simultaneously on everyday life and the hitherto underestimated popular or mass or popular culture as a defining field of cultural production.
In the context of the Postgraduate Programme, the presentation of the theoretical and methodological schemes of Cultural Studies is accompanied by examples and implementations that focus on the interconnection of Modern Hellenism (as conventionally definedfrom 1453 onwards) with the cultural systems of the Balkans. At the level of culture, the local and the national intersect with the supra-local and the transnational, and at the level of cultural theory, the partial and the concrete intertwine with the universal and the abstract. Consequently, the examination of the interrelation of modern Greek culture with its Balkan contexts also constitutes a study of the readjustments of cultural theory itself during its trajectories in the region of Southeastern Europe.
Main objectives of the Programme
- Development of research in the individual scientific fields of Anthropological, Folklore, Historical, Museological, Literary, Film Studies and History of Artfrom the perspective of cultural theory.
- Connection with the institutions of cultural policy in Greece and the Balkans (museums, foundations, archives, collections, cultural institutions, research centers).
- Specialization of appointed or unappointed teachers in the design and implementation of cultural programmes, environmental education programmes, cultural issues and interdisciplinary approaches in the school.