Academy of Fine Arts Vienna

Master of Arts' programme in Critical Studies

Academy of Fine Arts Vienna
Schillerplatz 3
1010 Vienna
www.akbild.ac.at

Call for applications for Master of Arts' programme in Critical Studies
Application period: July 10-September 2, 2011

The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna is offering a new Master of Arts' programme in Critical Studies. It is an artistic-academic course of study that lasts four semesters with an artistic-academic project being developed in the final semester. The course is completed with a Master of Arts' (MA) degree.

The programme is aimed at students who either possess a diploma or B.A. in an academic subject or those who have achieved a corresponding qualification in an artistic subject.

The programme pursues three teaching objectives. It is intended to prepare students for academic doctoral studies, primarily in art theory and cultural studies but also in the disciplines of education in the arts and in architecture. It is intended to equip students to continue artistic research towards a Ph.D. in practice or a comparable qualification. It is intended to prepare students for activities in public artistic and cultural fields of practice, especially for work in journalism, specialised and academic journalism as well as for curatorial, archival, mediational and other such activities.

The programme has artistic, theoretical, propaedeutically preparatory, practical and such parts in which forms of practice are purposefully intermingled and their clear demarcation called into question. The programme comprises of five modules. Students must enroll for one course unit from each of these modules during each of the first three semesters. In the first module students individually join one class at the Institute for Fine Art and participate to a limited extent in the artistic tuition. In the second module students develop artistic-academic approaches in a study project with various teaching staff. In the third module students select seminars from the Institute for Art Theory and Cultural Studies. In the fourth module students attend a practice-oriented seminar held by an external specialist. In the fifth module students are inducted into methodologies of academic work. In the fourth semester students develop their master's project.

The Master's programme in Critical Studies follows the critical traditions of the 20th century (from the Frankfurt School and the psychoanalysis to the New Left, Post-structuralism and Deconstruction), expanded by those developments, ramifications and problematisations of critical standpoints inspired in recent decades by fields such as Gender Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Subaltern Studies, Cultural Studies and Queer Studies. In addition, approaches developed in relation to new theories of the visual, medialities, the public and the social will be treated-consistently in relation to artistic processes.
Students will work in small teams and groups of rarely more than ten. They will be tutored by lecturers from a large pool from almost all the institutes at the academy. There will be a constant change in lecturing staff to ensure a variety of perspectives and expertise. Nevertheless, continuity in staff will also be guaranteed.
The teaching staff in the first year of study will include:
Sabeth Buchmann, Diedrich Diederichsen, Marina Grzinic, Jens Kastner, Jakob Krameritsch, Dorit Margreiter, Constanze Ruhm, Johanna Schaffer, Ruth Sonderegger, Felicitas Thun-Hohenstein

Link curriculum / study plan and further information
Link registration online
Submission of the examination assignment online until 2.9., 5 pm
By post: until 2.9.. The date of the postmark does not count but instead the written answers to the assignment questions must arrive at the academy by 2.9. at the latest.