MA in Arts, Literature and Media (Research)

Leiden University

This interdisciplinary research master offers the best of three worlds (arts, literature and media) through a programme of well-designed courses, combining theoretical and historical training with free space for specialisation.

Why study Arts, Literature and Media in Leiden?

You take two collective courses which will train you to position yourself and your research in a multi-disciplinary field and will learn you to make your work speak so that it has a chance of being funded or published. Then you choose between two historically defined lines that work with different definitions of media:

• In the medieval and early modern line, art and literature work through media. Here, medium is the means by which art and literature are made (such as the medium of language, print, theatre, paint, etching, and so forth).
• In the contemporary line, from the 19th century until the present, art and literature get accompanied by media such as cinema, games, or social media.

A both coherent and flexible programme

Your research connects to the medieval/early modern line or the contemporary line. In both you take two obligatory thematic courses that combine interdisciplinary and historically marked research with medium-specificity. Because you have also taken the two collective courses, this leaves you with more than half of the programme as a matter of choice. You need to select two courses provided by the national research schools which organise specific fields of research: medieval studies, art history, literary studies, media studies, cultural analysis. Finally, three courses that are specific to your research and can be chosen from the Leiden master programme or other universities.

Future prospects

The programme provides the basis for writing your research master's thesis that forms the starting point for either a path in the academy or elsewhere. The programme aims to prepare you well for both. During your studies you will acquire a valuable range of specific and transferable skills and knowledge, both disciplinary and interdisciplinary, historical, contemporary and theoretical.