Cultural History

On this website you can find the information you need when you do the Master's programme in Cultural History. If you are you planning on registering for this Master's programme, please follow the links below.

• More information for prospective Dutch students
• More information for prospective international students 

'Culture' is the buzz word in the world today. What does this imply for historians? Culture, after all, is a fiercely contested concept. The one-year Master's programme Cultural History is designed to contribute to a better understanding of the relevance and topicality of cultural history, identity formation, cultural memory, cultural heritage, and public history. Our focus is specifically on developing insight into the relationship between material facts and cultural constructions, between historical sources and popular narrative, between history (‘the past as it was’) and memory (‘the past as it is imagined to have been’), between historicity and heritage, and between individual experience and cultural identities.

We believe that tomorrow’s professionals in the broad field of culture need particular competencies to cope with important socio-political issues on an academic level. The Master's programme Cultural History provides these competencies. What is the meaning of collective memory in a globalised world? What is the bearing of historical evidence on popular understandings of history? To what degree are identities historically contingent? How can history show that culture matters?

The Master's programme Cultural History, unique in the Netherlands, trains you in historical research and provides you with comprehensive and socially relevant expertise. Our graduates find jobs in fields like cultural policy (municipal, regional, national, European, global), journalism, media, public history, museums, heritage, and education.