Comparable programmes

How do we distinguish literary texts from non-literary ones? What role does literature play in society, and what role did it use to play? Students taking Utrecht University’s Bachelor programme in Literary Studies will take a comparative look at literature of all eras, ranging from antiquity to the present time, focusing both on literature in itself and on its relation to other art forms and types of media. This programme takes in everything from epic poems to novels, and from novels to fan fiction. 

There are thousands of languages worldwide. We all speak and understand at least one of them, which we effortlessly learnt as a child. Language comes so naturally that we hardly give it any thought, but linguistics studies this phenomenon in a scientific way: how we acquire it, how we use it, and how it develops through the centuries. In the Bachelor’s programme in Linguistics you will learn how language works, what processes take place in our brain when we talk and why languages change. Linguistics is versatile: it connects experiments (psychology), logic (philosophy), computer models (artificial intelligence) and field work (anthropology) to understand the most important feature of humankind: language!

The Media and Culture programme studies different types of media in a wider context and in relation to one another. It focuses on the role that digital media, data, films, television series, theatre and dance performances, games and cultural interventions play in shaping our understanding of the world around us, but also how these phenomena intervene in that world and transform it.You learn about the history, theory and larger social and technological contexts in which different media function and interact. How do media and culture reflect on, but also participate in, issues of democracy, sustainability, public space, migration, or gender?