University of Heidelberg

Within the wide range of courses offered in the M.A. Transcultural Studies, students are guided to follow one of the three study foci throughout the programme. Each study focus cuts across disciplines and is not confined to one region. The three study foci, outlined in detail below, are

• Society, Economy and Governance (SEG)
• Knowledge, Belief and Religion (KBR)   
• Visual, Media and Material Culture (VMC)

The selection of the focus will be made after the first term together with the programme coordinator and scholars involved in that focus. It will be based on the previous qualification of a student and his/her interests. During the first term, students can select optional courses to get an overview and orientation regarding the study foci.

The core courses are taught by the chairs of Buddhist Studies, Cultural Economic History, Global Art History, Intellectual History, Visual and Media Anthropology.

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Society, Economy and Governance (SEG)

This focus explores issues of Society, Economy and Governance from an explicitly transcultural and historical perspective. Unlike current popular discourse, globalization will be treated not only as a recent phenomenon of the contemporary world, but as longer-term and recurrent changes in many areas of the world at different times and places. The emphasis will be on political, social and economic changes and their respective mutual and international influences, such as war and peace, causes and consequences of economic development, the consumer revolution, migration and integration, gender and social transformations, the worldwide demographic transition, and global governance and climate change.

Knowledge, Belief and Religion (KBR)

This focus examines circulations of knowledge, beliefs and associated religious practices across political, cultural, social and linguistic boundaries in and between Asia and Europe. Exploring concrete examples from diverse historical periods, the courses apply theories and methods of transcultural inquiry relating to, or cutting across, disciplines such as history, philosophy, religious studies, art history, the history of science and technology, anthropology, economics, sociology, political science, linguistics and translation studies.

Students are introduced to relevant kinds of sources (textual, material, visual), the agents, pathways and networks on which migrations of knowledge, belief and religion depend, as well as the diverse factors shaping processes of appropriation, integration, and rejection. Historically grounded investigations of cultural encounters will enable them to gain insights into the changing conditions of knowledge production in different regions and communities, learn about a wide array of intellectual, social and religious practices, and develop a more nuanced understanding of transcultural issues in global communications.

Visual, Media and Material Culture (VMC)

This focus investigates the production, proliferation, and reception of images and objects as well as their collection, display, and reconfiguration with a view to the human agency involved. A transcultural perspective calls for recovering the ways in which experiences and processes of mobility and braidedness are constitutive for the actors and visual regimes involved in these processes. Transculturality also addresses the enmeshing of visual technologies, institutional practices, spectatorship and power in ways that cut across bipolar asymmetries, and investigate the role of multiple agencies, local and trans-regional, in negotiating power and the production of knowledge.

The range of visual media under investigation stretches from graffiti to vernacular art and digital images, incorporating perspectives from multiple locations, and can induce a critique of the ocular essentialism that has come in the wake of a dramatic increase in images and a fascination with simulacra on a global scale. Interdisciplinary conversations can help reach into literary, linguistic, musical, performative or ritual dimensions of expressive culture, whose meanings can be more fully apprehended through a range of experiences centering on the body, space and the senses.