Cultural Sociology

Program info

Department:
Department of Sociology

Program type: master
( follow-up master)

Study mode:  full-time

Title : Master (equivalent of master's degree) 

Tuition fee: 1,500 EUR / semester

Standard length of studies : 2 years (4 semesters)

Language of instruction:  English

Degree program specification

The Cultural Sociology Master’s degree seeks for students with a strong interest in the development of contemporary societies, who want to research topics such as globalization, migration, popular culture, changes in identity and societal transformations.

The program is intended for full-time study, with a standard length of 4 semesters. It is offered to students who have already earned an undergraduate degree in the fields of humanities, social sciences, political science or other related fields. To earn the diploma, students must obtain 120 ECTS credits for coursework, successfully complete a thesis (about 20 000 words in length) and pass the final examination.

The program builds on a well-established tradition of research and teaching in the field of cultural sociology at Masaryk University’s Department of Sociology. The points of interest range from organizational and popular culture to religion and urban studies, yet the two topical areas which give the program its particular profile are the study of ethno-national boundaries (including, e.g., migration and transnationalism) and the study of collective memory (including, e.g., generational memory and collective trauma). Today, the research and teaching activities in the field evolve around the Department’s Center for Cultural Sociology. Although the Center was formally instituted only in 2008, its foundation already reflected the many courses – focusing, for example and besides the above mentioned topics, on civic culture, identity formation, gender and sexuality, race, anti-Semitism and protest culture – which had long been offered by the Department in its various study programs. Many of the Center’s activities draw on a close cooperation with the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University, along with, other prominent academic institutions worldwide, including Konstanz University. Since 2008, the cultural sociological orientation of the Department has also been furthered within and through the international doctoral program Euro Joint PhD Program in Social Representations and Communication.

Why study Sociology at Masaryk University?

Historically ...

The Department of Sociology at Masaryk University was established in 1921 and is one of the oldest sociological institutes in Europe. Under the long-time leadership of Innocence Arnošt Bláha - founder of the department, but also one of the founders of Czech sociology and student of Emile Durkheim, sociologist at Masaryk University garnered its distinctive professional profile and status. In the history of Czech sociology, the interwar "Brno School of Sociology" became a thriving movement. For example, in 1926, Emanuel Chalupný received a professorship, and JL Fischer and others engaged in the development of sociology as a discipline. The publication of the prestigious journal  Sociological Revuewhich was considered one of the best European journals, represented by another important milestone for the department.

Today ...

The professional profile of the Department of Sociology currently boasts a wide range of research interests:

• Social integration and problems of social exclusion or marginalization
• Social stratification and social inequalities
• family, relationships in family, transformations in family patterns
• Population Development - Life Course, Aging
• children, youth, intergenerational relationships, generational conflict
• creation of sociocultural identities, ethnicity, ethnic relationships
• Non-profit sector
• gender studies, relationships between sexes
• Religion and its transformations in modern societies
• Globalization, migration, transnationalism
• urban studies
• sociological theory
• cultural sociology

The Department systematically promotes international cooperation. There are a number of cooperative research projects and activities with important academic institutions in Europe and the United States, for example, the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University, Central European University in Budapest, University of East London at the University of Vienna, among many others.