International Doctoral Program in Culture Studies

Apresentação do curso

As part of The Lisbon Consortium, the International Doctoral Program in Culture Studies is a dual-degree programme in Culture Studies awarded by Universidade Católica Portuguesa, the University of Giessen and the University of Copenhagen. As an FCT-sponsored doctoral program, it offers 6 full fellowships funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology.

It builds from different disciplines in the humanities and the social sciences, thereby assuming the interdisciplinarity of contemporary modes of knowledge production focused on problem-oriented and practice-based research.

The program is born out of the commitment to develop a doctoral program that promotes both high-level research training at the forefront of scientific interest and responds to the cultural sector’s growing call for highly qualified professionals. It is inspired by the ‘collaborative turn’ on two levels: firstly as a model of advanced research training that draws from artistic practice and cultural management to reflect on theory and in turn embeds practice in theoretically informed premises; secondly as a form of doctoral training that is transnational by definition, because the study of culture inevitably deals with diversity.

The programme works on a feed-back loop model, allowing the research methods and theories it devises to be tested in institutional practice by means of internships, curating and other applied projects (i.e. audience research, implementation of new strategies in museum services) while bringing artists, curators and cultural managers to reflect on their practice within scholarly work. These new training formats are specifically directed at tapping into the innovative potential of creative practices and combining these with research agendas that are challenge-based and object-based rather than discipline-based in a traditional sense.

The program intends to inspire students to customize their curriculum and is committed to support work placement. It will provide doctoral students with methodological tools for cultural analysis, challenging them to revise phenomena that are either “invisible” or undervalued by contemporary societies while encouraging a look into the humanist tradition to deepen the understanding about the discourses and creations that have molded cultural history. Consequently, it aims to promote original and internationally relevant research and to integrate doctoral students into multinational research teams. In addition, it will support knowledge transfer, urging students to take their work outside the seminar room and interact with professional realities other than academia.

Therefore, the Lisbon Consortium offers a Summer School for all the master and PhD students, as well as an online journal published bi-annually under the editorial direction of graduate students in the doctoral program in Cultural Studies.

Students of the PhD Program in Culture Studies of The Lisbon Consortium can apply to the PhD Net – European Doctoral Program in Literary and Cultural Studies, an international network between UCP, University of Giessen, University of Helsinki, University of Bergamo and University of Stockholm.