MA Cultural Studies

Are you curious about everyday life and the meanings people attach to it? Do you enjoy questioning culturally shaped assumptions – including your own? Would you like to explore culture through qualitative research and critical reflection? Then Cultural Studies may be the perfect choice for you. Cultural Studies (known as "Kulturanthropologie" in German) aims to analyse and understand the diversity of human life worlds. Drawing on European ethnology, folklore, cultural and social anthropology, media studies, and sociology, our programme places a strong emphasis on everyday cultural practices and their historical and contemporary transformations. Our students critically examine how everyday life is shaped by an interplay of gender, sexuality, racism, social class and inequality, social milieus, age, regional belonging, ethnicity and nationalism, as well as imperialism and colonialism. As a student of Cultural Studies, you will learn to: critically reflect on your own perspectives, norms, and values engage with diverse and sometimes conflicting systems of meaning understand the world from multiple viewpoints and in a new light think and work in an open-ended, reflective, and solution-oriented manner design and conduct qualitative research on complex cultural issues communicate your findings clearly and persuasively to academic and wider audiences. Empirical + cultural studies: combining theory and practice The Master’s programme in Cultural Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU Mainz) places a strong emphasis on the integration of theory and hands-on research practice. A central element of the programme are two group-based research-study projects, a distinctive feature of the German university system. In these projects, students work collaboratively through all stages of scholarly research – from developing a research question and designing the methodology to conducting fieldwork, analysing data, and publishing or presenting the results. This prepares students to conduct an independent Master’s thesis and equips them with transferable research and teamwork skills. Our MA students carry out engaged, reflexive and multimodal research. In recent years, research-study projects have explored topics such as migrant living environments in Mainz, Red Cross humanitarianism between the Global South and the Global North, and everyday working life in television and media production at the German public service television broadcaster ZDF. These projects have resulted in innovative outputs, including a city tour, a series of video podcasts, and a published research text in collaboration with the Alameda Institute, UK. Beyond academic training, the projects place a strong emphasis on social justice, ethical research practices, and the development of sustainable relationships with local communities in Mainz and Rhineland-Palatinate.