Arts, Media and Culture

Research programme director: Dr. Aagje Swinnen

Programme profile

The aim of the Arts, Media and Culture (AMC) programme is to analyse the dynamics of cultural change by studying how developments in the arts and the media respond to socio-cultural and political changes and how, vice versa, cultural artifacts and practices can shape social and political culture. AMC researchers study the whole spectrum of high-brow, middle-brow and low-brow culture, ranging from novels to installation and performance art, from political essays to public monuments and from online communities to hacking spaces. What unites these inquiries is a focus on the practices in which cultural artifacts are produced, distributed and received. AMC research continues to analyse and interpret the meaning of cultural objects as ‘texts’, but increasingly this research includes the sites of their production, reception and/or co-creation, e.g. classrooms and factories where language practices are a means of in- and exclusion, websites where candidate parents present themselves to mothers of potential adoptees, the museum storage rooms where installations are stored and conserved, the nursing homes where people who live with dementia become co-creators in participatory arts activities, and the virtual communities where citizens share letters from the past. This emphasis on situated practices means that we are interested in the social and historical, but also in the material and bodily constituents of culture-in-the-making.

Theoretically, AMC scholarship follows new developments in critical theory, ethics and digital and environmental humanities. AMC research relates to paradigms such as post-humanism and new materialism that may transform the humanities beyond its anthropocentric foundations. In addition, digital developments enable us to explore new forms of data collection, analysis and presentation as well as new ways of engagement with audiences. The topics that we study and the questions that we ask have a strong social dimension. We are committed to engaged scholarly practices that combine conventional valorisation activities (e.g. exhibitions, toolkits, installations) with innovative co-creative practices that involve societal stakeholders in the development and production of knowledge. Many of our projects have an ethical and normative component and several AMC scholars identify as activist-scholars. Methodologically, research projects within AMC often combine approaches from the humanities and social sciences, for instance critical discourse analysis, philosophical reflection and close reading with ethnographic field work including interventions, field observations and interviews.

AMC scholarship responds to the challenges that come with the following four topics. These topics are dynamic, and most scholars identify with at least two: inclusive societies, digital transformations, living histories and engaging narratives.

You can access the website of the programme here.