Folkloristics and Applied Heritage Studies

The programme (120 ECTS) is designed to enable students to pursue their professional aspirations. Students take four core courses (30 ECTS), accompanied by MA seminars (12 ECTS), and choose to specialise either in the analysis of folklore and cultural heritage or in the study and application of the heritage of craft (15 ECTS). Students collaborate with the faculty to tailor the content of the optional course module (18 ECTS) and of practical training (9 ECTS) towards their chosen career path. An MA thesis or a more practically oriented MA project (30 ECTS) completes the programme.Heritage has emerged as a key category shaping the ways in which individuals, communities and regional as well as state-level actors relate to the past and imagine the future, while making and re-making themselves in the present. As more states worldwide join the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, the need grows for specialists capable of analysing cultural heritage and using it responsibly as a social and economic resource. Of vital importance for developing such competencies are folkloristic theories of tradition, performance and expressive culture.