Deadline:
June 23, 2025
Location(s)
Portugal
Overview
The Doctoral Program in Culture Studies is a four-year research program in the Humanities and Social Sciences aimed at graduates and professionals from the cultural sector who wish to advance their university education within a theoretically solid and groundbreaking framework.
As part of a wide network of academic and cultural players, 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.
The Program stimulates problem-oriented and practice-based research approaches and provides broad opportunities for interdisciplinary interaction through a significant range of seminar options from the fields of Cultural Studies, Contemporary Art, Performance Studies, Literature, Translation, Media and Visual Studies.
The program is entirely taught in English.
Details
What is Culture Studies?
Culture Studies have come of age over the last two decades. Within the framework of the crisis in the humanities and the growing call for renewed arts-based forms of knowledge production, the study of culture has changed from being a frame for humanities’ disciplines into gaining prominence in its own right. Two developments triggered this change. On the one hand, the rise of cultural studies in the 1960’s drew attention to the social-political dimension of culture, to its ordinariness and the many ways in which power was blended into creation. On the other, over the course of the 1980’s a new metadiscipline Kulturwissenschaft (science of culture) drew on the interpretative skills of the humanities and the growing attention to forms of mediation in media studies to look at the multiple ways in which culture matters as driver of artistic creation and also address how societies represent themselves and view others, look at the past and prepare the future. Bringing together the sociological methodology that is proper to British cultural studies with the interpretative qualitative approach of Kulturwissenschaft, Culture Studies is by definition transdisciplinary. It has risen to become a problem-oriented metadiscipline, representing a new paradigm of integrated reflection on the artistic forms of expression of individuals and societies, across the visual arts, literature, cinema and the media.
Required documents
- Curriculum Vitae in English;
- University Transcripts of Records – Original documents should be presented until October 30;
- Preliminary research project (max. 15.000 characters);
- Motivation Letter (2 pages max.) – the motivation letter should introduce you to the selection committee, explain why you have chosen this program and why you would be a good fit;
- English Language Certificate;
- Identification document (Passport or ID card);
- Vaccination record (tetanus vaccine updated) – upon registration.
Opportunity is About
Eligibility
Candidates should be from:
Description of Ideal Candidate
Admission Requirements
- BA and MA Degree preferably in a related field of studies (Humanities and Social Sciences);
- Interview (interviews can be held through Skype).
- English Language Certificate – minimum CEFR C1 (taken after January 2023)*:
- IELTS 7.0 minimum;
- TOEFL 100 + minimum 24 in all skills;
- Cambridge Advanced Certificate;
- Cambridge Proficiency;
- CEFR C1;
- Aptis ESOL Advanced C1 minimum.
Dates
Deadline: June 23, 2025
Cost/funding for participants
GRANT
The grant is awarded for a 12-month period, renewable up to a maximum of 4 years, and includes a monthly maintenance stipend and a tuition fee stipend, in accordance with the current FCT stipend scheme. It cannot be awarded for less than 3 consecutive months. Grants awarded within this call cannot start before September 2018.
Un-save Opportunity
Internships, scholarships, student conferences and competitions.
