Goal and content minor
The minor Creative Cities caters to students interested in emerging artistic practices, subcultures and new media and how these phenomena relate to creative dynamics in society. Investigating cities, urban citizenship and the multidimensional dynamics between them obviously suggests an interdisciplinary academic approach while simultaneously offering endless possibilities for exploring connections between theory and practice. All four courses of this minor open the door to the urban world immediately beyond the university classroom and provide students with theoretical concepts, practical tools, and creative space to explore it.
The Creative Cities minor is inspired by the growing belief that the creative, economically viable city of the future will only thrive if it is truly integrated and its citizens turn from passive consumers into active participants who take responsibility for each other and their surroundings. All kinds of cultural practices can influence this process of bottom-up city building. Thus, the different courses in this minor offer opportunities to critically study new digital media technologies and their playful application, the changing role of young people in urban society, formal and informal cultural interventions in public space, and cutting edge participatory arts in lower income areas (community arts). A fifth course, offered in Dutch by Social Geography, explores the city as breeding ground for creativity.
Preperation Masters
The minor Creative Cities, which combines humanities and social sciences, provides a useful basis for various Master's programmes at Utrecht University, including Arts & Society, Media and Performance Studies, Contemporary Theatre, Dance and Dramaturgy, and New Media and Digital Culture. It could also benefit those wishing to pursue Master's studies in the social sciences (e.g., the M.A. in Human Geography and the Cultural Anthropology M.A. ‘Sociocultural Transformation’), or various M.A. programmes in Creative Cities and Urban Culture in the anglo-saxon world.
Study Programme
The minor Creative Cities consists of four compulsory courses (30 EC). Dutch students have the possibility to choose between a course in English or Dutch in the second block.