British Studies: Humboldt University Berlin

Course details

The Centre for British Studies offers a Master in British Studies as a postgraduate degree. The course includes a three-month internship in a company or a public institution in Britain. The Centre also involves 'practitioners' from German and British companies and financial institutions, television, law firms and the arts in its Master's programme, so that its students do not only get classes by university teachers, but are also in constant contact with people running businesses, banks, theatres, museums and other public service institutions.

The core programme consists of teaching units (lectures, seminars, theme-oriented project works, etc.) covering the following topics:

• Information management
• The history of the United Kingdom
• The UK's legal systems and their development
• The history of literature, culture, and the arts in the UK
• The history of ideas and mentalities in the UK
• The UK's economic and social history since the Industrial Revolution
• The UK's present social stratification
• The development of Britain's political system
• Cultural Studies - theories and methods

The Options Programme allows students to specialise by choosing one of the following two options:

The option "Economy, Law and Politics" comprises teaching units covering the following topics:

• Britain's economic and financial system and economic culture
• Selected subjects of Britain's legal systems
• The contemporary political system and culture of the UK

The option "Culture, Media and Cultural Management" comprises teaching units covering the following topics:

• British elite culture and popular culture
• British media in past and present
• Culture as a market and its promotion

The aims and objectives of the course are:

• to enable students to add competence in British Studies to qualifications acquired on their first degree course
• to prepare students for executive positions in firms and institutions which deal with the United Kingdom or other English-speaking nations
• to promote cross-cultural understanding, communication, and mobility
• to teach students interdisciplinary methods and approaches, enabling them to think and work contextually
• to provide students with an understanding of the characteristic features and the transformations of British identities and institutions in a European perspective.