Master of Arts in Human Geography: Globalization, Media and Culture

Are you looking for a program open to students from different social and cultural science disciplines? Are you passionate about exploring the world through the lenses of Human, Cultural, and Media Geography? If the answer is “yes”, you should

• apply for a place to study Human Geography in a forward-looking program combining the topics of globalization, media, and culture in an interdisciplinary approach,
• delve into exciting phenomena of an entangled globalized world in an international academic context from both a theoretical and a practical perspective,
• develop skills that enable you to take a critical view of important issues of our time and contribute to the understanding of cultural and social issues in a globalized world,
• profit from a broad range of applied learning methods, including the production of short films, podcasts, and blogs,
• design your own research approaches and implement them in our international research workshop,
• learn from the best as international visiting scholars and experts regularly complement our team of academics and lecture on their current research in our weekly lecture series, and
• improve your career opportunities by studying a semester abroad or doing an internship in a professional field of your choice.

Why choose this course?

You will gain an interdisciplinary perspective on geographical relations between culture and society in globalization processes. The focus is on the connections between culture, society, space, and media highlighting the resulting political and social challenges.

In the first semester, you will learn the theoretical foundations of the connection between geography and globalization, media, and culture. From the second semester on, you can choose from elective modules of complementary disciplines.

A unique element in our program is your active use of relevant media techniques. It helps you to complement your interdisciplinary academic qualification with versatile academic skills. We apply a broad range of learning methods, including the production of short films, podcasts, and blogs. In a research workshop, you will obtain a thorough knowledge of scientific theory-based research and sound training in comprehensive empirical fieldwork.

Researchers from human and cultural geography will give you insights into exciting research areas. In our weekly lecture series, leading scholars from different geographical fields report on their current research projects. Furthermore, our team in Mainz regularly invites guest teachers from international universities as well as experts from the world of practice.

Spend a semester abroad to gain international study and research experience inside and outside of the university context. We can support you with contacts to many universities we cooperate with worldwide. If you are more interested in professional experience, acquire practical skills through an internship of your choice.

A scientifically founded, critically reflected culture- and media-geographic education lies ahead of you. Graduate as a critical thinker and you will be able to approach and envision social and cultural issues and challenges of our globalized world.

About Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz

With around 31,500 students from over 120 nations, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) is one of the largest and most diverse universities in Germany. JGU unites almost all academic disciplines under one roof with its University Medical Center, the Mainz Academy of Fine Arts, the Mainz School of Music, and the Faculty of Translation Studies, Linguistics and Cultural Studies in Germersheim. In over 150 institutes and clinics, 4,400 academics, 560 of whom are professors, teach and carry out research. With 75 fields of study and more than 260-degree courses, JGU offers an extraordinarily broad range of courses.

As the only German university of its size, nearly all of the institutions of JGU are located on one single campus near the city center, which is also home to four partner institutes involved in top-level non-university research: the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry (MPI-C), the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (MPI-P), the Helmholtz Institute Mainz (HIM) and the Institute of Molecular Biology (IMB). The campus of the University Medical Center is only about a kilometer away and both Mainz Leibniz Association institutions – the Institute of European History (IEG) and the Roman-Germanic Central Museum (RGZM) – are located slightly further away in the inner city. In addition to this, many local businesses also carry out research, making Mainz a uniquely dynamic research hub.

World-Wide Recognition as a Research-Driven University

JGU enjoys global eminence as a research-driven university. Its main core research areas are particle and hadron physics, the materials sciences and translational medicine, while its most outstanding research achievements in the humanities have been attained in fields of American studies and historical cultural studies. Successes in the Excellence Initiative of the German federal and state governments have confirmed JGU's academic status. In 2012, the research network Precision Physics, Fundamental Interactions and Structure of Matter (PRISMA) was recognized as a cluster of excellence and the financing of the Materials Science in Mainz (MAINZ) Graduate School of Excellence was extended. Moreover, excellent placings in national and international rankings, as well as numerous other honors and awards, demonstrate just how successful Mainz-based researchers and academics are.

Another attribute of JGU is its research-oriented teaching – which incorporates research-based topics in the curricula early on. A similar emphasis is placed on promoting and mentoring young research talents. JGU also considers the exchange of knowledge with society as one of its key duties. As an open university, JGU offers the populace a unique portfolio of information dissemination concepts that extend far beyond the scope of standard popular academic formats. Through its system of university governance, JGU makes sure that its members participate in the strategic planning and that outstanding academics get involved.

Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz was originally founded in 1477 and today still strives to emulate the innovational spirit of its namesake. The promotion and introduction of new ideas, the use of knowledge to improve people’s lives and encourage them to overcome the many boundaries they encounter daily – these are the underlying ambitions of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.