Best Masters of Arts (M.A) in Netherlands 2019

The Master of Arts in Development Studies offers a solid academic and professionally relevant training in theory and methods for development studies. It is designed for those wishing to start or continue their professional careers in the area of development. In the MA program, you learn about the most recent theories and debates. You will also learn to apply this knowledge to practical issues of development and social change.

MA students are encouraged to develop a critical understanding of major debates, theories, and strategic interventions and of the skills to analyze the issues and to design and assess interventions aimed at tackling these issues. An essential part of this process is to develop skills in research methodology, which will be applied in a research paper prepared as a requirement for the Master's degree.... [-]

Artists, designers and performers doing strange things with technology. That is what the MADtech study programme is about. You will be expected to employ and artistically explore hybrid technologies to imagine, interpret and change human interaction with a transforming world. You will apply a trial-and-error and tinker mentality, with play and experimentation forming key aspects in your development and receiving special emphasis in the research you do. This mentality, combined with a critical reflective attitude and conceptual skills, will lead to unexpected perspectives and result in artistic multimedia, performative or design work.... [-]

You are keen to gain more insight into the innovative potential of painting in a rapidly changing world. You are aware of the forces of physicality and materiality in artwork, and you take a painterly approach to conducting your experimental research into the functioning of perception psychology, cognition and imagination. A painting both reveals how ideas are imagined and shows how a material is edited and used. Taking a painterly and critical approach means harnessing materiality to create new links and associations. By combining ideation and materiality, transforming your ideas into unexpected, meaningful and powerful images, you determine the meaning and significance of your work in contemporary society.... [-]

Developed by a core team of educators and successful professionals, the Master of Music aims to provide socially relevant contributions to the remodelling and development of today’s musical world. Opt for one of the following study routes: Classical Music, New York Jazz, New Audiences and Innovative Practice, Instrumental Learning & Teaching or Wind Band Conducting.

The MA History program Global History and International Studies focus on how the circulation of people, goods and ideas across the globe developed over time and shaped the world as we know it today. Courses deal with a range of subjects, from the “Great Divergence” between industrial development in China and Europe to unfree labor in a global perspective, the circulation of racial theories and global migrations. In specialized courses, you learn from our experts about the most recent trends. The choice of subject for your master’s thesis is free.

More than just the past

The program combines approaches from history and the social sciences, especially anthropology, economics and international relations. Courses deal with a range of subjects, from the “Great Divergence” between industrial development in China and Europe to unfree labor in a global perspective, the circulation of racial theories and global migrations. In addition to archival sources, students will acquire a basic notion of field research and the use of online sources such as diasporic social media and learn to work with digital databases in the field of economic and social history. Students can also improve their knowledge, network, and skills by participating in activities of research institutes such as the center for Environmental Humanities and CLUE+. The link between history and contemporary political debates on migration, nationalism, and ethnicity is discussed throughout the program.... [-]

The interdisciplinary MA program History: Medical and Health Humanities combines the history of health and medicine with a wide array of arts and humanities approaches. Classes explore the different ways that bodies and minds have been investigated and understood, and how these various ways of knowing shape everyday life, medical practice, and public health policy. Participants learn to contextualize medical ideas in the time and culture, and to analyze a diverse range of sources, including historical artifacts, comics and films, medical texts and health journalism. Drawing on methods from across the disciplines, students will broaden their tools of investigation beyond the written word to also consider the sounds, smells, and the look and feel of the past and its lessons and legacies in the present day.... [-]

The MA History program Religion and Society focusses on understanding the changing role of religion(s) in society from Antiquity up until the present. Courses deal with questions such as: what is the relationship between religion, politics, and society since Antiquity? How can we understand the gradual separation of Church and State and new forms of worship, dissent and devotion since the western Middle Ages? And what has been the impact of broader processes such as secularisation, globalization, and colonialism?

A long-standing tradition of expertise

The History department of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam has a strong tradition in teaching and analyzing the role of religion throughout history. Religion is studied in its societal and political contexts and from a long-term perspective, which makes our program unique. Students are trained in the latest interdisciplinary approaches to study religion, including history, cultural anthropology, archaeology, philology, and digital humanities. They can improve their knowledge, network, and skills by participating in activities of research institutes such as the Amsterdam Centre for Religious History and CLUE+. The program has great societal relevance as topics such as clashes between religion and secularism, the entangled relations between politics and religion and the future of religious heritage are discussed.... [-]

Contemporary Art History is a specialization focusing on visual, process-based, and digital art since the 1960s. Far from being restricted to the classical art forms of painting, sculpture, and graphics, today’s art includes installation art and site-specific projects, digital or new media art (interactive installations, locative media works, software art, networked art, electronic art and video art), performative and activist projects and artistic research.

What unites these art forms is that they directly address the complexity of today’s society, within which information technologies and globalization play an ever-increasing role, leading to networked forms of artistic practice that transgress national and cultural borders. At the same time, artists are very aware of the heritage they build upon, deconstructing, commenting on, or appropriating art history, leading to various attempts to describe contemporary art with terms such as post-modern, post-conceptual, post-medium, and more recently even post-internet and post-digital – and post-contemporary...... [-]

Master in Design Cultures

The MA program Design Cultures is all about the study of product design, graphic design and fashion in a broad diverse cultural context. The focus is on both the designer as ‘author’ and the complex chain of production, sale, consumption, and criticism in which design operates and derives its many different meanings. Design Cultures restores design as the core object of academic interest without detracting from the cultural and material context in which it operates. The program combines a generalist, comparative approach to design with a clear focus on history and theory.

Career Prospects

The Design Cultures course is taught in English. It is an internationally oriented course which has close ties with real-life practice. Besides studying the theoretical and historical background of design, students get a chance to do their graduation project in association with key players in the design world. Students of Design Cultures can look forward to careers in cultural institutions (editor, project manager), museums (researcher, curator), media, (author, critic, producer), government (administrator, advisor), design agencies (researcher, consultant) and educational and research institutes (teacher, researcher).... [-]

Our flexible study programs are based on the American model of higher education, allowing students to choose their courses based on course requirements, previous studies, current interests and future ambitions.

Dedicated since 2002 to cross-cultural education with a global perspective, United International Business Schools (UIBS) is an independent private education institution with campuses in Europe and Asia. UIBS offers flexible business and management studies at the Undergraduate (Bachelor/BBA) and (Post)Graduate (Master/MBA and Doctor/DBA) level leading to private (programmatically-accredited) degrees, and to American regionally-accredited and European state-recognized degrees in cooperation with our academic partners.... [-]

Our flexible study programs are based on the American model of higher education, allowing students to choose their courses based on course requirements, previous studies, current interests and future ambitions.

Dedicated since 2002 to cross-cultural education with a global perspective, United International Business Schools (UIBS) is an independent private education institution with campuses in Europe and Asia. UIBS offers flexible business and management studies at the Undergraduate (Bachelor/BBA) and (Post)Graduate (Master/MBA and Doctor/DBA) level leading to private (programmatically-accredited) degrees, and to American regionally-accredited and European state-recognized degrees in cooperation with our academic partners.... [-]

Our flexible study programs are based on the American model of higher education, allowing students to choose their courses based on course requirements, previous studies, current interests and future ambitions.

Dedicated since 2002 to cross-cultural education with a global perspective, United International Business Schools (UIBS) is an independent private education institution with campuses in Europe and Asia. UIBS offers flexible business and management studies at the Undergraduate (Bachelor/BBA) and (Post)Graduate (Master/MBA and Doctor/DBA) level leading to private (programmatically-accredited) degrees, and to American regionally-accredited and European state-recognized degrees in cooperation with our academic partners.... [-]

Our flexible study programs are based on the American model of higher education, allowing students to choose their courses based on course requirements, previous studies, current interests and future ambitions.

Dedicated since 2002 to cross-cultural education with a global perspective, United International Business Schools (UIBS) is an independent private education institution with campuses in Europe and Asia. UIBS offers flexible business and management studies at the Undergraduate (Bachelor/BBA) and (Post)Graduate (Master/MBA and Doctor/DBA) level leading to private (programmatically-accredited) degrees, and to American regionally-accredited and European state-recognized degrees in cooperation with our academic partners.... [-]

Our flexible study programs are based on the American model of higher education, allowing students to choose their courses based on course requirements, previous studies, current interests and future ambitions.

Dedicated since 2002 to cross-cultural education with a global perspective, United International Business Schools (UIBS) is an independent private education institution with campuses in Europe and Asia. UIBS offers flexible business and management studies at the Undergraduate (Bachelor/BBA) and (Post)Graduate (Master/MBA and Doctor/DBA) level leading to private (programmatically-accredited) degrees, and to American regionally-accredited and European state-recognized degrees in cooperation with our academic partners.... [-]

The one-year master’s programme in Philosophy at Leiden University integrates historical and systematic approaches in philosophy to offer you an advanced training in different philosophical methodologies as well as reason, logic and critical thinking.

Five specialisations; an expansive curriculum

The master in Philosophy offers you the choice of five specialisations, each provides a broad overview of the most important philosophical branches, including their historical development and recent topical debates. Contrasting philosophical methodologies are explored, including continental and analytical philosophy. Electives within each specialisation investigate everything from logic, mind and cognition, to ethics, politics and cultural philosophy.... [-]