[Air-L] Univ. of Amsterdam, M.A. in New Media & Digital Culture: Call for Applications

[Richard Rogers]

International M.A. in New Media & Digital Culture – University of Amsterdam
Call for Applications – Fall 2010 admission deadline: 1 April 2010


Overview

The International M.A. in New Media & Digital Culture (NMMA) at the
University of Amsterdam (UvA) is accepting applications for 2010-2011
academic year. The NMMA is a one-year residence program undertaken in
English at UvA in the heart of Amsterdam.  Students become actively engaged
in critical Internet culture, with an emphasis on new media theory and
aesthetics, including theoretical materialist traditions and practical
information visualization trends. Our permanent faculty are recognized
experts in their fields, who are committed to their students. The program
admits approximately forty to fifty students per year, classes are no larger than 20, 
and the faculty-to-student ratio is 1:10.

Curriculum

1st Semester: students follow a course in academic blogging, led by critical
Internet theorist and tactical media practitioner Geert Lovink. Their
entries form the internationally noted Masters of Media site,
http://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/, regarded as a top blog for new media
research and nominated for a Dutch award for best educational blog. The
concurrent new media theories course focuses on classic texts by innovators
from Alvin Turing to Tim Berners-Lee. The final first semester class,
Digital Methods, given by the program Chair, Richard Rogers, trains students
in novel techniques for Internet research, http://www.digitalmethods.net/.

2nd Semester: the student chooses between courses on digital aesthetics, new
media politics or information visualization. The digital aesthetics course
is theoretically inclined in the traditions of art history and visual
culture, and the new media politics class is concerned with the
transformations the Internet is bringing to politics. Information
visualization is a joint theoretical-practical collaboration between
designers, programmers and analysts, where the product is an online tool,
digital visualization or interactive graphic. The course of study concludes
with the M.A. thesis, an original analysis that makes a contribution to the
field, undertaken with the close mentorship of a faculty supervisor. The
graduation ceremony includes an international symposium with renowned
speakers.

Graduates of the NMMA have gained an analytical and practical skill-set that
enables diverse careers in research and practice-related areas that make use
of the Internet, including business, government, NGOs, and creative
industries that are evolving with emerging new media. Our graduates include
Lotte Meijer, winner of a Webby award, and Eva Kol, whose MA thesis, Hyves,
was published by Kosmos in 2008 and sold over 5000 copies its first year in
print.

Student Life

The quality-of-living in Amsterdam ranks among the highest of international
capitals. UvA’s competitive tuition (see below) and the ubiquity of spoken
English both on and off-campus make the program especially accommodating for
foreign students. The city’s many venues, festivals, and other events
provide remarkably rich cultural offerings and displays of technological
innovation. The program has ties to organizations including PICNIC, the Waag
Society, Institute for Network Cultures, Virtueel Platform, Netherlands
Institute for Media Art, govcom.org, and other cultural institutions, where
internship opportunities and collaborations may be available, in consultation with the
student’s thesis supervisor. Students attend and blog, twitter or otherwise
capture local new media events and festivals, while commenting as well on
larger international issues and trends pertaining to new media. The quality
of student life is equally to be found in the university’s lively and varied
intellectual climate. NMMA students come from North and South America,
Africa, Asia and across Europe and from academic and professional
backgrounds including journalism, art and design, engineering, the
humanities and social sciences. The International M.A. in New Media is a
digital humanities program of study.

Faculty

Richard Rogers, Professor and Chair. Web epistemology, Digital methods.
Publications include Information Politics on the Web (MIT Press, 2004/2005),
awarded American Society for Information Science and Technology’s 2005 Best
Information Science Book of the Year Award, and the End of the Virtual (U
Amsterdam P, 2009). Founding director of govcom.org. http://www.govcom.org/.

Geert Lovink, Associate Professor. Critical Internet theory, Tactical Media.
Publications include Zero Comments: Blogging and Critical Internet Culture
(Routledge, 2007). Co-founder nettime listserve (1995 – present); founder,
Institute of Network Cultures, 2004. http://www.networkcultures.org/.

Jan Simons, Associate Professor. Mobile Culture, Gaming, Film Theory.
Publications include Playing The Waves: Lars von Trier's Game Cinema (U
Amsterdam P, 2007). Project Director, Mobile Learning Game Kit, Senior
Member, Digital Games research group.
http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/j.a.a.simons/

Yuri Engelhardt, Assistant Professor. Computer modeling and information
visualization. Publications include The Language of Graphics (2002); founder
and moderator of InfoDesign (1995-9); co-developer of Future Planet Studies
at UvA. http://www.yuriweb.com/

Edward Shanken, Assistant Professor. Digital aesthetics, visual culture.
Publications include Art and Electronic Media (Phaidon, 2009) and Telematic
Embrace: Visionary Theories of Art, Technology and Consciousness (U Cal P,
2003). http://artexetra.com

Thomas Poell, Assistant Professor. Previously, he has published on the 
historical struggles over the democratization and centralization of the Dutch state. 
Currently, his research focuses on the role of specific new media, such as blogs,
Internet forums, and social network sites, in contemporary political conflicts.
http://nl.linkedin.com/in/thomaspoell

Application and Deadline

General deadline: 1 April for Fall 2010 admission.
Applicants will be notified around 15 June. Applications received after 1
April may be considered if places are available. See
http://www.studeren.uva.nl/ma-nieuwe-media/ for details.

More Info & Questions

· International M.A. in New Media & Digital Culture - University of
Amsterdam, http://www.studeren.uva.nl/ma_new_media/
· Graduate School for Humanities, General Information,
http://www.hum.uva.nl/gs/actueel.cfm

· Further general questions?  Please write to UvA’s Graduate School of the
Humanities, graduateschool-fgw “at” uva.nl.

· Specific questions about curriculum and student life? Please write to
Richard Rogers, Chair in New Media & Digital Culture, University of
Amsterdam, rogers “at” uva.nl.