PhD Courses in Denmark

Dates and time: 11-13 November 2026 from 9:00 to 16:45

The purpose of this course is to facilitate the development of doctoral candidates' research ideas by focusing specifically on possible analytical strategies in terms of the cultural objects under study. How to best delimit analytically a relevant cultural object? How to assemble an illuminating archive of cultural objects? How to frame the relation between a given cultural object and its contexts? Which methods and theories of cultural analysis to consider? Which theoretical concepts could be productively employed in a given analysis of cultural objects? Why one interpretive move rather than the other? Moreover, what counts as a cultural object, anyway? These are some of the questions asked and responded to during this course in cultural analysis organized by the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies.

The course offers PhD fellows a platform to discuss central questions relating to their own doctoral research, under the guidance of senior researchers in the field of cultural analysis. While the course is dedicated to the interdisciplinary analysis of culture at large, special emphasis will be placed upon the analysis of cultural objects traditionally belonging to the aesthetic disciplines and cultural studies, such as works of art, exhibitions, cinema, literature, performance, museums, music, television, new media, and so on.

The course runs for three consecutive day, each day taking as its starting point the collective discussion among participants of one major, highly innovative, and contemporary account of cultural analysis by a distinguished and internationally renowned cultural studies scholar. Three senior scholars from the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies faculty will engage students in conversations about central concepts, objects, contexts, and analytical frameworks of the selected curriculum.

In the latter part of each day, participants will be working collaboratively on strategies for analyzing the specific cultural objects playing a part in their research projects, refining research design and the theoretical and conceptual language with which participants move towards the analysis of cultural objects, whether historical or contemporary.

Language: English

Academic Aim
 - To reflect upon and critically discuss contemporary accounts of cultural analysis by internationally renowned arts and cultural studies scholars.
 - To share, reflect on, and get/give feedback on one’s own and the other participants’ cultural-analytical approach/methodology.

Target group
PhD candidates from the Humanities, particularly from the aesthetic disciplines and cultural studies.

Course lecturers
Isak Winkel Holm, professor, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen
Solveig Gade, associate professor, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen

Course organiser
Mikkel Bolt, professor, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies, University of Copenhagen

PROGRAMME
Participating faculty will be associate professor Solveig Gade, professor Isak Winkel Holm, and professor Mikkel Bolt. Theoretical frameworks for cultural analysis to be explored in-depth will be those developed by, respectively, Bojana Kunst in The Art of Life: Transversal Lines of Care, Franco Moretti in The Bourgeois: Between History and Literature, and Jasper Bernes in The Work of Art in the Age of Deindustrialization.

Wednesday November 11
8.45-9.00: Registration
9.00-10.00: Welcome & introduction: Isak Winkel Holm, Solveig Gade, Mikkel Bolt
10.15-11.30: Reading session I: Franco Moretti (Isak Winkel Holm)
11.30-11.45: Coffee break
11.45-13.00: Reading session II: Franco Moretti (Isak Winkel Holm)

13.00-14.00: Lunch

14.00-15.15: PhD session I: approx. 3 participants
15.15-15.30: coffee break
15.30-16.45: PhD session II: approx. 3 participants

Thursday November 12
8.45-9.00: Coffee
9.00-10.15: Reading session I: Bojana Kunst (Solveig Gade)
10.15-10.30: Coffee break
10.30-11.45: Reading session II: Bojana Kunst (Solveig Gade)

11.45-13.00: Lunch

13.00-14.15: PhD session I: approx. 3 participants
14.15-14.30: Coffee break
14.30-15.45: PhD session II: approx. 3 participants

Friday November 13
8.45-9.00: Coffee
9.00-10.15: Reading session I: Jasper Bernes (Mikkel Bolt)
10.15-10.30: Coffee break
10.30-11.45: Reading session II: Jasper Bernes (Mikkel Bolt)

11.45-13.00: Lunch

13.00-14.15: PhD session I: approx. 3 participants
14.15-14.30: Coffee break
14.30-15.45: PhD session II: approx. 3 participants
16.00-16.30: Closing Remarks

Preparations
Apart from the reading of contemporary cultural analysts, the preparatory work for this course consists in preparing discussion point (oral) and a written assignment. By discussion point, we mean a 2-3 minutes “intervention” to each of the three texts on the reading list. By written assignment, we mean a short text of no more than 1 page in total (2400 keystrokes) in which the PhD fellows sketch out two-three ‘problems of cultural analysis’ that they are facing in their own research, bringing these problems to the group discussions of participant projects. This assignment will be handed in and distributed to the group of participants prior to the course.

Max. numbers of participants: 20

ECTS: 2.8 ECTS

Course fee
The PhD School at the Faculty of Humanities participates in Denmark’s national network for PhD courses. This course is free of charge for PhD students enrolled at one of the participating PhD schools (PhD students enrolled at a Danish University, except Copenhagen Business School). Other PhD students will be charged a course fee of DKK 1,200 per ECTS for participation in the course (PhD students enrolled at Copenhagen Business School or a University outside Denmark).

Registration: Please register via the link in the box no later than 1 October 2026.

Further information: For more information about the PhD course, please contact the PhD Administration (phd@hrsc.ku.dk).

Literature: 
Excerpts from three recent examplary bodies of work in cultural analysis:
Bojana Kunst: The Art of Life: Transversal Lines of Care
Franco Moretti: The Bourgeois: Between History and Literature
Jasper Bernes: The Work of Art in the Age of Deindustrialization