<nettime-ann> International M.A. in New Media ­ (University of Amsterdam)

[Geert Lovink <geert@xs4all.nl>]

.
International M.A. in New Media ­
University of Amsterdam
http://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/

Call for Applications ­
Fall 2012 admission deadlines: 1 February and 1 April 2011
http://www.studeren.uva.nl/ma_new_media/

Overview

The International M.A. in New Media & Digital Culture (NMMA) at the  
University of Amsterdam (UvA) is accepting applications for 2012-2013  
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 research technique, including practical data visualization  
trends. The overall focus of the MA is on training the students as new  
media researchers. Our permanent faculty are recognized experts in  
their fields, who are committed to their students. The program admits  
approximately 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 touches  
upon cybernetics, power, distributed agencies, software, gaming, free  
and open projects, participatory culture and peer production, digital  
labour, surveillance and privacy, noopolitics, affective computing,  
ubiquitious and locative media and creative industries critique. 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 new media art,  
digitizing culture, mapping politics, data visualization or electronic  
writing. The new media course is theoretically inclined in the  
traditions of art history and visual culture, and the mapping politics  
class is concerned with how to study politics from a Latourian point  
of view. Digitizing culture is a course in digital humanities, where  
the focus is on what to do with cultural product now that it has been  
digitized. Data visualization is a joint theoretical-practical  
collaboration between designers, programmers and analysts, where the  
output 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 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 student¹s 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 university¹s 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 in the Department of  
Media Studies, Faculty of Humanities.

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 and the Digital Methods Initiative. http://www.govcom.org/  
and http://www.digitalmethods.net/.

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/ 
 (on leave in 2012-2013).

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/ 
 (on leave in 2012-2013).

Yuri Engelhardt, Assistant Professor. Computer modeling and  
information visualization. Publications include The Language of  
Graphics (2002); founder and moderator of InfoDesign (1995-99); co- 
developer of Future Planet Studies at UvA.http://www.yuriweb.com/.

Almila Akdag, Fellow. She studied at the Art History Department of the  
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), focusing on  
technoscience art. She was recently awarded an NWO Veni grant. She is  
collaborating with Lev Manovich (University of California, San Diego)  
and with Big Grid & Sara Supercomputing Netherlands.

Michael Dieter, Lecturer. Media art and materialist philosophy. His  
writing concerns critical uses of digital and networked technologies,  
and covers topics such as locative media, information visualization,  
gaming and software modification.http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/m.j.dieter/ 
.

Thomas Poell, Assistant Professor. New media politics. In 2007 he  
defended his PhD dissertation on the democratization and  
centralization of the Dutch state during the revolutionary period  
around 1800. Currently he is doing research on social media and  
activism. http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/t.poell/

Bernhard Rieder, Assistant Professor.  Software theory and politics.  
Current research interests include search engine politics and the  
mechanization of knowledge production. http://thepoliticsofsystems.net/.

Sebastian Scholz, Lecturer. Visual culture. His current research  
interests focus on relations of visibility, knowledge and media, the  
'newness' of new media and the history and theory of (popular)  
television programs. http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/s.scholz/


Application and Deadline

General deadlines: 1 February (early admissions) and 1 April for Fall  
2012 admission. Applications received after 1 April may be considered  
if places are available.

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/gsh-news/news.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, Director, New Media MA program, University of  
Amsterdam, http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/r.a.rogers/


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