37501 - Cultural Management Modulübersicht
| Module Number: | 37501 |
| Module Title: | Cultural Management |
| Kulturmanagement | |
| Department: | Faculty 6 - Architecture, Civil Engineering and Urban Planning |
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| Language of Teaching / Examination: | English |
| Duration: | 1 semester |
| Frequency of Offer: | Every winter semester |
| Credits: | 6 |
| Learning Outcome: | At the end of this module, students will have developed a critical and applied understanding of cultural management in an international context. They will be able to analyse the political, economic, and technological dynamics shaping cultural and international institutions and evaluate the strategies used to sustain agency in volatile environments. Students will gain the conceptual and methodological tools to examine what defines a cultural or international institution. They will learn to assess institutional missions, legal and organisational structures, financing models, programmatic priorities, as well as public engagement and networking strategies, enabling them to evaluate governance, funding, and operational mechanisms in cultural institutions. Participating in the module, students will gain a comprehensive understanding of cultural management thar integrates four key componets: (i) critical analysis; (ii) knowledge practices; (iii) managerial techniques; (iv) subject-specific expertise. |
| Contents: | This module offers a critical and integrative perspective on cultural management, focusing on the challenges cultural institutions face in increasingly unstable environments. Political pressures, uneven funding, digital transformation, and global crises reshape the conditions of cultural production, exchange, and institutional practice. Against his background, cultural management is not presented as a purely administrative function, but as a practice of enabling, sustaining, and developing spaces for cultural production, artistic collaboration, and public discourse. Structured around four core areas, the module examines how cultural managers and institutions adapt, sustain their work, and retain agency in the face of growing uncertainty: (1) Analytical Perspectives – Introduction to critical theories addressing the forces shaping cultural production and exchange today. The focus is on how disruptions like conflict, authoritarianism, or digitalisation impact institutional structures and transnational cooperation. (2) Knowledge Practices – The module explores how everyday practices such as observing, collecting, sorting, and connecting serve both as analytical tools for understanding working contexts and as the foundation for curating and organising exhibitions, festivals, residencies, and exchange programmes. (3) Managerial Techniques – The module presents strategic and operational tools for financial planning, project development, funding acquisition, and institutional communication. Emphasising that ambitious projects require mastery of the craft, it examines how managerial expertise enables institutions to maintain stability while developing innovative initiatives.. (4) Cultural and Disciplinary Expertise – The module explores how deep engagement with an artistic discipline or intellectual field – such as visual arts, film, literature, heritage protection, or postcolonial theory – provides the necessary foundation for positioning cultural institutions, shaping cultural programming, and contributing to theoretical and artistic debates. Each year, a case study of an institution or a local cultural scene serves to ground the module's themes and link critical thinking to real-world practices. |
| Recommended Prerequisites: | None |
| Mandatory Prerequisites: | None |
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| Teaching Materials and Literature: | Chris Bilton (2023): Cultural Management. A Research Overview. Routledge. Constance DeVereaux (ed., 2023): Managing the Arts and Culture. Cultivating a Practice. Routledge. Constance DeVereaux (ed., 2018): Arts and Cultural Management: Sense and Sensibilities in the State of the Field. Routledge. Patrick S. Föhl, Gernot Wolfram & Robert Peper (2016): Cultural Managers as ‘Masters of Interspaces’ in Transformation Processes – a Network Theory Perspective. In: Zeitschrift für Kulturmanagement 1/2016, pp. 17-49. Armin Klein (2017): Kompendium für Kulturmanagement. Handbuch für Studium und Praxis. Vahlen. |
| Module Examination: | Continuous Assessment (MCA) |
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| Evaluation of Module Examination: | Performance Verification – graded |
| Limited Number of Participants: | None |
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| Remarks: | In the event that the module cannot be taught or tested according to the present description (e.g. for reasons of infection protection), the alternatives communicated on relevant platforms (e.g. homepage of Moodle) apply. |
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