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The New Media International MA program at UvA has issued a call for applications for students who would like to begin study in Fall 2009. We already have an impressive pool of applicants and encourage additional applications in order to recruit the best incoming class. Please feel free to share with colleagues and friends who may be interested and who would make a valuable contribution to the program.

Direct link to the .pdf of the call for applications: http://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/fall09cfa/

Overview The International M.A. in New Media & Digital Culture (NMMA) at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) is accepting applications for the 2009-2010 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, and committed to their students. The program admits up to forty students per year, classes are no larger than 20 and typically smaller, and the faculty-to-student ratio is 1:8.

Curriculum The curriculum has two complementary tracks that all students follow: the theoretical track (New Media Theories and Digital Aesthetics) and the practical-empirical track (Academic Blogging, Digital Research Methods and Information Visualization). The final thesis, a contribution to digital media studies, rounds out the program.

1st Semester: students follow a practical course in academic blogging, led by Internet theorist and tactical media practitioner Geert Lovink. Their entries generate the internationally noted Masters of Media site, which currently has the high authority ranking of 43 on Technorati (http://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/). The concurrent new media theories course focuses on classic texts by innovators from Alan Turing to Tim Berners-Lee. The final first semester class, Digital Research Methods, trains students in new techniques for studying the Internet (http://www.digitalmethods.net/).

2nd Semester: the student chooses between courses on digital aesthetics or information visualization, the former more theoretically inclined in the traditions of art history and visual culture, and the latter a joint practical-empirical collaboration between designers, programmers and analysts, where the product is an online tool or digital visualization. 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 Bauke Freiburg, Founder of Fab Channel 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, Mediamatic, Virtueel Platform, Netherlands Institute for Media Art, and other cultural institutions. Students attend and blog, twitter or otherwise capture local events, 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, and across Europe and from academic and professional backgrounds including journalism, art and design, engineering, marketing, the humanities and social sciences.

Faculty Richard Rogers, Professor and Chair. Web Epistemology. Publications include Information Politics on the Web (MIT, 2004/2005), awarded American Society for Information Science and Technology’s 2005 Best Information Science Book of the Year Award. Founding director of govcom.org. http://www.govcom.org/publications.html

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

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

Application and Deadline 1 April for Fall 2009. 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/application_and_accreditation 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/

• Tuition and Fees: http://www.studeren.uva.nl/finance

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

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

-- Edward Shanken Universitair Docent, New Media Department of Media Studies University of Amsterdam Turfdraagsterpad 9 1012XT Amsterdam NL email: e.a.shanken@uva.nl http://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/

personal webpage: http://artexetra.com

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