Curriculum
As the hub for cultural policy studies and research at the University of Chicago, the Cultural Policy Center educates emerging policymakers, cultural practitioners, and scholars. Our interdisciplinary curriculum draws on public policy studies, the humanities, and the social sciences.
In addition to our course offerings, our weekly workshops provide a forum for graduate students to meet visiting scholars and practitioners and to present their own research, and our conferences and guest speakers provide a real-world view of the sector.
Concentrations in cultural policy studies
The Cultural Policy Center does not grant degrees or accept applications for admission. Rather, our courses provide the option of a cultural policy concentration within the University of Chicago’s Master of Arts Program in the Humanities ("MAPH"). Students in other master's programs such as the Master of Public Policy program at the Harris School of Public Policy Studies and the Master of Arts Program in the Social Sciences also can build courses of study in cultural policy within the guidelines of their specific programs, and through consultations with their advisors and with faculty affiliated with the Cultural Policy Center.
A concentration in cultural policy studies is of particular interest to:
- Those seeking careers in public service agencies within the cultural sector, such as foundations or government agencies that support the arts
- Current and emerging leaders of cultural organizations seeking greater understanding of policy issues that confront the sector
- Students seeking to pursue doctoral work with a focus on the policy dimensions of cultural studies, cultural theory, or cultural history
Through a cultural policy concentration, students are introduced to the conceptual frameworks required for cultural policy research, as well as with data sources and other tools commonly used by researchers. They gain an understanding of the features of the cultural sector and the issues it faces, including the structure and dynamics of cultural organizations, funding processes, legal issues such as intellectual property rights and censorship, and changing audiences, among other issues.
Example thesis titles:
- New Technologies: New Ways of Seeing; Smartphone Apps, Art Museums, and Spectatorship
- Curating for Ghosts: The Effects of Foundation and Corporate Philanthropy on the Arts
- The Right to Virtual Heritage
- Clueless in Chicago: Grassroots Art Worlds and Cultural Policy
- Third Place Creation Through Historic Preservation: Antiquated Buildings, Antiquated Policies, and New Alternatives
Courses
The following courses are not guaranteed to be offered every year. However, they are representative of the ideas and issues with which the Cultural Policy Center engages. Please check back for updates on future offerings.
The MAPH option requires an introductory course, a research project-based course, and at least two cultural policy-related electives, as well as the Foundations of Interpretive Theory course (the "Core" course) required of all MAPH students and a final thesis on a topic broadly related to cultural policy studies.
Introductions:
Introduction to U.S. Cultural Policy
D. Carroll Joynes, Fall 2011
download syllabus (.doc file)
Provides an overview of U.S. cultural policy, tracing the origins of the arts infrastructure from the late 19th century to the present, with a focus on the shaping of cultural organizations, taste, patronage systems and audiences. We will investigate a number of contemporary issues, including the much debated role of arts education; the viability of the arts as an engine of economic and community development; the consequences of the recent building boom -- museums, performing arts centers, theaters; and the role (both in fact and potential) of cultural diplomacy and international efforts to preserve cultural heritage. Among others, we will consider three basic policy questions: Who decides? Who pays? Who benefits?; and we will examine what a robust cultural policy for the U.S. might look like in the future.
Cultural Policy: Analysis and Critique — ENGL 42408
Larry Rothfield
This course focuses on the ways in which governments, whether directly or indirectly, seek to influence the arts, humanities, heritage, entertainment, and cultural activities of its citizenry. What assumptions — about what counts as culture, about what culture is useful for (or dangerous to), and about the proper relationship between culture, the market, and the state — guide policymaking in the cultural sector? What are the objectives of cultural policies? What sorts of tools have policymakers relied on in designing cultural policies? And what kinds of critique are these policies vulnerable to? We will look at studies of cultural industries and the policies addressing them (Adorno and Horkheimer, Caves, McGuigan, etc.); at discussions of the role of culture in forming capabilities and citizens (Sunstein, Sen, Meredyth and Minson); and at urban development policies organized around the concept of creativity (Florida et. al.).
Art Worlds and Cultural Policy — PPHA 36610
Betty Farrell
This course will explore the development of art worlds and culture industries in the U.S. and the particular set of institutional constraints that shape them. Our focus will be on the cultural sector of the visual and performing arts from the perspectives of artists/producers, patrons/sponsors, experts/critics, arts administrators, and audiences, as well as on the development of cultural policy at the local, national, and international levels. Topics to be explored include: the social forces that shape contemporary tastes for and expectations about art; art controversies and their policy consequences; the challenges of sustaining cultural institutions in an era of change and of developing new and expanded audiences for the arts; and culture as a tool for economic revitalization.
Research project-based course in cultural policy:
Hot Button Topics in Cultural Policy — PPHA 39703
Betty Farrell, Winter 2011
This course offers students interested in investigating some of the most pressing issues facing the arts today the opportunity to work closely with practitioners in the cultural field to help define the big questions and propose the necessary research programs and policy directions to provoke, unsettle, challenge, and offer new direction to the field. Arts organizations, funding agencies, patrons and audiences tend to be especially risk-averse in difficult economic eras, a time when the arts get readily labeled a luxury and support drops to low priority. But it is precisely in such unsettled times that new forms of cultural production and consumption can emerge, new organizational models for the arts can be imagined and tried, and the status quo in the cultural sector can be challenged, creating a new opportunity for critical cultural policy analysis to make an impact. The course will combine the format of a seminar and a workshop, with students working in collaboration with Cultural Policy Center-affiliated arts consultants on specific “hot button” topics of importance to the field. The goal will be to produce a series of white papers—rooted in research, but framing some new questions and approaches for the arts and culture field. Course work will include substantive background reading in cultural policy, researching, writing, and public presentations of the topics.
Please note that the topics for research in PPHA 39703 will vary yearly, although the general structure of the course as a seminar and workshop will remain the same.
Electives:
Problems in International Cultural Policy
Lawrence Rothfield, Spring 2012
We live in an era of unprecedented global flows of cultural goods both tangible and intangible (artworks, antiquities, dancers and musicians, intellectuals, texts, films, images and ideas), and of unprecedented threats to culture from both market and ideological forces. How are these challenges being addressed by the cultural policies being pursued by states, international organizations, and non-governmental groups? We will focus on three main arenas of international cultural policy: cultural patrimony and restitution issues ranging from the Elgin marbles and Franz Kafka's unpublished papers to international efforts to protect archaeological sites and museums in failed states; initiatives focused on cultural diplomacy/exchange/engagement; and globalization/protectionism of cultural industries and institutions ranging from film and music to museums and universities.
Cultural Economics — PPHA 39600
Don Coursey
This course is designed to move beyond the values debate of the "culture wars" in order to focus on how culture — here defined as the arts and humanities — can be evaluated analytically as a sector, an object of policy research. In what sense can it be said that there is a "national interest" or "public interest" in culture? What is the rationale for government intervention in or provision for the arts and humanities? Is it possible to define the workings of culture in a way that would permit one to recommend one form of support rather than another, one mode of collaboration or regulation over another? Is it possible to measure the benefits (or costs) — economic, social, political — of culture? We will begin by reading some classic definitions of culture and more recent general policy statements, then address a series of problematic issues that require a combination of theoretical reflection and empirical research.
Whose Culture is This, Anyway? — ENGL 42407
Larry Rothfield
The past few decades have seen an explosion of debates over the question of who should own cultural goods. The particular goods in question — the Elgin marbles, artworks looted by the Nazis, the skeletal remains of Kennewick Man, shared files — are as various as the stakeholders (individual victims, nation-states, museums, musicians, etc.). This course explores the philosophical bases for claims to own artifacts, sounds, words, and ideas, and some of the policy conundrums posed by these claims (restitution, cultural rights, assertions of national control over cultural patrimony, copyright).
Art Law — LAWS 79301/ARTH 49500
Anthony Hirschel and William Landes
Non-Law students by instructor permission only.
This seminar examines legal issues in the visual arts including artist's rights and copyright, government regulation of the art market, valuation problems related to authentication and artist estates, disputes over the ownership of art, illicit international trade of art, government funding of museums and artists, and First Amendment issues as they relate to museums and artists. The basis of the grade will be class participation and three short papers. Writing for this seminar may be used as partial fulfillment of the JD writing requirement (SWP for JD '10; WP for JD '11 and JD '12).
Anthropology of Museums II — ANTH 34502/ANTH 24511/MAPS 34600/SOSC 34600/CHDV 38102
Fred Morris
PQ: Advanced standing and consent of instructor. This sequence examines museums from a variety of perspectives. We consider the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, the image and imagination of African American culture as presented in local museums, and museums as memorials as exemplified by Holocaust exhibitions. Several visits to area museums required.
Philanthropy and Public Policy — PPHA 45100
Donald Stewart
The course focuses on the private, philanthropic component of the nonprofit sector as defined and regulated by government. While there have been growing infusions into the revenue streams of nonprofit organizations from dues, fees, and charges, as well as government grants and contracts, private financial support from individuals, foundations, and corporations is of great importance to those organizations and institutions that occupy “civic space” between government and business in our open society. Yet many of these donors and donor organizations are suffering from reduced donor capacity due to the 2008 Wall Street decline with serious consequences for their grantees and prospective grantees. According to GIVING USA, total contributions declined by 5.7 percent in 2008 and as suggested by Paul Light, a professor at New York University’s Wagner School of Public Service, this drop in charitable contributions could shutter as many as 100,000 nonprofits in 2009. While giving from these sources in 2008 amounted to approximately $307.7 billion, this was down from $314.1 billion in 2007. There are approximately 65,000 foundations in the United States today with estimated total budgets of $875 billion and combined assets of an estimated $2 trillion, but many have seen their asset bases erode by as much as 35 percent. Two years ago, it was predicted by Boston College’s Center for Corporate Philanthropy that $45 trillion in individual and family assets would change hands over the next two generations, with at least $6 trillion going to charity, a claim no longer made by anyone in the field of philanthropy. This course provides a public policy framework within which to analyze and understand the changing nature of private philanthropy and its importance to society at large. Philanthropy's evolving structure, programs, and patterns of giving, not to exclude the value of evaluation and performance measurement, bear close examination in light of new donor and government demands for effectiveness (impact), accountability, and legitimacy. Old and new forms of private philanthropy (such as the recent Warren Buffett/Bill and Melinda Gates "merger") will be discussed and documented with an emphasis on strategic planning, management outcomes, and leadership. Several classes will be led by distinguished outside speakers from the worlds of law, business, philanthropy, and public service followed by short written assignments based on these presentations and the required readings. Values, questions of mission, and thoughts about the nature of the public good versus private interest will be embedded in many class discussions. Special attention will be given to private philanthropy’s role in public school reform in Chicago, reflecting the current research and writing interests of the instructor. The course will meet twice weekly in seminar format with full class participation and completed required reading the expected class norm. There will be a take home final exam.