As a student of the Media Studies programme in Leiden you will study present-day media forms and how these are related to one another, while at the same time investigating the roots of this relatively new field. One of these roots is Film Studies that has since the sixties borrowed from Literature Studies such methodologies as ‘author theory’ and ‘textual analysis’.

The specialisation in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory, with its clear intermedial profile, constitutes the core of Media Studies.

Like Book and Digital Media Studies, Comparative Literature is concerned with the history of the book as a vehicle for information and with present-day adaptations of this medium. Within Film and Photographic Studies, too, you study the relationship between art forms and media: what do literature, film and photography have in common and what is specific to these three fields? What is their narrative potential?

Comparative Literature also shares with Journalism and New Media an interest in the sources and modern versions of rhetoric, while the audiovisual branch of journalism is related to film and photography, both documentary and aesthetic.

Within Media Studies you have every opportunity to bring together the different elements of the programme through your choice of electives. If you wish to make a broader study of the interconnections between the different media, the Research Master’s in Literary Studies is a good option as this programme forms a bridge between the Literary Studies, Media Studies and Arts and Culture programmes.