Historic

Established in 2005, with a Master’s and a Doctorate Programs, the Multidisciplinary Graduate Program in Culture and Society (Pós-Cultura) was initially linked to the School of Communication (FACOM), at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA). Due to its multidisciplinary specificity, it was transferred to Professor Milton Santos Institute of Humanities, Arts and Sciences  (IHAC) in 2010.

 

Pós-Cultura has always faced the challenge of studying the complex relationships involving knowledge. Following the lucid and innovative thinking of several contemporary scholars, the inter/multidisciplinary feature of the Program is supported by the articulation, reconnection, contextualization and globalization of knowledge acquired and produced in the present days.

 

Due to this basic characteristic, that is, the possibility to shorten the distance among the courses and to understand knowledge through connections, links, interactions. The Program brings together, in its faculty – composed by permanent lecturers researchers  from various units / departments of UFBA, and other higher education institutions. 

 

In order to respond to the challenges of expanding the spaces and dimensions of culture in the contemporary world, the main objective of Pós-Cultura is to train researchers and lecturers capable of working in the field of cultural studies, seen from a multidisciplinary perspective. It considers, above all, the complexity of today's societies, marked by transversal and multidimensional issues. Studying societies in their complexities, through the connection of various fields of knowledge, is what distinguishes Pós-Cultura from the "non interdisciplinary programas” subject/course programs".     

 

The multidisciplinary proposal of the Program derives primarily from the object that defines it and singles it out, for the studies of culture are mainly multidisciplinary, due to its complexity as an object of consideration and research. Thus, from its very beginning (in 2002), the team responsible for the Program conception and establishment, observes the multidisciplinary questions and tendencies of contemporaneity. In the articulation of knowledge, they perceived an instigating proposal towards overcoming boundaries traditionally established in academic institutions around a disciplinary view. A second institutional aspect refers to the need, imposed every day, to integrate lecturers and researchers in their specific areas, providing them with a space not only for conversation, but also for a transversal approach/knowledge construction.

 

Constantly and continuously concerned with improving its proposals, re-evaluating its inconsistencies, Pós-Cultura produces new knowledge and renews the established ones, turning itself into a mutable/mutant space, since it is not associated with a static space, which could invalidate it as an innovative practice. Instead, it moves persistently in relation to a very critical reflection that nourishes and gives life to it.     

 

In recent years, the Program has advanced towards becoming a strong reference in cultural studies in Brazil and Latin America. To achieve this goal, several actions have been taken. It is worth mentioning the specific openings for foreign students from various Latin American as well as European countries, integrating them into the student body. In addition to allowing students to intensify comparative studies among cultures in Latin America, doctorate short-term exchanges are offered in Latin American and European institutions.   

 

Pós-Cultura has also articulated with other UFBA Programs, especially those that have research groups with a multidisciplinary profile, such as the Graduate Program in Interdisciplinary Studies on Women, Gender and Feminism, and the Graduate Program on University Interdisciplinary Studies (EISU). Pós-Cultura has been open to collaborations implying a constant reflection on issues involving multidisciplinary studies, whether from an epistemological or an institutional point of view. 

   

In 2018, 55 students graduated from Pós-Cultura with 42 master's theses and 13 doctorate dissertations. It is the largest number of defenses in a year since the Program was established in 2005. In the course of the past 3 years, the Program has graduated 122 new professionals.