拜罗伊特大学

The Bachelor of Arts programme African Verbal and Visual Arts (AVVA) offers insights into the scholarly fields of African languages, African literatures, African arts, and media in Africa. The curriculum provides students with a multifaceted knowledge of African cultural matters, which at the same time, are also global matters. It also responds to the developments in the global job market by providing its graduates with a unique intercultural expertise.

Africa is a continent with a thousand and one facets. We offer this innovative, multidisciplinary and market-oriented bachelor’s programme as a solid starting point towards understanding the dynamics of the African continent and building expertise in African studies. Our curriculum enables students to acquire knowledge in four key branches of African studies: Languages; Literatures (in African languages as well as Anglophone and Francophone African literatures); Media; and Arts (both modern and contemporary). We equip our students with theoretical, methodological and practical tools for study, thereby preparing them for critical engagement with the full diversity of African cultural milieus, ideas and forms of expressions.

Structure of the Bachelor’s Programme

The programme is organised into modules reflecting the multiplicity of African cultural affairs. Compulsory course modules introduce methods of art studies, media studies, literary studies and linguistics. A practice-oriented project, an overview of the linguistic landscape in Africa and an interdisciplinary module provide students with both academic and practical skills.

Elective compulsory course modules cover different fields of specialization and advanced seminars. The students will choose one of the disciplines in which they envisage writing their BA thesis. In addition, they will have to take at least one advanced seminar from one of the other disciplines.

Why study B.A. AVVA at the University of Bayreuth?

• An internationally unique institution dedicated to modern and contemporary African arts
• The only university in Germany with a professorship in Literatures in African Languages
• International and multilingual staff teaching the AVVA curriculum
• Multi- and interdisciplinary research and curricula in African studies
• International network based on the principle “research on Africa only with African partners”
• An international campus with students and scholars from all corners of the globe, especially from Africa
• One of Germany’s best libraries for African studies
• Over 40 years of world-renowned expertise on African studies
• Our campus is both eco-friendly and family friendly and the town offers a high quality of life

Career prospects

Whilst the AVVA programme fosters early interdisciplinary awareness, intellectual independence and personal development, it also enhances the student’s ability to utilise the relevant theoretical and methodological tools as practical assets. Graduates of AVVA are prepared for a career in exciting fields such as cultural and intercultural work, international cooperation, intercultural communication, intercultural mass media, creative entrepreneurship and international consulting in African affairs.

The focus on teaching in English medium advances our internationalization strategy and enables fruitful links between the research hub in African Studies at the University of Bayreuth and institutions situated elsewhere.

Upon completion of the B.A. programme, candidates may also enrol in the master’s programme African Verbal and Visual Arts: Languages, Literatures, Media and Art.