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About us Faculty of Arts Study at our Faculty Bachelor

Minor Culture and Cognition

Are you fascinated by what it means to be human? Are you interested in finding out why and how did human culture evolve from primate culture and is evolving now? What characterizes human culture and cognition? Is it language? Or imagination and the arts? Or our capacity for complex social interaction or for scientific inquiry? Then join us in the Inter-faculty Minor Culture and Cognition!

This Inter-faculty University Minor is a deep dive into what it means to be human and equips you with the knowledge and understanding on human culture and cognition that you can apply in your future career.

Programme

The study of culture from the perspective of cognition is an important field in the present academic world. This Inter-faculty Minor is unique in combining the neuroscientific aspect with courses that are focused on diverse cultural fields. It unveils the cognitive aspects of human culture, and follows the evolution of human cognition, from the earliest forms to the contemporary mind.

This Inter-faculty Minor is developed in collaboration with:

  • The Faculty of Arts
  • The Faculty of Law
  • The Faculty of Philosophy
  • The Faculty of Science and Engineering

 The programme consists of the following courses:

FIRST BLOCK

In this first block students acquire knowledge and understanding on human culture and cognition:

The Evolution of Human Culture (10 EC, semester 1a) LBA017B10

How did human culture arise out of primate culture, and how is it evolving? This is an introductory course based on the solid and comprehensive work of cognitive neuroscientist Merlin Donald, and others. Students get acquainted with the three stages of the evolution of human culture proposed by Donald: from the mimetic culture, through the introduction of linguistic abilities, to the foundation of the theoretic culture in which we live today.
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Biology of Cognition (5 EC, semester 1a) LBA029B05

What characterizes the biology of human cognition? This is an introductory course about the neurobiological basis of human cognition and the evolution of the nervous system. Themes include: the evolution of the human brain; chemistry and physiology of the nervous system; neural signal processing; memory, perception, consciousness, and imagination; cross-species comparisons and ecological discussions.
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SECOND BLOCK

In this second block students reflect on, analyse, and work on projects (both individually and in groups), drawing upon the knowledge and understanding acquired in the first block. 

In this course students reflect on, analyze, and work on the Mimetic Culture:

Art and Cognition (5 EC, semester 1b) LBA026B05

How functional are art behaviors to human beings? This course offers a deep dive into the cognitive perspective on art. It focuses on the functions of the cognitive processes underlying art behaviors drawing from both everyday cases (musicking, dancing, pantomiming, drawing, pretend playing, and verbal storytelling); and clinical cases (making use of different art therapies such as music therapy; dance therapy; visual/tactile therapy; drama therapy; and writing therapy).
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In this course students reflect on, analyze, and work on the Mythic Culture:

Narratives We Live By (5 EC, semester 1b) LBA020B05

How do humans tell stories and how do they live by them? This course explores law as a set of narratives societies tell about justice, responsibility, authority, order, and humanity. Across different historical periods, legal systems construct narratives that shape how humans understand: what is right and wrong; who counts as a subject of rights; how power should be exercised; and how conflict, crisis, and guilt are explained. By reading legal sources alongside literary texts, students learn to analyze how law functions not only normatively, but also morally, and culturally.
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In this course students reflect on, analyze, and work on the Theoretic Culture:

Knowledge, Signs, and Meaning (5 EC, semester 1b) LBA037B05

How do humans interpret the present world? Drawing from scholarship in philosophy this module is a deep dive into the relationships between the things that we know, that we do not know, and how we make meaning. The dominant western worldview dictates that we understand the world through rational analysis, but are there alternatives? In this course unit we dive into the history of our western rational thinking and relate this back to our day-to-day life. This course also provides other perspectives from phenomenology and alternative non-western knowledge systems on how to deal with contemporary human life.
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Registration

Please register via Ocasys. More information about the enrolment procedure.

NOTE:
You can follow the first block (15 ECTS) or the complete Minor (30 ECTS).
The courses in the second block build on the first block.
Students following the complete Minor have precedence when enrolling.

Contact

For questions, please contact the Coordinator of this University Minor: Dr. Wah

Last modified:13 October 2026 2.43 p.m.
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