Faculty of Arts
| Established: 1948
Dean: Vigdis Songe-Møller |
Postal address: Postboks 7800, 5020 Bergen Street address: Harald Hårfagres gt. 1 Tel: 55 58 93 80 Fax: 55 58 93 83 E-mail: post@hffa.uib.no |
For specific
information: go directly to the
faculty's homepage (incl. a list of departments
and centres)
From "cultivation" to "culture"
In many ways, the history of the humanities at the University of Bergen reflects the development of the institution itself. Certain subjects, such as archaeology and the fine arts, can trace their origins back to Bergen Museum itself. Studies of Norwegian dialects and folklore and place-name research were also among the original fields of research at the Faculty of Arts. The typical subjects taught by the Faculty today, however, are a result of the growth of new subjects during the sixties and seventies.
The Faculty was one of the first three at the University, and was established in 1948. School-oriented subjects such as Scandinavian Studies, English, German and French were the first to be started. History was added at the end of the fifties. Classical ideals of cultivation based on the humanities ruled the Faculty until modernistic Marxist theories entered the academic arena in the sixties. These had more than theoretical effects; they also sowed the seeds of new subjects. The role of the humanities in society was placed on the agenda for discussion. Bergen established a position for itself in Norwegian and Scandinavian humanities, with a wide range of overseas contacts.
Since the eighties the humanities at the University of Bergen have more or less stabilized in the form of culturally-involved research groups well distanced from everyday school subjects, and with a point of view that combines long intellectual traditions with new theoretical directions. Several new areas of research have taken root, including European cultural studies, rhetoric, media research and advanced computing in the humanities.
