Established in 2006, the Department of Cultural Industries of the School of Humanities of Tongji University is one of the earliest among Chinese universities to set up the undergraduate major of cultural industry management and to grant bachelor’s degree in management. With a pluralistic background, a reasonable learning-origin structure, a wide academic vision and outstanding interdisciplinary features, Faulty of the Department of Cultural Industries currently consists of 15 full-time teachers, among which are 6 professors, 5 associate professors and 4 lecturers and assistant professors, and 6 part-time teachers including one Changjiang Scholar, one Young Changjiang Scholar and three chief experts in important national social science projects. Our faculty members have won five person-times of ministerial and provincial-level honors including Shuguang Talent, Chenguang Talent and Pujiang Talent, and have successively undertaken over 20 important national social science projects, general projects of the National Natural Science Foundation, general national projects and ministerial and provincial projects. The education and research of this Department is characterized by “focusing on China’s cultural power strategy, facing the trend of digital cultural industry, and benchmarking against the forefront of international cultural industry.” In 2021, this specialty ranked fourth (Grade A) in cultural industry management in Shanghai Ranking’s Academic Subjects Ranking of Chinese Universities.
Supported by the multidisciplinary symbiosis platform of Tongji University, the Department of Cultural Industries features cultural and creative industry management, integration of science and technology with humanities and art industry management, with key emphasis on empowering the development of cultural industry with digital technologies such as artificial intelligence. At present, our undergraduate major of cultural industry management has 4 modules including art and cultural industry management, art theory and practice, cultural relics and museum management, and jewelry industry management, and enrolls about 50 students each year. In the past three years, among our graduates pursuing further studies, 67% of those going aboard were admitted into QS top 100 universities, and 100% of those staying in China went to “985” universities or “double first-class” universities. In addition to the MA program of art theory, we also have a Master of Fine Art (MFA) degree program and doctoral programs in aesthetics (art history and art theory, contemporary art criticism and practice, and cultural industry), forming an interdisciplinary innovative degree system from undergraduate to doctoral level.
After years of efforts, the Department of Cultural Industries has achieved a high level of recognition. As council member of The Universities Alliance in Greater China for the Research of Cultural and Creative Industries, it complies with the domestic and international trends of cultural industry development and explores a teaching method that integrates theory with practice and combines internationalization and localization, with multiple internship bases established to cultivate students in various specialized modules and to improve the teamwork spirit and practical abilities of students, in an effort to train interdisciplinary and high-level cultural industry management students with profound humanistic literacy, pioneering thinking and specialized knowledge.
