Subject consists of the sub-subjects Cultural Anthropology and Cultural History.

Cultural Anthropology is a cultural studies discipline which, in close connection with neighbouring subjects such as History, Linguistics, Literature, Art History, Ethnology and Religious Studies, focuses on people's ways of life, primarily in the subject area)|field of their own culture. Cultural anthropology is an empirical subject with primarily qualitative approaches (soft methods) and hermeneutic-interpretative working methods. The focus of interest is on popular and everyday culture in its oral and written traditions, its images, symbols and signs, in particular the categories of society, History and sex|gender. One focus is on visual anthropology. This analyses communication in everyday life and reveals the production and use of media using qualitative, ethnographic methods. Film, photography and other media formats are used to collect, analyse and popularise information.

Cultural history deals with the relationships between culture and society in Europe and global modernity. It starts historically with individual social actors, groups or societies and is interested in their cultural forms, horizons of interpretation, values, experiences and perceptions, practices - and their representations. Cultural history gains its insights from sources: In addition to texts (such as books, newspapers, journals, correspondence, diaries), material culture is also integrated into the source corpus. This includes media (such as posters, photos, radio reports, films, television reports, blog entries) as well as a wide variety of objects, from everyday to scientific (e.g. a camping TV, clothing, an X-ray machine). Jena Cultural History offers course|classes on comparative European cultural history, cultural theory, history of science, history of institutions and media analysis.