Expanding Horizons

Part of Krems Culture Stacks
at the Department for Arts & Cultural Studies
University for Continuing Education Krems

courses listed below: Write Your (True) Story, Wine, Memory & Place, Listening to Images, The Art of the Archive, Mapping Krems

Some of the most serious intellectual engagement happens outside a degree programme. Expanding Horizons is the Krems Culture Stacks category for people who are here because a topic genuinely interests them — not because they need it for a qualification, a promotion, or a CV. These microcredentials are built for readers, writers, thinkers, travellers, and anyone who has ever wanted to go deeper into something without committing to a two-year Master's programme to do it.

No academic background is assumed. No career outcome is required. What is required is curiosity, and the willingness to engage seriously with ideas.

Each Expanding Horizons Stack is built around a question worth taking seriously — about culture, place, memory, language, image, or story. The content draws on accredited academic courses taught at UWK, which means the intellectual level is genuine, not simplified. The format is designed to fit around a working life: intensive weekends, working Saturdays, or fully online. The group is mixed — academics, professionals, retirees, lifelong learners — and the diversity of experience in the room is part of what makes these offerings work.

• Short and concentrated: typically 6 credits over a weekend block or across two to three Saturdays, with occasional online formats
• Experience-led: a significant portion of each stack takes place through workshops, excursions, writing experiments, or discussion — not lecture alone
• Flexible participation: attend as an Observer, engage fully as a Participant, or earn academic credits at Crediting tier — the content is the same at every level
• No prerequisites: every stack in this category is open to anyone, regardless of academic background or professional field

All Expanding Horizons Stacks are available at three levels. Full details — including what each tier includes and how credits are assessed — are listed on each individual Stack page.

Write Your (True) Story
6 credits · Intensive Weekend Block or 3-Saturday Format · On-site, Campus Krems + Wachau excursion · English
What makes a story true? This Stack follows that question across storytelling traditions — Aboriginal to AI — and into the Wachau landscape. For writers, readers, and everyone in between.

→ Full course details and enrollment

Wine, Memory & Place
6 credits · Intensive Weekend Block · On-site, Wachau region · German / English
Wine is not just agriculture — it is a carrier of memory, landscape, and cultural identity. This Stack explores wine culture as a lens for history, place, and storytelling. No wine expertise required. Dates and enrolment details to follow.
→ [Notify me when enrolment opens](link to interest form)

Listening to Images
6 credits · Online or On-site · English
A slow-looking course using heritage collections and contemporary visual culture. How do images hold knowledge — and what do we hear when we stop moving past them? For anyone who has ever stood in front of a painting or photograph and wanted more time.
→ [Register interest](link to interest form)

The Art of the Archive
6 credits · Format TBA · German / English
Every archive is a story someone decided to tell — and a story someone else decided not to. This Stack looks at archives as cultural objects: what they preserve, what they omit, and what it means to read them. Developed in collaboration with regional archive partners.
→ [Register interest](link to interest form)

Mapping Krems
6 credits · Format TBA · German / English
A local history and cultural geography Stack using Krems and the Wachau as its primary text. For people who live here, visit here, or want to understand what a place carries in its streets, buildings, and names.
→ [Register interest](link to interest form)

Expanding Horizons is one of four categories within Krems Culture Stacks, the microcredential system of the Department for Arts & Cultural Studies at the Universität für Weiterbildung Krems. Credits earned at Crediting tier are stackable toward future Certificate Programs and Master's programmes at UWK, and are portable to other institutions via standard academic transcript.

→ Back to Krems Culture Stacks — All Categories
→ Contact the Department