- Art History: Renaissance to the Present Day
This MA Art History pathway will allow you to explore a variety of art of historical periods through different critical approaches to the subject.
The structure of this pathway is the most flexible of the three on offer.
The core module – Critical Approaches to Art History and Visual Culture – covers a broad range of material and will enable you to meet and engage with students from other MA pathways.
You will then be able to take your remaining module credits from any of the MA modules offered by the Department of Art History. Special subject modules currently on offer include:
- Idiocy and Iconoclasm: contemporary art and the politics of subversion
- Postmodern Theory and Contemporary Art
- Landscape in Britain since 1800
- Word and Image in Nineteenth-Century Britain
- Body/Document: Surrealism & Photography
- Institutional Critique
- Renaissance Luxuries: Art and ood Living in Italy 1400-1600
- Rome Museum City
In addition, with permission from the Course Leader, you might also take one module from outside of the Department in areas such as Critical Theory, American and Canadian Studies (including Film Studies), English, Geography, History, and Classics.
- Art History: Modern Art, Criticism and Display
This exciting new pathway draws on the Department’s practical and theoretical expertise in the fields of modern and contemporary art.
As members of staff leading this course have worked alongside some of the world’s most prestigious public and commercial galleries, this pathway engages directly with this wealth of experience and provides a historical context for a deep critical engagement with contemporary practice.
Through this pathway, you will explore the central issue of the relationship between artistic practices, curatorial strategies, and criticism, raising critical questions in relation not only to works by modern and contemporary artists but the most important recent accounts of the politics of representation.
You will study core modules in Critical Approaches to Art History and Visual Culture, and Criticism and Display.
In addition, you can choose from a range of special subject modules, which concentrate on 20th century and contemporary art and display. Currently modules include:
- Idiocy and Iconoclasm: contemporary art and the politics of subversion
- Postmodern Theory and Contemporary Art
- Body/Document: Surrealism & Photography
- Institutional Critique
Please note that all module details are subject to change.
This course consists of 180 credits made up of the core modules, Critical Approaches to Art History and Visual Culture, and Criticism and Display (this second core module only applies to the pathway in Modern Art, Criticism and Display), three or two 30-credit Special Subject modules respectively, and a compulsory 15,000 word dissertation (60 credits).
As a full-time student, you would take two modules per semester, whereas part-time students take two per year.
Classes may be held in the daytime or evening.
You will generally be assessed through written assignments, as well as your dissertation.