MA History of Art

You will take four core taught modules on this course (two per semester): Art, Identity and the Body; Art, Everyday Life and the City; Art, Science and Technology; and Imagining Worlds. These modules address topics central to advanced-level studies in the history of art between 1400 and 2000, and take a transhistorical and transcultural approach, focusing on a number of different moments and locations in that history. You will therefore be able to explore the period as a whole while developing your expertise in your preferred area, including through written assignments and your dissertation.

Each module will be taught by a select number of academic staff, who will lead dedicated blocks of seminars in which particular issues, critical theories and research skills relevant to the study of art’s relationship to modernity will be addressed. Topics addressed might include art and civic identity, the artistic status of photography, art’s relationship with commerce, still-life painting, contemporary art and environmental change, and the macabre.

Seminars take the form of small group discussion and presentations in which you will be encouraged to evaluate a range of images, artworks and critical approaches to art. Each module is overseen by a faculty member who will hold individual tutorials to offer assistance with your assessed coursework and your success on the module as a whole.

Finally, you will write an independently researched dissertation of 12,000 words on an art-historical topic of your choice. You will have the support and guidance of an academic supervisor throughout the research and writing process. This is a chance to make your own contribution to the discipline through an extended and focused piece of original art-historical research.

This course is also available on a part-time basis.