Objectives
This highly flexible programme offers you the opportunity to follow one of three pathways in Art History and Visual Culture. These pathways are: MA in Art History Renaissance to the Present Day Modern Art, Criticism and Display MA in Visual Culture Art, Photography and Film You will be able to choose a pathway according to your personal interests in art history and visual culture. In essence, you will be working towards your dissertation throughout your MA pathway – the modules you choose, the seminars you attend and the essays you write will all help you to form and articulate a viable and original dissertation project. The MA in Visual Culture is supported by the Nottingham Institute for Research in Visual Culture. The Institute is concerned with all aspects of contemporary visual culture, as well as its histories, including fine art, public art and architecture; film, video and photography; digital multi- and mass media. Its founding five-year plan centres on residencies for young artist-practitioners, a programme underpinned by contributions from distinguished visiting historians and theorists.
Course description
Key facts
-This course has been designed to foster critical thinking and to develop your analytical skills – this is achieved by addressing a broad range of material.
-You will be offered sessions devoted to research and presentation skills; these sessions are designed to offer you practical support as a postgraduate student.
-When appropriate, seminars are held in the Djanogly Art Gallery and/or in the Castle Museum and Art Gallery in Nottingham.
-The MA in Art History is supported by the Nottingham Institute for Research in Visual Culture
Course Content
Art History: Renaissance to the Present Day
This MA in 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:
-Place and Space in 20th Century American Art
-Body / Document: Surrealism and Photography
-Spanish Art: The Age of Velazquez
-Buying and Selling Art in the 18th Century
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:
-Identity and Play in Contemporary Art
-Visualising the Body
-Postmodernism in America and Europe
-Display and Spectacle
Please note that all module details are subject to change.
Course Structure
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 dissertatio
