Art History & Visual Culture

YEAR 1

Courses

• ADM 3160 Foundations in Photography

  This course concentrates on developing the student’s visual intelligence via photography. Technically, students will learn to use digital Single Lens Reflex cameras and Photoshop for image workflow and editing. By looking at the work of a range of artists, students will be introduced to some of the theories that underpin photographic practice and consider photography’s place and role in contemporary culture. Throughout the course students make images which finally result in an edited portfolio of photographic prints. A studio fee is levied on this course.

• COM 3100 Foundations of Mass Media & Communications

  This course provides an introduction to the study of mass media in contemporary modern societies. The course will pay particular attention to the production and consumption of mass media, including newspapers and magazines, television, film, radio, and the internet. Thus the course will encourage students to critically analyse the strategies of media giants, the impact of media ownership over democracy, the effects of media over culture, identities and public opinion. Each topic of the course will be examined with reference to contemporary examples of mass media.

• HST 3200 World Cultural History

  This is a survey course that examines a variety ancient cultures of the Bronze and Iron ages, across the world. It aims to introduce students to the diversity and parallels that exist in human history. Students will learn about the interaction of politics, arts, ideologies and the economy in shaping the various cultures under study. Material culture and textual evidence will be used to explore how we can know about the past and begin to understand how to read secondary sources in a critical manner. Key areas of focus will be the development of early states, trade and economic development, war and diplomacy, the diverse role and status of women in the ancient world. We will explore the ideologies that acted as glue for these cultures and how they represented themselves.

• GEP 3105 Tools for Change

  In this course, students will discuss and respond to social issues in the local area through group work, reflecting on how they can become both collaborative and independent learners. They will research the context of and plan for service learning in the local area. They will learn to use a range of digital platforms for individual and group project work, focussing strongly on effective communication, including oral presentation and written reports using a range of relevant primary and secondary sources.

• GEP 3180 Research & Writing I

  This core course concentrates on developing the students’ ability to read and think critically, and to read, understand and analyse texts from a range of genres. How do you successfully negotiate a path through a sea of information and then write it up? Using essential information literacy skills to help with guided research, this course develops the ability to produce effective and appropriate academic writing across the curriculum. This is the first course in the Richmond academic research and writing sequence.

Plus one of the following:

• GEP 3150 Visual Thinking

  This course provides an interdisciplinary grounding in the practice and theory of critical visual thinking. Through theoretical frameworks such as semiotics, it explores predominantly photographic images, from across a range of cultures and contexts: the arts, politics, science, sport and technology. Through visual analysis, it considers digital forms of observation and image making, as well as building understanding by visual practice. It examines questions concerning curating, circulating and making public the images we produce. It asks: What are the values and truths hidden in images? How can the practice of image production advance our thinking around images? How, in the context of a range of disciplines, can we learn to communicate ideas visually and verbally?

• GEP 3170 Narratives of Change

  This course considers a landscape of global ideas through the lens of contemporary literature. Students will be introduced to pivotal moments of recent thought surrounding gender, race, environment and technology, exploring how literature both shapes and responds to our changing world. Students will analyse literary, political, and theoretical texts from a variety of cultures, exploring the relationship between written form, content and context particularly the ways in which social change might play out in literature. There will be the opportunity to produce both critical analysis in essay form and creative writing that responds to the texts studied.

YEAR 2

Courses

• AVC 4200 Introduction to Art Across Cultures

  Throughout history and across cultures, humans have always found meaning and pleasure in translating their own natural, political and religious environment into images. This course focuses on key visual moments of this process, and explores their art-historical significance in relation to the specific societal context in which they were produced. It includes an examination of the most innovative and prolific artistic ideas non-Western and Western cultures, and explores creative exchanges across and within artistic communities. Art-historical canonical constructs, such as those of the Primitive, the Orient, and Eurocentrism are considered and debated with a view to critically respond to the structures and remains of colonialism. The course also highlights the oft-neglected influence of non-European visual cultures on the development of modern European art. Students will be encouraged to critically engage with various topics during in-class discussions and visits to London’s rich offerings of museums and gallery collections.

• AVC 4205 Introduction to Visual Culture

  This course explores images and representations across cultural and historical contexts: the way meaning and ideologies can be decoded from such cultural artifacts as advertising, photography, cinema, modern art, sculpture, architecture, propaganda and comic books. Through varied examples, it takes an introductory route through some of the most important cultural theories and concepts.

• AVC 5210 History of Photography

  This course examines the history of designed objects of all types and their place in material and visual culture studies. This includes product design, objects of technology, graphic design and typography, industrial design, textiles and spatial design. The course considers the relationship between people and the objects that comprise the fabric of the lived environment, the aesthetics of the built environment, and engages with critical perspectives on design-related debates

• DGT 4120 Data Analysis for Social Engagement

  How do users engage with digital and social media content, and how can these reactions and behaviours be measured? This course introduces students to the primary tools for analysing and exploring user experience, the mathematical processes underpinning this analysis, and encourage wide-ranging debates about the ethical and social implications of data analysis.

• GEP 4180 Research and Writing II

  How do you train your critical research and writing skills to be effective in the academic and professional arenas? How do you design and structure an argument that is convincing? This core course focuses on the principles of good scholarship and academic practice that will be required throughout the students’ studies and in the workplace. These skills are developed throughout the course so that students may, with increasing confidence, produce well-researched writing that demonstrates critical engagement with a self-selected academic topic. This is the second course in the Richmond academic research and writing sequence.

• GEP 3170 Social Change in Practice

  This course considers a landscape of global ideas through the lens of contemporary literature. Students will be introduced to pivotal moments of recent thought surrounding gender, race, environment and technology, exploring how literature both shapes and responds to our changing world. Students will analyse literary, political, and theoretical texts from a variety of cultures, exploring the relationship between written form, content and context particularly the ways in which social change might play out in literature. There will be the opportunity to produce both critical analysis in essay form and creative writing that responds to the texts studied.

Plus two of the following:

• COM 4115 Digital Society

  This course introduces students to critical studies of the digital society, and how it effects institutions, media, and audiences socially, culturally, and politically. It explores the history of ‘the information revolution’, and how contemporary digital technologies, the internet, and social media are changing identities, relationships, and practices at both micro- and macro-levels. Through engaging with key debates within digital society (e.g. selfhood and social media, participatory culture, sharing economy, surveillance, truth of online information and democracy), students will develop critical understanding of the relationship between digital technologies and society, and reflect on their own use of digital media.

• COM 4400 Intro to Advertising Practice

  This course explores the fundamental principles and tools involved in the professional practice of advertising. It introduces students to the full range of techniques used in advertising and enables and encourages students to apply practical tools with confidence. This includes designing and presenting their own ideas for an advertising campaign. It relates the practice of advertising to contemporary issues and developments in the UK and internationally.

• COM 4405 Advertising, PR, and Media

  This course explores public relations, advertising and journalism, examining their history and evolution and how they relate to each other, as well as investigating the political, economic, social and cultural contexts in which they practice and reviewing their relationships with the media industries. It relates the practice of PR, advertising and journalism to international events and contemporary issues and developments, including criticisms of the industries’ role and a range of ethical debates.

• FLM 4210 Introduction to Filmmaking

  This course introduces students to key skills required for contemporary film making in its various contexts. Students learn how to use essential tools including video cameras, tripods and video editing software. Using these tools, students produce their own short videos and consider possible methods of distribution. By looking at noteworthy examples of film making, students are introduced to the breadth of contemporary film making practice and gain a basic introduction to relevant theoretical concerns.

• FLM 4200 Introduction to Film Studies

  This course explores film as a medium across cultural and historical contexts. It covers films in its varied form, from the first projections in the late 19th century to online distribution today. Using examples of noteworthy films, it takes an introductory examination of the most important film theories and concepts, in the process examining how ideologies and meanings are imbedded in this vibrant medium.

• HST 4405 History of Fashion

  This course analyses the history of fashion from a sociological perspective – covering the period from the beginning of the modern period to the present. Relationships between dress, fashion, class, political power, ethnicity and gender are investigated. While the primary focus is upon the historical development of western fashion global interconnections are investigated throughout the course.

YEAR 3

Courses

• AVC 5200 Museums & Galleries of London

  Considers the nature of museums and art galleries and their role and function in our society and culture. Students study the workings of the art market and a variety of other topics that impinge upon it, such as conservation, restoration, the investment potential of art, and art world crime. Students visit many of the great London galleries and museums with their rich intercultural collections, as part of this course. A university-level survey of the history of international art is strongly recommended as a prerequisite.

• AVC 5205 Art in Context

  This course critically engages with some of the major themes, methods, and approaches associated with the production, reception and interpretation of contemporary art. Beyond purely aesthetic considerations, students are encouraged to appreciate the historical narrative/s embedded within works of art. This course does not follow a standard art history chronological trajectory; rather, it is framed thematically in order to reveal the contextual interconnections that exist across time, space and media. Weekly visits to museums, galleries, and exhibitions, with their rich intercultural collections, provide an opportunity for students to engage directly with original art works and their display in order to exercise independent and informed critical judgement in analysis.

• AVC 5210 History of Design

  This course examines the history of designed objects of all types and their place in material and visual culture studies. This includes product design, objects of technology, graphic design and typography, industrial design, textiles and spatial design. The course considers the relationship between people and the objects that comprise the fabric of the lived environment, the aesthetics of the built environment, and engages with critical perspectives on design-related debates

• AVC 5215 Art History: Theory & Methods

  Explores a range of theories and methods which situate art in its historical context, from the more traditional methods associated with formal analysis and connoisseurship (formalist, biographical, and iconographic) to more recent theoretical approaches (such as postcolonial, semiotic, feminist, queer, psychoanalytic, and Marxist perspectives). Students examine a variety of thinkers and their theories and methods, and apply this thinking to visual examples, which may range from the Renaissance to the present.

• COM 5205 Cultural Theory

  This course introduces key thinkers, topics, case studies and theoretical frameworks related to the field of cultural studies. Students will be exposed to different toolkits for analysing everyday cultural practices, with a particular focus on historical, geographical and personal identity. Films, fashion, art, graphic design, video, music and other media objects will be analysed in order to engage with the theoretical frameworks presented. In addition to in-class theoretical discussion, students are encouraged to apply cultural theory in practice, through activities including gallery visits and first-hand explorations of consumerist practices.

Plus one of the following:

• ADM 5405 Photography: Theory & Practice

  This course is designed to familiarise students with skills which combine visual research, photographic composition, analogue camera operation and printing, together with conceptual ideas, especially those of narrative photography. Students provide their own film and photographic paper. A studio fee is levied on this course. The University has cameras for student use, although it is recommended that students provide their own manual 35mm SLR camera. A studio fee is levied on this course.

• COM 5220 Communications for PR and Advertising

  This course examines the theory and practice of writing for PR and advertising. Topics include: analyzing the target audience, considering the medium and the format, writing for product branding, evaluating successful writing, and writing promotional materials in business and not-for-profit sectors. Students will analyze real world examples of effective marketing and business communications and their assignments will reflect contemporary standards in these practices. Students will have a variety of assignments where they will try their hand at writing PR materials and advertising copy as well as a persuasive business proposal.

• COM 5230 Creating Digital Images

  How do we convey meaning through images? In this practical course using industry-standard design software, students first discuss the process of devising and critiquing creative ideas, and how these can be used to persuade and convince. Visual approaches to narrative and research are analysed before moving on to explore key design principles like colour, layout and composition. Training in Photoshop and Illustrator is provided, allowing students to produce images to a brief. No prior design or software experience is required.

• FLM 5200 Mainstream Cinema: Studies in Genre

  This course investigates the development of genre films over a historical period. Students examine issues critical to genre studies, which can include iconography, key themes, authorship, and stardom. Specifically, through a study of film criticism and theory, students examine distinct genres from the 1920s to the present. The course also explores the idea that genre films necessarily retain basic similarities to reflect cultural concerns and to keep audience interest. In addition, the course provides an opportunity for students to examine and compare the perspectives of Hollywood and non-Hollywood genre films.

• MKT 5410 Psychology of Fashion and Luxury Goods

  Consumer psychology within the context of the consumption of fashion and luxury products and services is complex and is influenced by many factors. A thorough analysis and understanding of these factors allows organizations to plan effective marketing activities suitable to their target markets. This course enables students to understand the importance of consumer behaviour in the process of marketing fashion and luxury goods and services.

Plus one of the following:

• GEP 5101 Service Learning: Digital Collaboration

  This Digital Collaboration Service-Learning course is a student community engagement course that aims to provide students from all disciplines and majors with the intellectual, professional, and personal skills that will enable them to build professional links and function well in culturally diverse communities both locally and globally, in a digital capacity. In addition to the hours of field work (typically 30 hours*), the student will also produce a critical reflective progress report of their experience (a learning log), a ‘community action’ portfolio (analytical essay), and a final oral presentation, based on their own creative project. These assessments have been designed to help the student reflect on the application of their specialist knowledge, the skills they are learning, and the benefits gained from the service-learning experience. During this service-learning course, the faculty supervisor work closely with each student to ensure that the community engagement is a successful one.This course enables students engage with organizations and communities outside of the university. Over two semesters, students will devise, plan and construct their own digital project for Charities, NGO’s and non-profit organisations via digital engagement and media networks. This course expands theories from digital global service learning, across different employment sectors, and aspects of society. It equips students to identify the ranges of opportunities for innovation and employment that digital skills offer, using digital resource and community building for physical and mental health. The course examines decolonial theories of global digital community. It is highly recommended that students have access to the use of a laptop and a smartphone for the duration of the course.

• GEP 5102 Service Learning: Leadership in a Changing World

  This is a Service Learning course that focuses on emerging forms of leadership. It aims to introduce students from all majors to the professional, intellectual and personal skills to enable them to understand different approaches to leadership and function well in culturally diverse communities globally. In addition to the hours of field work (typically 30 hours* depending on the organisation), the student will also produce a critical reflective progress report of their experience (a project log), and a portfolio of their work (potentially as an analytical essay, or a video or a Report or an oral presentation). These assessments have been designed to help the student reflect on the application of their specialist knowledge, the leadership skills they are learning, and the benefits gained from the critical experiential service-learning. It will also help them determine if their current career goals are the correct fit for them.This course enables students to engage with organizations and communities outside of the university. During the semester, students will consider topics such as negotiation and behavioral influence. They will devise, plan and carry out their own engagement project for Charities, NGO’s and non-profit organisations. This course combines design thinking and behavioural design theories with global service learning theory, across different employment sectors and aspects of society. It equips students to identify opportunities for influence, leadership and employment both in and adjacent to their field. The course is underpinned by JEDI approaches to justice, equality, diversity and inclusion across the global community.

• GEP 5103 Service Learning: Environment and Society

  This Environmental Service Learning course is a student community engagement course that aims to provide students from all disciplines and majors with the intellectual, professional, and personal skills that will enable them to build professional links and function well in culturally diverse communities globally and within an Environmental perspective. In addition to the hours of field work (typically 30 hours* depending on the organisation), the student will also produce a critical reflective progress report of their experience (a learning log), a ‘community action’ portfolio (analytical essay), and a final oral presentation. These assessments have been designed to help the student reflect on the application of their specialist knowledge, the skills they are learning, and the benefits gained from the service-learning experience. It will also to help them determine if their current career goals are the correct fit for them. During this service-learning course, the faculty supervisor will work closely with each student to ensure that the community engagement is a successful one.

• GEP 5104 Service Learning: Global Citizenship and Migration

  This course examines the theoretical, political and sociological conceptions of citizenship and their limitations. It looks at both the theoretical constructs and the concrete policies that have shaped the experience of the citizen and of the migrant. The course therefore considers the development of the nation state and the establishment of legal and social citizenship. It also examines the border as a mechanism of control and security. The course further addresses the intersection of experiences of citizenship across economic, racial and gender differences in the context of international governance as well as the globalization of economies and environmental issues. This is a Service-Learning student community engagement course that aims to provide students with the analytical and inter-personal skills to support key non-governmental and policy-making actors around the broad theme of citizenship and migration as well as to build an understanding of the needs and challenges faced by key stakeholders and local communities globally. Through consultation with key stakeholders, students will produce analytical written assessments on key questions around the theme of global citizenship and migration, they will also produce a range of work introducing them to a range of key employability skills in a range of key sectors related to citizenship, these might include: the local and global charity sector, local and national policy-making, as well as regional or international organisations. Students will be required to maintain a progress report that tracks learning and can act as a reference point for problem solving in the future.

YEAR 4

Courses

• AMS 6103 Pop to Present: Themes in Contemporary US Art

  The course is an in-depth critical examination of the major themes in US art from the 1950s until the Present. Key art movements and artists are investigated with reference to the cultural and socio-political milieus within which they emerged. The international influence of key movements and artists is emphasised throughout the course.

• AVC 6101 Working in the Art World

  This course engages students with a broad practical and theoretical appreciation of what it takes to work in the 21st century art market. Students will engage with current discourse related to curatorial practices, management skills, the international art market, arts policy, as well as the educative, social, and regenerative potential of working within the arts. Making use of London as a ‘second classroom’, the course will involve analyses of and trips to a number of arts organizations; these include not for-profit arts institutions as well as commercial galleries, auction houses, and art fairs. The course takes a self-reflexive and critical approach to analyzing issues connected to inclusion/exclusion as well as diversity initiatives at various international arts organizations. The class will also integrate a number of guest lectures from leaders in the art market today as well as young and inspiring art world professionals.

• AVC 6296 Senior Seminar in Art History and Visual Culture I

  This research intensive course for the major is the first part of a two semester sequence taken in the Senior year. Working with faculty in their specific discipline, students produce a research proposal, a literature review and a substantial draft in the first semester. In the second semester (AVC 6297 Senior Seminar 2) students revise their draft and extend their work to produce the 8,000-10,000 word dissertation. Students are guided through the various stages of proposal and dissertation writing, and draft work is supervised regularly in a process of continuous feedback.

• AVC 6297 Senior Seminar in Art History and Visual Culture II

  Senior Essay 2 is second half of the research intensive course for the major. Building directly from the draft chapter completed in Senior Essay 1, students must produce their final 8,000-10,000 word thesis driven research paper. Students are guided through the various stages of drafting and revising their final dissertation, and orally present their research according to conference standards as part of the formative process.

• AVC 6102 Non-Western Visual Cultures

  This course explores issues that relate to the interpretation, perception, and representation of the visual arts of non-Western cultures, with a focus on indigenous (ethnographic) and prehistoric (archaeological) art. The course investigates issues that relate to engaging with art across cultures and considers colonial/neo-colonial/postcolonial encounters. The course takes a critical and self-reflexive approach to the representation and display of non-Western visual cultures in the West. A range of case studies will be examined which usually range across Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas.

• AVC 6103 New Media & Visual Power

  Through theoretical and empirical insights into our image-based culture, this course deals with the multifariousness of contemporary visuality. Integrating traditional elements of visual analysis and visual methodologieswith new media and transmedia approaches, the course enables students to develop a conceptual framework within which to evaluate the role of the visual in contemporary society and culture – moving from issues of production, image dissemination, to consumption (reception theory). The course is based around 4 broad themes: Practices of Looking (Research Methods); Reproduction and Commodification of Images; New Media Visions, Interactivity and the Cybermuseum; and Visual Power and Surveillance Culture. In a program of gallery visits and theoretical discussions, students learn about visual representation and various ways of encountering the complexity of imagery in the twentieth/twenty-first century.

Plus one of the following:

• ADM 6102 Web Design

  The course provides students with the core foundations and practical skills required to design a fully functional and interactive website. It offers a snapshot of the brief history and current status of the medium, and practitioners working within it. Web Design focuses on two main areas: preparation and design of a website, followed by the design build ready for online publication. It is ideal for students who want to showcase a portfolio of work on the web.

• COM 6102 Advertising & PR Campaigns

  This course builds upon earlier study of advertising and PR and requires students to examine and discuss campaigns involving advertising and PR and to present their own ideas for a fully- fledged campaign bringing together both disciplines. This will include the critical examination and evaluation of past campaigns in a variety of contexts and the planning, pitching and discussion of ideas for campaigns of the students’ own devising.

• FLM 6103 International Cinema

  This course examines global cinema while considering the extent to which cultural, political, and historical contexts have influenced the form and grammar of film during the last century. The overall focus of the course is broad, ranging across more than eight decades and many different countries; it aims to study a variety of approaches to and theories of narrative cinema. During the semester, many international film "movements" are covered, which can include the French New Wave, the Chinese Sixth Generation, and Italian Neo-Realism. In addition, the representations of non-Western cultures from an “insider” and a “Hollywood” perspective are compared.

• HST 6105 Propaganda: History and Image

  The course aims to introduce students, by way of specific case-studies ranging from the ancient world to the modern day, to innovative methods of studying the past that utilise popular forms of visual culture and propaganda. While recognising the complexity of the propaganda process and the various influences that form and shape images, the course will focus on the historical relationship between propaganda (in architecture, cartoons, film, painting, pamphlets, photography, posters, sculpture, and television) and politics. The focus on the theme of propaganda and its relationship with various forms of media through the ages allows for the opportunity to compare and contrast particular case- studies over time and geographical space and therefore to distinguish elements of continuity and change, which will help students to ‘read’ historic images critically, both as vehicles for understanding the past and in order to identify the relationship between propaganda and power.

• HST 6103 Visualizing Enlightenment

  This course considers the European Enlightenment through the cultural, visual and material transformations of the period. It enables students to reflect on how transformations in art, design and architecture were contemporaneous with changing conceptions of the public sphere, of the global as a space, of class, gender and race. The era saw a revolution in new consumer goods, critical debates about taste, and the corrupting influence of luxury. Students will engage with key works by Diderot, Mandeville, Rousseau, Shaftesbury, Voltaire and Wollstonecraft. Further, the course addresses engagements between Europe and the wider world. The course is designed to be interactive, with class visits to the British Museum and relevant exhibitions. It is international in focus, whilst taking advantage of London as a location.

• PHT 6101 Studio Photography

  This course explores the technical and contextual possibilities of the photographic studio, an environment and set of tools that are as valid to contemporary photographers as they have been historically. During the course students will gain technical experience of using the studio for creating photographic images, including introductions to lighting and backdrops, and working with models and objects. The course will also introduce the historical and contemporary contexts for the studio as a site of image creation, from the early experiments with the medium, to contemporary fine art and fashion and advertising. The course will directly build upon skills students have gained during Photography: Theory and Practice.

Integrated Internship

• AVC 6901 World Internship in Art History & Visual Culture

  This course explores the technical and contextual possibilities of the photographic studio, an environment and set of tools that are as valid to contemporary photographers as they have been historically. During the course students will gain technical experience of using the studio for creating photographic images, including introductions to lighting and backdrops, and working with models and objects. The course will also introduce the historical and contemporary contexts for the studio as a site of image creation, from the early experiments with the medium, to contemporary fine art and fashion and advertising. The course will directly build upon skills students have gained during Photography: Theory and Practice.

• AVC 6902 Internship in Art History & Visual Culture

  This course explores the technical and contextual possibilities of the photographic studio, an environment and set of tools that are as valid to contemporary photographers as they have been historically. During the course students will gain technical experience of using the studio for creating photographic images, including introductions to lighting and backdrops, and working with models and objects. The course will also introduce the historical and contemporary contexts for the studio as a site of image creation, from the early experiments with the medium, to contemporary fine art and fashion and advertising. The course will directly build upon skills students have gained during Photography: Theory and Practice.