Minor in
Visual Cultures

US Credits

UK Credits

• ARTS 4101 History of Arts and Visual Cultures

  Throughout history and across cultures, humans have always translated and projected their own natural, social and religious environment into images and artifacts. This course aims to explore the making, display, meaning and impact of images and artifacts within specific cultural and societal settings until the end of the 19th century. This course intends to focus on the analysis of objects, artifacts, images, photography, film, advertising and fashion that still shape our knowledge of the past and, therefore, the present. Students will also explore the differing nature and characteristics of art history and visual culture, learn basic principles of visual analysis and semiotics, and discuss fundamental ideas such as those of Canon, Tradition, Perceptions and Representations. Learning in the classroom will be integrated through ad-hoc specialist guest lectures and visits to the extensive international collections of London museums, galleries and archives. 

• FILM 4101 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.

• HIST 4103 World Cultural History

  This course surveys ancient cultures from the Bronze and Iron Ages, introducing students to the rich diversity of early civilisations and the parallels in their development. Students will explore how politics, religion, art, trade and beliefs influenced these civilisations, shaping their societies and cultures. Through analysis of both material and textual evidence, students will learn to engage critically with primary and secondary sources, enhancing their understanding of key historical processes, including the rise of states, the formation of empires and constructions of identity in the ancient world. The course will emphasize the study of early state formation, trade networks, and cross-cultural interactions, while fostering critical thinking and skills of historical analysis

• ARTS 5102 Arts and Visual Cultures in Context and Practice

  This course builds on ‘History of Arts and Visual Cultures’ and focuses on the development of modern and postmodern arts and visual cultures in the 20th century. The course explores key ideas and practices that may be applied to the production and visualisation of art, objects, stories and histories during this period. Addressing both the local and the global, students will consider the rise of new media such as film, photography, installation, performance and conceptual art; the fraught relationship between ‘fine’ and ‘decorative’ arts; and the production, reproduction and fruition of images in an increasingly technological and mediatic world. Theoretical and methodological investigation will focus on socialist, semiological, queer, feminist, postcolonial and decolonial perspectives.

• ARTS 5101 Looking at Museums: Memory and Display

  This course is designed for students with an interest in art, visual culture, and careers in museums, heritage and cultural industries. Lessons will explore the nature of museums and galleries as well as their past and present purpose, role and function in society as meaning making enterprises. In-class lectures will be paired with regular visits to the rich intercultural collections of local museums, galleries and heritage sites. These off-site trips are designed to offer students a unique opportunity to more directly engage with the meaning of objects and displays, while at the same time learn about a wide range of museum practices revolving around curatorship, education, conservation, management and design. Students will also meet curators, education officers, gallerists and other professionals, thus gaining a solid grounding for specific careers and professional figures in the museum and cultural sector.

• FILM 5102 Genre Studies and the Film Industry

  This course offers a critical exploration of the complex and multifaceted relationship between media and power. By examining historical and contemporary issues, the course explores the media as a tool for propaganda, control, and influence by various entities, including governments, corporations, and social movements. Through an analysis of media structures, we investigate the impact of ownership and corporate control on the diversity of content, representation, and the democratic process. Engaging with the key theories of media power and hegemony, students learn how media contributes to the maintenance of dominant ideologies and the marginalization of alternative viewpoints, and also how it drives consumer culture, influences consumption patterns, and shapes individual and collective identities. On the flipside, the course also emphasizes the role of media activism and participation politics, examining how grassroots movements and alternative media challenge dominant narratives and create spaces for marginalized voices.

• HIST 5103 Visualising 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 London museums and galleries and relevant exhibitions. It is international in focus, whilst taking advantage of London as a location.

• ARTS 6101 Contemporary Debates in Arts and Visual Cultures

  This course charts the developments, contexts, practices and enactments of global arts and visual cultures in the 21st century. Students will be encouraged to discuss, analyse and interpret visual forms and objects from around the world within their rightful geo-political and socio-economic contexts. With the aid of an array of established and emerging methodologies, they will also explore the ways in which contemporary artistic and visual cultural practices intersect with wider theoretical frameworks such as those of the politics of representation, indigenous rights, environmental activism and regimes of surveillance. The course will entail regular visits to a range of local large and smaller cultural venues and commercial art-related organisations.

• COMM 6102 Creative Collaboration

  ​​In this practice orientated course students will work together as a group to develop a body of work making use of their individual academic, communicative and technical skills (visual, sonic, journalistic, graphic), while developing and practicing collaborative skills. It will engage students with a broad historical, practical and theoretical appreciation of what it takes to work in the 21st century media and art world. Making use of London as a ‘second classroom’, the course will involve analyses of art and media spaces and trips to a collection of creative organizations; these include not for-profit arts institutions and media centres, as well as commercial galleries, auction houses, art fairs, recording studies, newsrooms. 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. ​ 

• FILM 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.