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First year programme - Flexible Combined Honours

Chanel handbagLearn how to interpret visual culture in our world of:

  • societies, present and past
  • gender and art
  • the body
  • ethnicity
  • religion and belief
  • and many more ...

Study it through:

  • art history
  • anthropology
  • cinema
  • media - new and traditional
  • performance
  • archaeology
  • literature
  • history
  • language studies
  • business
  • and many more ...

Your studies can also include contemporary visual media such as installation, video art, digital media and virtual and mixed reality.

Visual cultureDuring your first year, you develop your understanding of the ways in which painting, sculpture and architecture can be analysed in relation to their cultural and historical context.

Your first year also develops your analytical skills for use in subsequent years to analyse visual works and develop your understanding of visual culture and its implications for understanding cultural activity more broadly.

During your second and third years you follow your interests through a wide range of optional modules, e.g.:

  • art and material culture in ancient societies
  • art historical themes and periods
  • arts management
  • curatorial practice and museum culture

Two compulsory Visual Culture modules are taken during the first year:

  • Alex Crowe-Evans - FCH student, graduates 2012.Introducing Visual Culture - AHV1001 (30 credits)
    • This module introduces you to Visual Culture as an area of study, the visual artefacts it analyses and the approaches it uses to make sense of the ways in which, throughout history, human societies have used visual means to articulate their concerns. Visual Culture is a field of study that is still in formation and the module provides a critical and interpretive overview of that field in terms of its achievement and future possibilities; it explores some of the debates and questions that Visual Culture is grappling with; and it outlines the emerging strategies, theories, directions, and paths Visual Culture is exploring.
  • Visual Media - AHV1004 (30 credits)
    • In this module you will be introduced to ways in which different media construct contrasting visual worlds. Media may include painting, sculpture, installation, photography, film, video art, television, digital media, social networking, virtual and mixed reality. The module will help you develop the critical tools to understand these various media in different historical periods that could include pre-classical, classical, modern and contemporary art, post-war cinema and new media. You will become familiar with a range of practices and methodologies that will allow you to gain visual literacy and analyse a wide range of visual media.

to make a total of 60 credits in this half of the overall Flexible Combined Honours degree programme.

More than 60 credits of visually related modules can be taken each year by taking additional Art History modules and/or by choosing  modules with a high visual content from within other subject areas of the University.

Art History and Visual Culture - main subject web pages.