BA Art History & Visual Culture

AHV1005: Inside the Museum

This module is a conceptual introduction to the artistic, social, aesthetic, and political implications of the museum from roughly the 17th century to the present. It will involve specific case studies and theoretical writings that will challenge you to think about the museum as not merely a repository and exhibition space for objects, but rather as a complex technology for ordering and classifying material objects to create forms of knowledge; for constructing narratives of material and cultural history, aesthetics, and civic ideals; and for providing us with experiments in seeing patterns of meaning emerge in physical and virtual spaces.

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AHV1006: Visual Media

This module offers an introduction to the history of specific media and the materials, techniques and processes used by artists to produce works of various types. The module is organised in a broadly chronological way, beginning with 'traditional' media, such as drawing and painting (egg tempera and oil), with a focus on late Medieval and Early Modern artists and their techniques, before then moving through innovations in modern art up to and including the nineteenth century (e.g. French Impressionism), and culminating with contemporary art and practice. Each week addresses a specific media or 'type' of artwork, and you will be introduced to the different properties and capabilities of each media and learn to examine and understand the visual effects achieved.

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AHV1008: Topics in Art History and Visual Culture I

This module introduces you to one of the most influential and enduring traditions in Western culture. Classicism has its roots in the material cultures of the ancient Greeks and Romans (c. 500 BCE to c. 476 CE) but its uses and meanings have evolved over centuries. As a phenomenon, it is remarkably wide-spread and persistent in European history and as a canon of qualities and ideals—for example proportional systems, formal language, restraint, balance, clarity and harmony—it appears repeatedly in a series of deliberate revivals. Classicism is inherently retrospective in nature but its traditions have also served as dynamic sites of cultural negotiation that continue to inform thought and practice in many spheres from art to political theory. This module considers the reception of ancient Greece and Rome from the 16^th C to the present day in painting, prints, architecture, art theoretical texts, gardens and photography. We will consider the uses and functions of classical forms and concepts as well as the problematic nature of its relationship to canon-formation and canonicity.

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AHV1009: Topics in Art History and Visual Culture II

This module offers a critical introduction to the history of Modernism in Europe and North America. Taking its lead from the work of Manet and his contemporaries, it will explore the key developments in art, design and photography during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Beginning with an investigation into the various ways in which the term Modernism has been used, the course will address both the origins of the term and its relationship to notions of modernity. Building upon this foundation, it will then explore the various '-isms' which constituted the European avant-garde and the rise of their American counterparts. Possible topics for discussion include Cubism, Pictorialism and the New York School. The course will conclude by considering the various ways in which the modernist paradigm has been called into question, from the changing status of the art institution to the rise of Postmodernism.

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AHV1011: Questions and Methods in Art History and Visual Culture

This module introduces you to the key methods used to analyse works of art and visual culture and, in doing so, raises critical questions about the disciplines of Art History and Visual Culture and their relationship to one another. While Art History is a long-established field of study, Visual Culture can be viewed as an interdisciplinary mode of enquiry that has emerged in more recent times, which is both attuned to a history of visual culture as much as a definition of contemporary culture. Together, both fields of study continue to evolve in line with a series of common intellectual debates. You will be introduced to the appropriate terminology used in academic literature and to the foundational texts upon which both fields rely. You will also learn about a range of historical and contemporary theoretical approaches that inform the study of Art History & Visual Culture.

Art History & Visual Culture will be a new subject for almost all students at University level, and this module aims to:

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AHV1012: Approaches to Art History and Visual Culture

Building on AHV1011, this module offers a critical introduction to the key terms and concepts that have shaped the study of Art History and Visual Culture (e.g. beauty, skill, heritage, power). Through a combination of lectures, seminars and practical workshops, it traces the emergence and development of these keywords, locating them within their broader socio-political histories and accompanying theoretical frameworks. Each week will focus on a single term, exploring its connection to artworks, cultural artefacts and institutions to help you expand your critical and visual vocabulary. The module will also introduce you to a range of University resources, such as the Creative Quadrant and the collections of the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, equipping you with the skills to undertake creative assessments both in this module and throughout your degree.

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AHV2002: Debates and Contestations in Art History

This module explores the possibility of adopting an object-centred approach to Art History & Visual Culture. Spanning across a range of historical and geopolitical contexts, each week offers a close reading of an artwork, cultural artefact or everyday object. Rather than attempting to provide an overview of key moments in the discipline or create an alternative canon, the module will introduce you to a range of critical frameworks for engaging with object and the broader issues - or debates - they provoke, from the role of cultural heritage to questions of censorship. It will also invite you to consider how these ways of reading can be used in your written assignments.

This module will introduce you to the benefits of adopting an object-centred approach to Art History & Visual Culture. Through a series of lectures, workshops and practical sessions, you will examine a series of cultural artefacts and their accompanying literature. As part of this process, both object and scholarship will be subject to critical analysis, resulting in a well-informed, independent position on the object in question. You will also consider the extent to which the meaning of works of art and visual culture is open to revision.

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AHV2007: Contemporary Visual Practices

In this module you will be introduced to a diverse spectrum of critical issues in contemporary visual culture. You will explore the links between the historical and the contemporary, and learn how to apply critical theory in visual and discursive analysis. You will engage with a wide range of visual practices in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, drawing on examples of high art, popular culture and new media, as well as experiences of urbanism and the environment. Topics may include curation, heritage, migration, performance, gender, and race.

This module aims to allow you to:

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AHV2015: Art History and Visual Culture Field Study for Blended Learning

The Art History and Visual Culture field study module is an essential part of your degree programme at Exeter. It culminates in an intensive one-week field trip in a location in continental Europe. During the visit you will participate in a range of staff-guided and self-managed visit options, including architectural/urban studies, visits to permanent galleries/museums and temporary exhibitions.

The module provides an opportunity to develop and apply research skills in virtual and real-world environments and to view and interrogate a variety of museums, objects and spaces in a single urban environment. The module also develops digital literacy and skills development using app software. The module consists of three main parts:

1) Firstly, it addresses a range of thematic and methodological approaches to Field Study, introducing you to a range of ways of approaching and thinking about culture, broadly conceived, and the urban environment, exploring relationships between places, people and objects;

2) Secondly, through applied group work and project development (involving digital project), you will develop key skills and knowledge identified in term 1 work;

2) Finally, the trip itself, which lasts 5-6 days and consists of a series of staff-led visits and individual/group project exercises.

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AHV2013: Photography and Evidence

This module introduces you to photographic theories and histories, with a particular focus on the evidential claims made in the name of photography. You will be offered the opportunity to explore a range of photographic practices, ranging from early photographic techniques to the digital and dorsality. You will learn about the changing meanings and functions of photography across time and between cultures, from colonial photography and anthropometry to forensic photography and photojournalism. You will analyse recent artistic responses to the forensic in which photographic practices play a key role and evaluate what photography tells us about contemporary understandings of evidence. The module requires no prior knowledge and is open to anyone with an interest in photography.

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AHV2016: Contemporary Art and Curation

This module will explore the role of the curator and the critical issues which define contemporary art practice today. You will examine the complex structures of the art world, and the impact of digital communications, the climate emergency, decolonisation and shifting notions of identity. In a time of global uncertainty, you will consider how art is able to investigate the present and make meaning from it, leading to an understanding of wider developments within culture and society. You will also speculate on the future of contemporary art , and how cultural institutions and traditional hierarchies of knowledge will need to change in response to the new conditions of contemporaneity.

The module requires no prior knowledge and is open to anyone with an interest in contemporary art and curation .

This module aims to:

• introduce you to the role of the contemporary art curator, and the complex structures of the art world
• discuss the critical concerns, and wider social, cultural and economic conditions, which shape contemporary art practice today
• develop an understanding of the constantly evolving field of curation, and the institutional structures which support contemporary art, through a combination of in-class discussion, readings, presentations, and lectures
• foster your ability to engage in sophisticated analysis of contemporary art, and the practice of curation
• develop an in-depth understanding of art institutions and agencies today, and thus equip you with the knowledge to speculate on future transformations of the cultural landscape

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AHV2019: Common Threads: Art, Craft and Activism

Through feminist, queer, and decolonial frameworks, this module explores the 'common threads' between art, craft and activism. You will begin by unpicking and unravelling the power dynamics traditionally associated with textile materials and practices from the Renaissance to the present day, but you will primarily explore their relevance in a range of contemporary art and 'craftivist' initiatives that exist today. To fully examine artistic production and the politics of making, while also engaging with critical theories and debates in art history and visual culture, teaching will consist of a combination of lectures, seminars and practical workshops.

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AHV2024: Renaissances North and South: Italy and the Netherlands

Traditionally the art of Early Modern Italy and the Netherlands (mostly modern-day Belgium) are considered separately but, as this module shows, much is to be gained by considering them together. It examines art in these regions in the fifteenth century, a period usually described as the 'Early Renaissance'. On this module you will look at developments, especially in Florence, initiated by the 'founders', according to Giorgio Vasari (Lives, 1550; 1568), of the Renaissance, such as Donatello, Ghiberti and Masaccio, alongside comparable innovations that occurred at around the same time in the Netherlands in the works of Robert Campin, Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden and others, whose accomplishments were virtually overlooked by Vasari. The module considers the art of these regions in parallel, exploring differences as well as commonalities and, crucially, how these came about.

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AHV2026: Revolutions! Art and Society in France, 1770-1830

From the arms of David’s Horatii Brothers, raised up to swear upon their swords eternal allegiance to the fatherland, to the raised arm of Delacroix’s Liberty as she leads the people of Paris forwards into battle, revolutionary action dominated both the art and the politics of France between 1770 and 1830. Spanning the Bourbon monarchy, the Revolution of 1789, the Directory, the Consulate, the Napoleonic Empire, the Hundred Days, the Bourbon Restoration, and the Revolution of 1830, this violent period of political and cultural upheaval witnessed extraordinary transformations in art’s purpose and audience. These transformations included everything from the ‘death’ (and subsequent rebirth) of the French Academy and of history painting, to the growing influence of popular art and contemporary politics on academic work, to the increasing intermediality of Revolutionary expression, to a radical rethinking of portraiture. This course, whose major primary sources will be images and which will engage heavily in visual analysis, seeks not to trace stylistic changes in the abstract (eg. Rococo to Neoclassicism), but rather to look closely at the relationship between artistic and social change. We will consider not only political and institutional pressures upon artists but also the ways art offered shifting constructions of gender, sexuality, race, slavery, nation, and empire during this time.

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AHV2027: The Dutch Golden Age

The view of the age of Rembrandt and Vermeer as a singular time of unrivalled peace, prosperity and creativity has framed discussions of Dutch art since the seventeenth century. This module examines the Dutch ‘Golden Age’ (c. 1580-1700) through the narratives used to construct its history from the seventeenth century to the present day. We will consider Dutch visual culture within a conceptual framework defined by three broad themes—nationalism, exceptionalism, and cultural change in the early modern period—through which we will examine a range of subjects including print culture, painting and architecture. The first five lectures provide a solid grounding in Dutch art of this period and explore the theme of the 'golden age'. The second five lectures examine the narrative of Dutch exceptionalism in four key areas: the economy, gender, race, and the reception of two of the most famous artists of this period, Rembrandt and Vermeer. We will examine the visual culture of this period from a broad viewpoint, considering theoretical and historiographical frameworks throughout.

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AHV2300Z: The New York Avant-Garde 1955-1980

This module will introduce the principal movements of the North American Avant-Garde of this period. The module will engage with the interdisciplinary nature of these innovations, including time-based art, installation, site-specific art, sculpture, painting, performance, experimental music and video. This module will be supported by a visits to specified on-line to relevant exhibitions. The module requires no prior knowledge or skills and is open to anyone with an interest in post-war North American art.

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EAS2037: Comics Studies: Histories, Methodologies, Genres

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EAS2089: Creative Industries: Their Past, Our Future

Creative Industries: Their Past, Our Future tracks the profound changes that the creative industries have gone through during the 20th and early 21st centuries. The module, which focuses on the publishing industry, museums, film and theatre, looks at how each of these industries has become increasingly focused on 'users', tracking how the industries have worked with emergent technologies, including social media and AI, to shape new forms of engagement; how they have widened participation and redefined access; reinvented values (aesthetic, economic, social); and dealt with generational and social divides.

You will learn about how the creative industries operate as organisations; how they design their relationships to readerships, visitors and audiences; how they use a range of technologies to reach out to different communities; how they produce novel forms of aesthetic, social, and economic value; and how they usually operate through shrinking budgets.

The module requires no prior knowledge or skills and is open to anyone with an interest in the current and future developments of the creative industries.

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MLF2066: Intimate Spaces of the French Enlightenment

This module focuses on eighteenth-century France, when privacy and private life came to have particular cultural significance. Literature, painting, interior spaces, and artefacts contain clues and give access to private worlds of the past. They enable us to understand the lives lived by individuals, households and families, as well as wider social structures, behaviours and beliefs.

We will begin with an examination of the Rococo domestic interior as a site of intimacy and eroticism. We will then consider the promotion of family values as part of civic identity in the Enlightenment period, and the ways in which these domestic ideals were problematised by artists and writers. We will conclude with an examination of Enlightenment notions of the self and the cultivation of interiority through leisure activities such as walking and reading.

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MLM2003: Chinoiserie and Européenerie: Artistic and cultural exchanges between China and Europe

Living in the global world of the 21st century, we do not always recognise how exchanges between China and Europe have long been shaping the art and culture we enjoy today. This module on Chinoiserie and Européenerie will introduce you to the diverse hybrid forms of material culture and artefacts such as porcelain, interior décor, gardens, fashion and mapping in both Europe and China since the 1600s. You will learn about the fascinating stories of how hybrid forms of material culture and artefacts evolved through the processes of Chinese-European exchange. You will understand the significance of these hybridities in both personal and social contexts. No pre-requisite modules are needed.

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HAS3999: Study Abroad

The Study Abroad programme enables you to undertake a year-long study placement at a partner university outside of the UK, as part of your degree programme.

This module serves as the administrative mechanism for recording the Study Abroad assessment results of students within the Faculty of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (HASS). Students participating in the Study Abroad programme and based in a HASS department (except for the Law School, the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, Modern Languages, and the School of Education) will be registered on this module during their Study Abroad placement year.

The Study Abroad programme widens the range of modules available to you during Stage 3 of your degree programme; enables you to broaden your academic horizons by studying in a different learning culture and (where relevant and appropriate) in languages other than English; and aims to promote resilience, independence, cultural awareness, and communication skills.

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HAS3998: Employment Experience

This module allows you to undertake and to learn from an extended work placement during the third year of a four year “with Employment Experience” programme. You will use one or more work placements to gain skills that equip you to work in the employment market and to improve your knowledge of the work environment. You are encouraged to think about the intercultural competence and the employability skills that you acquire during your year.

To progress to this module, you will have secured a suitable placement for a minimum of 26 weeks.

Having developed the skills necessary to find relevant roles and apply for roles in the graduate labour market, this is an invaluable opportunity to develop work-related skills and experience that will further enhance your success in the graduate labour market and support your future career choices.

During your placement year you will be supported by the Module Convenor and Placement Team.

The module assessment structure provides opportunity and support for you to evaluate your skills and achievements using personal development techniques.  You will also write an Employer Report to showpiece the culmination of your academic and business skills.

This module aims to:

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AHV3000: Art History and Visual Culture Dissertation

The dissertation is an independent research project which enables you to produce a piece of work that is self-selected, rather than prescribed. It highlights your ability to work autonomously, identifying a topic, articulating the relevant issue(s) that in your view require analysis and devising a plan of work that is largely self-managed. The skills you have learnt over the course of your degree programme are a very good preparation for this, not only because you will have a broad understanding of the field of Art History and Visual Culture, but also because you have worked with a variety of research methodologies and, by now, should be in a position to produce a dissertation that is not only responsive to the best current thinking in the field but also demonstrates your commitment to a specific approach. You will receive guidance from a supervisor and receive support through a series of workshops and seminars. The dissertation module teaches you time management skills and gives you the flexibility to devise and follow your own research questions, extending your knowledge in a specialism which you have particularly enjoyed.

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