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Taught Masters Programme

MLITT IN VISUAL CULTURE

The taught M.Litt in Visual Culture, affiliated with the Centre for Modern Thought reflects the diverse interests of faculty and students participating in visual studies at the University of Aberdeen. It is divided into two tracks: one designed to engage with critical thinking (the history of art and film criticism, theories of the visual, philosophies of perception and new media); and the other concentrating on creativity and media production (internationally acclaimed filmmakers and artists advise on filmmaking, and courses are taught in film production). The programme allows students to tailor their course of study to their own needs and interests, and the dissertation offers an opportunity to pursue a particular interest in-depth, providing a springboard to further
research.

COURSE STRUCTURE

In semester one, all students take a core course, which combine up-to-the minute issues in the field with relevant research methods: Current Debates and Controversies in the Visual Arts and the Digital Humanities. In addition, students on the critical thinking track take either Contemporary Film and Visual Art Theory or 20th Century Avant-Gardes, while students on the production track take Documentary and Visual Practice 1. All students also have the option of taking a Fieldwork course run by History of Art, involving gallery work in Paris. In the second semester, students take a second core course: Art Matters: the Power of the Aesthetic, which combines the study of the role assigned to art in the work of key twentieth century thinkers with advanced research skills. In addition, students take a specialized option from a range of courses on offer, including the advanced seminar in Modern Thought. Students on the production track take Documentary and Visual Practice 2 as their elective course. In this semester, the Fieldwork course is again open to Visual Culture students, involving gallery work in London. All students take courses worth 60 credits in each semester.

Assessment methods vary from course to course but will include essays, reports, presentations and the creation of a virtual exhibition. MLitt students are required to write a dissertation of 15,000 words in English.

CORE COURSES

FS5013 Current Debates and Controversies in Visual Culture and the Digital Humanities
This course explores current debates and controversies in Visual Culture through the study of key articles in leading journals. The course will examine contemporary writing in a range of fields, such as Art Theory, Anthropology, Fine Art, Design, Architecture, Museum Studies, Film Studies, the New Media and Music. It will also include instruction in the key professional skills of presenting work in written form to a specialist academic audience, in accessing library and other relevant resources, and practical training in gathering information and presenting research in visual culture, focusing on the possibilities offered by new technology. As part of the course, students will produce a design brief for an online exhibition.

FS5511: Art Matters: the Power of the Aesthetic
This team-taught course explore the central role of the aesthetic in modern thought through a series of case studies and close contextual readings of key works by leading modern theorists, such as Heidegger, Benjamin and Adorno. The course aims to question the role of art in modern thought, demonstrating how a number of leading modern theorists set out to think through the power of the aesthetic. In many cases, the ideas presented will be illuminated through the examination of works of art, including fine art, music, poetry and architecture.

ELECTIVE COURSES

FS5014 Contemporary Film and Visual Art Theory
This will introduce students to the study of key theoretical texts in contemporary visual art, drawing on the work of prominent figures in the field such as Alpers, Amerika, Bann, Barthes, Baxendal, Bois, Burgen, Bryson, Casetti, Kenneth Clark, TJ Clark, Crary, Danto, Deleuze, Foster, Fried, Grau, Greenberg, Krauss, Lyotard, Metz, Phelan, Pollack, Nochlin, Ranciere, Sekula, Vidler and Weibel. The course will relate these theoretical positions to works of contemporary visual art, and physical and virtual exhibitions, drawing on fieldwork undertaken in galleries and museums.

FS5010 20th Century Avant-Garde
Students will be introduced to a wide variety of works from the artistic avant-garde of the 20th century, as well as to a range of theoretical approaches to this tradition. Like the avant-garde itself the course will be decidedly multi-medial (we will study literature, film, art…) and international. The course will be structured around two axes: one concerned with ‘avant-garde formalism(s)’, another concerned with ‘avant-garde ideologies’; consequently, the main focus will be the relation between formalism and ideology.

FS5012 Documentary and Visual Practice I
This course will allow students to engage in documentary and visual art production, putting into practice methodologies they have studied through a series of screenings, workshops, seminar discussions, and practical work.  Students will research a topic, film it on digital video, complete the project through post-production and analyse the process applied.

FS5510 From Contested Pasts to the Global Digital: Photography in Spain and Latin America
The first section of the course will map out the development of photography in the Hispanic world from the 20th century to contemporary times. The main themes explored by the course will be: the tensions between tradition and modernisation as explored by contemporary Spanish photography, the relationship between the Old and New World in photography (particularly in landscapes and portraits), the relationship between memory and photography, photography and the archive, the impact of social changes on photography and the relationship between local and global. In the second section of the course ZoneZero, the digital platform created by the photographer Pedro Meyer, will be studied from the perspective of the global digital and how new forms of production and exchange have revolutionised the photographic medium. In the final section of the course there will be a practical element as an optional component that can be included in the extended essay as case study.

FS5512 Documentary and Visual Practice 2
Building on the knowledge and skills acquired through ‘Documentary and Visual Practice 1’ while requiring a greater degree of practical and conceptual sophistication, this course will allow students to engage in documentary and visual art production, putting into practice a methodology they have studied through a series of screenings, seminar discussions and practical work.  Students will research a topic, film it on digital video, complete the project through post-production and analyse the process applied.

FR5518 Comparative Imperialisms
This course examines the relationship between writing, memory and identity, focusing in particular on the following core topics: theory and practice of autobiography and testimony; questions of gender, sexuality and ethnicity; psychoanalytic theories and approaches.
These questions are addressed in a range of European and postcolonial contexts, through the close analysis of texts available for study either in the original or in English translation, as befits the academic background of individual students.

AT5508 Curating an Exhibition
This course will afford students the opportunity to work with Aberdeen's extensive museum archival and rare book collections to design and execute an exhibition with both a physical and virtual presence.

SO5519 Sex, Gender, Violence: Critical Approaches
This course investigates the ways people think about, understand, and respond to violence. How do we know what counts as violence or a violence act? Why does legislation against violence often seem inadequate, perhaps especially in the case of gendered and sexual violence? As the links between sex, gender and violence appear intimate and often lethal, a central but not exclusive focus of this course will be on theories and practices of sex/gender. We will focus on specific texts, for example Zizek’s 'Violence: Six Sideways Reflections' (2009, Profile Books) throughout the course. We will consider how violence is represented, for example in media representations of conflicts, or in popular culture such as films. We will also analyze legislative attempts to deal with violence for example in the arena of human rights and gender mainstreaming. Furthermore, we will pay close attention to the brutal fecundity of violence through the banality of every‐day ordinary violence. This will be a seminar class with the emphasis on student led participation and discussion rather than lectures.

HA5504 Imaging Scottish History: Art, Museums and Visual Culture
Through a study of works of art, museum objects/collections, archaeological sites/landscapes and art/artefacts in situ, the creation of divergent identities for Scotland through presentations of history will be examined. The intellectual and aesthetic concerns inherent in the development of these identities and in the creation of these works will be considered.

EL5552 Modern Thought Seminar
This is a high-level interdisciplinary seminar that brings together staff and students in a challenging and supportive intellectual environment to discuss texts of broad interest. It is led by core staff in the Centre for Modern Thought. The topic for 2008/09 has still to be finalised.

N.B. Not all elective and optional courses run every year.

WHO WILL TAKE THIS DEGREE?

It is anticipated that this degree will recruit a rich and diverse mix of students from a multiplicity of fields, equipping them to pursue further study in one or more of the many areas to which issues of visuality, images and spaces are central.

Students can take this programme as a diploma, a stand-alone one-year full-time or two year part-time Masters degree (but immigration regulations prevent overseas students from studying part-time), or as a first step towards an M.Phil. or Ph.D. (subject to admission to a Ph.D. programme either at Aberdeen or elsewhere).

The subject is likely to appeal to those who wish to create a solid foundation on which to build a Ph.D research proposal, and to those who wish to continue to work with images and spaces in their subsequent careers, either in academia or elsewhere.

ENTRANCE REQUIREMENTS

The standard entrance requirement is a good first degree in a topic of relevance to Visual Culture (normally such subjects as Art History, English, Film Studies, Media Studies, Modern Languages, Sociology, Anthropology or Theatre Studies), normally at a 2.i level or at a level deemed equivalent. Non-native speakers of English need to have a minimum of IELTS at 6.5, or TOEFL at 580.

Applicants with non-standard qualifications will also be considered, though it is anticipated that typical international students will be recent graduates from overseas with above-average competence in English.

COST

Full-time British nationals and students from European Union countries pay £3,400 (10/11) per annum in postgraduate fees and part-time £1,700 (10/11).  Students from non-EU countries pay £9,715 (10/11) per annum. Accommodation and food would be expected to cost between £5K and £8K per year.  Books and excursions will also cost extra.

GRANTS AND SCHOLARSHIPS FOR STUDY AT ABERDEEN

The College of Arts and Social Sciences offers a limited number of awards to assist with fees. Details are available via the website:
www.abdn.ac.uk/cass

Scottish students with a first class honours degree may apply to the Carnegie Trust:
www.carnegie.org.uk

The AHRC will provide fees and maintenance for UK students and fees only for European Union students:
www.ahrc.ac.uk

ORS: The Overseas Research Student Scheme makes awards competitively to outstanding non-EU nationals undertaking a research degree, usually a PhD, and lowers the fees payable to British levels.  Taking the MLitt in Visual Culture may enhance a student’s chance of obtaining funding towards a PhD at the end of their MLitt course.  See ORS website:
www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/ORS

WHAT IF I DO NOT WANT TO WRITE A DISSERTATION?

Students who attend and satisfactorily complete all compulsory and optional courses, but who do not write a dissertation, will be awarded a Diploma in Visual Culture.

WHERE DO I OBTAIN FURTHER INFORMATION AND AN APPLICATION FORM?

For further information and an application form
contact:

Dr. Janet Stewart
Programme Co-ordinator
MLitt in Visual Culture
School of Language & Literature
King’s College
Aberdeen  AB24 3UB
Scotland
United Kingdom

Tel: +44 (0) 1224 272488
Fax: +44 (0) 1224 272624
E-mail: j.stewart@abdn.ac.uk
www.abdn.ac.uk/visualculutre

See also http://www.abdn.ac.uk/prospectus/pgrad/

Application forms are also available at: http://www.abdn.ac.uk/postgraduate/apply.php