Undergraduate Art History 2025-2026

Collecting, like art-making, is a universal human activity. This introductory course takes you on a journey through the history of collecting, from early modern cabinets of curiosities, over the origins of the modern art museum, to questions of curation in the digital age. We will explore how changing modes of display affect our perception and understanding of artworks. The course also addresses key debates on the practice and ethics of museums, on restitution and decolonisation.

This course explores art history in the Western world from antiquity to the nineteenth century. We examine the artistic production of distinct historical periods, with reference to their social, religious, political and cultural contexts, and consider art history’s use of specific labels and chronologies, from Classical and Medieval, to Renaissance, Baroque, and Romantic art.

This course discusses key works and movements in the history of art from c. 1800 to today. It serves as an introduction to one of the most dynamic and multifaceted chapters in art history. Topics to be discussed may range from the Pre-Raphaelites and the rise of abstraction to contemporary performance art. The course will also consider the global intersections of Western art, aiming to de-centre our understanding of what counts as 'modern'

This course provides an introduction to the history and theory of fashion, one of the most dynamic, intriguing and influential artforms. From premodern tailoring to contemporary pret-a-porter, costume design and creative subcultures: the course surveys a wide range of ever-changing fashion trends, and asks what they tell us about identities, aesthetics, and popular culture.

‘Art’ is a controversial category. In museums, you might see urinals and cardboard boxes exhibited – but what earns them this accolade? Is it about skill? Creativity? Beauty? Who decides what counts as ‘good’ art? And why are museums full of stuff made by white men? This course discusses these and related questions. It will introduce you to a wide range of historical definitions of art, and discuss key works, from antiquity to Instagram - many of which challenged the boundaries of ‘art’.   

This course focuses on how artworks are made. Students will be introduced to a wide range of materials, techniques and processes over the centuries relating to paintings, prints, drawings, sculpture, photography and more. Each method and material will be examined using case-study examples, with discussion opening out to issues of the agency of materials and media and their cultural logics. In doing so, students will learn how artistic intentions are shaped and determined by material qualities.

This course focuses on the theory and practice of curation, making use of the internationally renowned University Museums and Special collections, which include artworks and material culture from the earliest times to the present day. The course comprises a series of seminars covering topics, including museum and exhibition history, object selection, exhibition texts and education, which prepare the ground for student curatorial teams to design an exhibition proposal. The course is assessed by portfolio work, a presentation and a position paper. It is co-taught by Art History and Museums and Special Collections. 

This course focuses on representations of the male body in nineteenth-century art, from Neoclassicism over the Pre-Raphaelites to fin-de-siècle art. Subjects discussed range from ideals of androgynous beauty and Romantic ‘friendship’, to Orientalism, desire and perversion. We will discuss how the male body was aestheticised, sexualised and politicised in new ways – through close study of selected artworks, but also through engagement with recent critical theory.

When a print is made, the same image and the same visual information can be reproduced multiple times. This course engages with a range of printmaking techniques across a period of five hundred years, to investigate how and why people have created, commissioned, and collected prints, including political caricatures, Japanese ukiyo-e woodcuts, Victorian magazine illustrations and contemporary linocuts.

Performance art broke the mould of what it means to make and experience art. Often referred to as the Live Arts, this encompasses live readings, costume design and installation, from the spontaneous to the durational. Foregrounding body and audience, the course explores performance art in all its guises as a political arena. Attention is given to theoretical texts that have articulated performance practices and their critical aftermath, e.g. photography, archival footage and fiction.

This course focuses on the in-depth exploration of a specific topic in the history of art and archaeology of the classical world and its afterlives in later art history. We will explore the reception and influence of classical art and culture in the early modern world, with a particular focus on how female figures from classical art, history and mythology were reimag(in)ed and reanimated in this later period to construct - and contest - ideas about gender.

This course focuses on representations of the male body in nineteenth-century art, from Neoclassicism over the Pre-Raphaelites to fin-de-siècle art. Subjects discussed range from ideals of androgynous beauty and Romantic ‘friendship’, to Orientalism, desire and perversion. We will discuss how the male body was aestheticised, sexualised and politicised in new ways – through close study of selected artworks, but also through engagement with recent critical theory.

This course focuses on the physical and social contexts for the production and consumption of works of art and architecture. At the core of this course is a subsidised fieldtrip to a European city, allowing for an in-depth study of the urban contexts of art across time. Seminars and the fieldtrip will discuss themes such as urbanism, the specificities of public and private, sacred and profane spaces, and histories of collecting.

When a print is made, the same image and the same visual information can be reproduced multiple times. This course engages with a range of printmaking techniques across a period of five hundred years, to investigate how and why people have created, commissioned, and collected prints, including political caricatures, Japanese ukiyo-e woodcuts, Victorian magazine illustrations and contemporary linocuts.

Performance art broke the mould of what it means to make and experience art. Often referred to as the Live Arts, this encompasses live readings, costume design and installation, from the spontaneous to the durational. Foregrounding body and audience, the course explores performance art in all its guises as a political arena. Attention is given to theoretical texts that have articulated performance practices and their critical aftermath, e.g. photography, archival footage and fiction.

This course focuses on the in-depth exploration of a specific topic in the history of art and archaeology of the classical world and its afterlives in later art history. We will explore the reception and influence of classical art and culture in the early modern world, with a particular focus on how female figures from classical art, history and mythology were reimag(in)ed and reanimated in this later period to construct - and contest - ideas about gender.

Your dissertation is intended to give you the opportunity to carry out a piece of sustained research on a topic of your own choice and to demonstrate to the examiners your ability to present the results of such research in a proper, scholarly manner. Your research may be of various kinds.  It may address works of art (or a single work of art) directly, through first-hand study in galleries, museums, or private collections, or it may be of a more literary kind, addressing critical or theoretical problems. Or it might involve both.