Undergraduate Art History 2026-2027

Post-war Scottish art (1950-2025) is highly political. From the 1980s “new image” painters (Ken Currie and Steven Campbell) to the 90s conceptual practice (Christine Borland and Douglas Gordon) which borrows from forensic science, psychiatry and ghost stories, Scottish artists are radical in their debunking of myth. With emphasis on public art collections and art education, gender, class and race become key factors in the critical ascendancy of Scottish contemporary art beyond mythic status.

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.

Post-war Scottish art (1950-2025) is highly political. From the 1980s “new image” painters (Ken Currie and Steven Campbell) to the 90s conceptual practice (Christine Borland and Douglas Gordon) which borrows from forensic science, psychiatry and ghost stories, Scottish artists are radical in their debunking of myth. With emphasis on public art collections and art education, gender, class and race become key factors in the critical ascendancy of Scottish contemporary art beyond mythic status.

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.