Film, Visual Culture and Arts Management, _{MLitt, PgCert or PgDip}

Semester 1

You will take the core course in Film and Visual Culture: FS5022 Research Methods in Film and Visual Culture along with EL5096 Public Engagement for the Arts. These courses will introduce you to the main methods to approach both research and practice in the arts, and methods for engaging the wider public in arts and cultural events. It involves projects and assessments that prepare you for real work in the industry, as well as further research.

Compulsory Courses

Students must take the following:

Research Methods in Film and Visual Culture (FS5022)

30 Credit Points

This team-taught course will introduce students to key research methods in the field of film and visual culture as utilised in the research and practice of faculty members in the department. Each week students will engage with a range of written and visual materials relating to a specific approach to the study and/or production of visual culture. These may include: approaches to working with living artists and documents of ephemeral art; theories of the animal gaze; approaches to practice-as-research; documentary; memory and memorialisation; the relationship between film, art and history; close reading; bricolage; walking; intermediality; and projects in art and science among others. Throughout the course students will explore important theoretical concepts and artistic paradigms in these areas, applying them in weekly exercises and seminar preparations, and ultimately using one (or more) of them in their assessed work.

Detailed course information

Optional Courses

Select ONE of the following:

Museums and the Digital World (AT5050)

30 Credit Points

Given the expanding use of the Internet and new media forms, museums are re-evaluating their relationships with their audiences as well as their relationships with collections. This course introduces students to a wide range of digital technologies as they relate to museums e.g., online exhibitions, smart phone apps, and 3D imagery. Students will examine the impact and consequences of using digital approaches, and the implications for museums and their users of these rapidly changing technologies.

Detailed course information

The Novel: Environments and Encounters (EL50C5)

30 Credit Points

This module explores how the evolution of the novel form has allowed, and required, authors to find new ways of depicting spaces, places and interactions (between characters in particular environments, but also between characters and their environment). This chronologically wide-ranging course moves from the early days of the novel form through to contemporary fiction, allowing for an opportunity to study the many literary tactics that authors have employed to create the settings for their works – from vast historical backdrops, to natural spaces, to urban environments, to smaller domestic and private places. It also us to consider how different cultural moments have prompted authors to rethink how they represent characters’ encounters with the world around them, and with the other cultures, races, species and genders that inhabit that world. As well as narrative theories, students will have the chance to study canonical and less well-known texts from angles informed by current critical approaches such as ecocriticism, animal studies, postcolonial and queer theory.

Detailed course information

Fundamentals of English Language (EL50D2)

30 Credit Points

This core course introduces students to advanced study of the English language. Three key aspects of the structure of English are introduced: the sound patterns of English (phonology); the structure of English words (morphology) and the structure of sentences (syntax). We then consider the relationship between the semantic meaning of linguistic constructions and their pragmatic implications. The course will enable students to refer confidently to the structure and use of the English language in their own research projects, whether the focus is literary or linguistic.

Detailed course information

Work - Based Placement in Film, Visual Culture, Music (FS5032)

30 Credit Points

Students will gain practical experience in the film industry and/or visual culture organisations, providing real work experience in preparation for the next steps following their degree.

Detailed course information

Contemporary Issues in Aesthetics (MU5016)

30 Credit Points

This course will introduce students to the work of key contemporary texts in aesthetics relating to music and the other arts. Texts will be studied, discussed and related to one another. While selected texts will vary from year to year, readings will be taken from writers such as Adorno, Badiou, Benjamin, Barthes, Bloch, Boulez, Deleuze (and Guattari), Dahlhaus, Derrida, Dufrenne, Eco, Gadamer, Habermas, Heidegger, Husserl, Jameson, Jencks, Lachenmann, Lyotard, Nancy, Nietzsche, Rancière, Rihm, Sartre, Schoenberg, Serres, Sloterdijk, Spivak, Stockhausen, Vattimo, Wittgenstein, Zizek.

Examples of issues and questions that may be covered include the nature of modernity, post-modernity more idiosyncratic variable theorisations of recent aesthetic history; the nature and purpose of the contemporary artwork; the beautiful and the sublime; relationships between the arts; the materiality of contemporary art forms; musique informelle.

Detailed course information

MLitt Special Study in Film and Visual Culture (FS5026)

30 Credit Points

This course is designed to allow the creation of a programme of individual study where other appropriate course options at masters level are not available. It will run at the discretion of the programme co-ordinator. In discussion with a designated supervisor students will be able to identify and design a programme of research and study, which may include the completion of an undergraduate course, with assessments appropriate to masters-level work, or which may be consist of a short programme of research conducted over one semester. This programme of study will be subject to approval by the convener of the relevant M.Litt programme. Where appropriate courses at masters level are available, this course will not run.

Detailed course information

Semester 2

You will take the core course in Film and Visual Culture: FS5527: Projects in Film and Visual Culture and one option course. Normally the optional course will be FS5525 Work-based Placement in Film and Visual Culture, offering you first-hand experience working in the field, or FS5526 Special Study in Film and Visual Culture, where you will either develop your own project or reflect on your own current practice if you are already working in the industry.

You may also choose to study one of the additional courses that is running, listed in Optional Courses section.

Compulsory Courses

Students must undertake the following:

Projects in Film and Visual Culture (FS5527)

30 Credit Points

Projects in Film and Visual Culture gives students the opportunity to design a project or event in response to a Call for Proposals. In this way, the course simulates the management and development of project or event proposal through to a funding pitch (in the form of an assessed presentation) and will require students to address a variety of elements necessary to any successful arts project. The course is taught through weekly seminars and workshops. Students will engage with a variety of projects in film and visual culture in the form of case studies, including work produced by leading Scottish arts organisations. These content weeks are supplemented by sessions devoted to theory and workshops that will address the key aspects involved in designing a project or event in a film and visual culture context.

Detailed course information

Optional Courses

Select ONE of the following:

The Museum Idea (AT5526)

30 Credit Points

Why do human beings collect and what is the purpose of museums? ‘The Museum Idea’ examines these questions by focusing on the history and philosophy of museums and relating these to contemporary museum practice. The course will examine the role of museums in society through case studies of exhibitions and other museum projects in a variety of settings, including art, history and ethnographic museums.

Detailed course information

Public Engagement for Arts (EL5596)

30 Credit Points

Art and culture are integral to our daily lives, and the ways in which these are experienced are continually changing. Whether it is in a street performance, a public gallery, an academic festival, a webcast, a documentary or in social media, the relationship between the creative artist and those who consume it, is complex and can itself be a creative process. This course explores the many ways in which creative materials can be brought to public view, and how different forms of communication, aural, verbal and visual, can enhance public engagement with aesthetic experiences and the discourses around these.

Detailed course information

Infinite Scotlands: Scotland and the Literary Imagination (EL55C7)

30 Credit Points

This course explores the ways in which place is negotiated in a range of Scottish texts. Looking at a selection of texts about rural, urban, and diasporic experience across the centuries, and including both canonical and lesser-known works, this course will acquaint students with key debates in the study of regional and national fiction. Place in these texts is something to be praised and scorned, embraced and abandoned, but always remains central in any discussion of individual and communal identities. Major themes and issues to be discussed include: the idea of ‘home’; the role of nostalgia and longing in Scottish fiction; the nature of community; the significance of emigration and displacement.

Detailed course information

Places and Environments: Critical Dialogues (EL55D3)

30 Credit Points

This course introduces students to a range of critical, theoretical, and philosophical approaches to environment and place, as well as aligned research methods. Students will read key works of ecocriticism, ecofeminism, environmental philosophy, cultural geography, and related areas. Close reading and discussion of central texts will provide a foundation for further research, including the dissertation. Students will have the opportunity to discuss these ideas in relation to both literary and social contexts. This course is restricted to students on the MLitt Literatures, Environments, and Places, or by permission of the School.

Detailed course information

Documentary Theory and Practice (FS5533)

30 Credit Points

The module offers a comprehensive look at how documentary has interrogated, and in some rare cases even influenced, politics, social values, and even popular culture. Students will be expected to look at how documentary filmmakers have built upon the famous Griersonian quote – ‘the creative treatment of actuality’ – to evolve the form’s style and scope as well as to challenge the very notion of filmic truth and reality. Attendees to the module will also learn how to identify the key documentary modes and be expected to analyse and understand how the movement’s use of transgressive visual images, no matter how apparently ‘genuine’, is frequently presented through a cinematic perspective that is not always objective. Furthermore, the module will require students to produce a short documentary or individual video essay (in documentary form) and, in doing so, explore the challenges of objective presentations.

Detailed course information

Work - Based Placement in Film, Visual Culture, Music (FS5532)

30 Credit Points

Students will gain practical experience in the film industry and/or visual culture organisations, providing real work experience in preparation for the next steps following their degree.

Detailed course information

MLitt Special Study in Film and Visual Culture (FS5526)

30 Credit Points

This course is designed to allow the creation of a programme of individual study where other appropriate course options at masters level are not available. It will run at the discretion of the programme co-ordinator. In discussion with a designated supervisor students will be able to identify and design a programme of research and study, which may include the completion of an undergraduate course, with assessments appropriate to masters-level work, or which may be consist of a short programme of research conducted over one semester. This programme of study will be subject to approval by the convener of the relevant M.Litt programme. Where appropriate courses at masters level are available, this course will not run.

Detailed course information

Semester 3

Over the summer you will undertake a dissertation in Film and Visual Culture. This can be a research paper, a reflective research paper combined with a work-based placement, or a research-led practice-based project, such as a film, exhibition, or other arts project.

Compulsory Courses

Dissertation in Film and Visual Culture (FS5902)

60 Credit Points

Candidates will be required to research and write a 12,000-word dissertation on a subject and in an area approved by the Programme Co-ordinator.

Detailed course information

Programme Fees

Fee information

Fee category	Cost
EU / International students	£23,800
Tuition Fees for 2023/24 Academic Year
Home / RUK	£11,077
Tuition Fees for 2023/24 Academic Year

Semester 1

Those starting the degree in January should be advised that they will complete the dissertation over the summer and finish the programme with the Semester 3 selection of courses. Taught courses do not run in the summer. Students wishing to do their dissertation at the end of the programme should consider starting their study from September.

You will take the core course in Film and Visual Culture: FS5527: Projects in Film and Visual Culture and one option course. Normally the optional course will be FS5525 Work-based Placement in Film and Visual Culture, offering you first-hand experience working in the field, or FS5526 Special Study in Film and Visual Culture, where you will either develop your own project or reflect on your own current practice if you are already working in the industry.

You may also choose to study one of the additional courses that is running, listed in Optional Courses section.

Compulsory Courses

Projects in Film and Visual Culture (FS5527)

30 Credit Points

Projects in Film and Visual Culture gives students the opportunity to design a project or event in response to a Call for Proposals. In this way, the course simulates the management and development of project or event proposal through to a funding pitch (in the form of an assessed presentation) and will require students to address a variety of elements necessary to any successful arts project. The course is taught through weekly seminars and workshops. Students will engage with a variety of projects in film and visual culture in the form of case studies, including work produced by leading Scottish arts organisations. These content weeks are supplemented by sessions devoted to theory and workshops that will address the key aspects involved in designing a project or event in a film and visual culture context.

Detailed course information

Optional Courses

Select ONE from the following:

The Museum Idea (AT5526)

30 Credit Points

Why do human beings collect and what is the purpose of museums? ‘The Museum Idea’ examines these questions by focusing on the history and philosophy of museums and relating these to contemporary museum practice. The course will examine the role of museums in society through case studies of exhibitions and other museum projects in a variety of settings, including art, history and ethnographic museums.

Detailed course information

Public Engagement for Arts (EL5596)

30 Credit Points

Art and culture are integral to our daily lives, and the ways in which these are experienced are continually changing. Whether it is in a street performance, a public gallery, an academic festival, a webcast, a documentary or in social media, the relationship between the creative artist and those who consume it, is complex and can itself be a creative process. This course explores the many ways in which creative materials can be brought to public view, and how different forms of communication, aural, verbal and visual, can enhance public engagement with aesthetic experiences and the discourses around these.

Detailed course information

Infinite Scotlands: Scotland and the Literary Imagination (EL55C7)

30 Credit Points

This course explores the ways in which place is negotiated in a range of Scottish texts. Looking at a selection of texts about rural, urban, and diasporic experience across the centuries, and including both canonical and lesser-known works, this course will acquaint students with key debates in the study of regional and national fiction. Place in these texts is something to be praised and scorned, embraced and abandoned, but always remains central in any discussion of individual and communal identities. Major themes and issues to be discussed include: the idea of ‘home’; the role of nostalgia and longing in Scottish fiction; the nature of community; the significance of emigration and displacement.

Detailed course information

Places and Environments: Critical Dialogues (EL55D3)

30 Credit Points

This course introduces students to a range of critical, theoretical, and philosophical approaches to environment and place, as well as aligned research methods. Students will read key works of ecocriticism, ecofeminism, environmental philosophy, cultural geography, and related areas. Close reading and discussion of central texts will provide a foundation for further research, including the dissertation. Students will have the opportunity to discuss these ideas in relation to both literary and social contexts. This course is restricted to students on the MLitt Literatures, Environments, and Places, or by permission of the School.

Detailed course information

Documentary Theory and Practice (FS5533)

30 Credit Points

The module offers a comprehensive look at how documentary has interrogated, and in some rare cases even influenced, politics, social values, and even popular culture. Students will be expected to look at how documentary filmmakers have built upon the famous Griersonian quote – ‘the creative treatment of actuality’ – to evolve the form’s style and scope as well as to challenge the very notion of filmic truth and reality. Attendees to the module will also learn how to identify the key documentary modes and be expected to analyse and understand how the movement’s use of transgressive visual images, no matter how apparently ‘genuine’, is frequently presented through a cinematic perspective that is not always objective. Furthermore, the module will require students to produce a short documentary or individual video essay (in documentary form) and, in doing so, explore the challenges of objective presentations.

Detailed course information

Work - Based Placement in Film, Visual Culture, Music (FS5532)

30 Credit Points

Students will gain practical experience in the film industry and/or visual culture organisations, providing real work experience in preparation for the next steps following their degree.

Detailed course information

MLitt Special Study in Film and Visual Culture (FS5526)

30 Credit Points

This course is designed to allow the creation of a programme of individual study where other appropriate course options at masters level are not available. It will run at the discretion of the programme co-ordinator. In discussion with a designated supervisor students will be able to identify and design a programme of research and study, which may include the completion of an undergraduate course, with assessments appropriate to masters-level work, or which may be consist of a short programme of research conducted over one semester. This programme of study will be subject to approval by the convener of the relevant M.Litt programme. Where appropriate courses at masters level are available, this course will not run.

Detailed course information

Semester 2

Over the summer you will undertake a dissertation in Film and Visual Culture. This can be a research paper, a reflective research paper combined with a work-based placement, or a research-led practice-based project, such as a film, exhibition, or other arts project.

Compulsory Courses

Dissertation in Film and Visual Culture (FS5902)

60 Credit Points

Candidates will be required to research and write a 12,000-word dissertation on a subject and in an area approved by the Programme Co-ordinator.

Detailed course information

Semester 3

Compulsory Courses

Research Methods in Film and Visual Culture (FS5022)

30 Credit Points

This team-taught course will introduce students to key research methods in the field of film and visual culture as utilised in the research and practice of faculty members in the department. Each week students will engage with a range of written and visual materials relating to a specific approach to the study and/or production of visual culture. These may include: approaches to working with living artists and documents of ephemeral art; theories of the animal gaze; approaches to practice-as-research; documentary; memory and memorialisation; the relationship between film, art and history; close reading; bricolage; walking; intermediality; and projects in art and science among others. Throughout the course students will explore important theoretical concepts and artistic paradigms in these areas, applying them in weekly exercises and seminar preparations, and ultimately using one (or more) of them in their assessed work.

Detailed course information

Optional Courses

Select ONE of the following:

Museums and the Digital World (AT5050)

30 Credit Points

Given the expanding use of the Internet and new media forms, museums are re-evaluating their relationships with their audiences as well as their relationships with collections. This course introduces students to a wide range of digital technologies as they relate to museums e.g., online exhibitions, smart phone apps, and 3D imagery. Students will examine the impact and consequences of using digital approaches, and the implications for museums and their users of these rapidly changing technologies.

Detailed course information

The Novel: Environments and Encounters (EL50C5)

30 Credit Points

This module explores how the evolution of the novel form has allowed, and required, authors to find new ways of depicting spaces, places and interactions (between characters in particular environments, but also between characters and their environment). This chronologically wide-ranging course moves from the early days of the novel form through to contemporary fiction, allowing for an opportunity to study the many literary tactics that authors have employed to create the settings for their works – from vast historical backdrops, to natural spaces, to urban environments, to smaller domestic and private places. It also us to consider how different cultural moments have prompted authors to rethink how they represent characters’ encounters with the world around them, and with the other cultures, races, species and genders that inhabit that world. As well as narrative theories, students will have the chance to study canonical and less well-known texts from angles informed by current critical approaches such as ecocriticism, animal studies, postcolonial and queer theory.

Detailed course information

Fundamentals of English Language (EL50D2)

30 Credit Points

This core course introduces students to advanced study of the English language. Three key aspects of the structure of English are introduced: the sound patterns of English (phonology); the structure of English words (morphology) and the structure of sentences (syntax). We then consider the relationship between the semantic meaning of linguistic constructions and their pragmatic implications. The course will enable students to refer confidently to the structure and use of the English language in their own research projects, whether the focus is literary or linguistic.

Detailed course information

MLitt Special Study in Film and Visual Culture (FS5026)

30 Credit Points

This course is designed to allow the creation of a programme of individual study where other appropriate course options at masters level are not available. It will run at the discretion of the programme co-ordinator. In discussion with a designated supervisor students will be able to identify and design a programme of research and study, which may include the completion of an undergraduate course, with assessments appropriate to masters-level work, or which may be consist of a short programme of research conducted over one semester. This programme of study will be subject to approval by the convener of the relevant M.Litt programme. Where appropriate courses at masters level are available, this course will not run.

Detailed course information

Work - Based Placement in Film, Visual Culture, Music (FS5032)

30 Credit Points

Students will gain practical experience in the film industry and/or visual culture organisations, providing real work experience in preparation for the next steps following their degree.

Detailed course information

Contemporary Issues in Aesthetics (MU5016)

30 Credit Points

This course will introduce students to the work of key contemporary texts in aesthetics relating to music and the other arts. Texts will be studied, discussed and related to one another. While selected texts will vary from year to year, readings will be taken from writers such as Adorno, Badiou, Benjamin, Barthes, Bloch, Boulez, Deleuze (and Guattari), Dahlhaus, Derrida, Dufrenne, Eco, Gadamer, Habermas, Heidegger, Husserl, Jameson, Jencks, Lachenmann, Lyotard, Nancy, Nietzsche, Rancière, Rihm, Sartre, Schoenberg, Serres, Sloterdijk, Spivak, Stockhausen, Vattimo, Wittgenstein, Zizek.

Examples of issues and questions that may be covered include the nature of modernity, post-modernity more idiosyncratic variable theorisations of recent aesthetic history; the nature and purpose of the contemporary artwork; the beautiful and the sublime; relationships between the arts; the materiality of contemporary art forms; musique informelle.

Detailed course information

Programme Fees

Fee information

Fee category	Cost
EU / International students	£23,800
Tuition Fees for 2023/24 Academic Year
Home / RUK	£11,077
Tuition Fees for 2023/24 Academic Year

Stage 1

Compulsory Courses

Projects in Film and Visual Culture (FS5527)

30 Credit Points

Projects in Film and Visual Culture gives students the opportunity to design a project or event in response to a Call for Proposals. In this way, the course simulates the management and development of project or event proposal through to a funding pitch (in the form of an assessed presentation) and will require students to address a variety of elements necessary to any successful arts project. The course is taught through weekly seminars and workshops. Students will engage with a variety of projects in film and visual culture in the form of case studies, including work produced by leading Scottish arts organisations. These content weeks are supplemented by sessions devoted to theory and workshops that will address the key aspects involved in designing a project or event in a film and visual culture context.

Detailed course information

Optional Courses

Select ONE from the following options:

The Museum Idea (AT5526)

30 Credit Points

Why do human beings collect and what is the purpose of museums? ‘The Museum Idea’ examines these questions by focusing on the history and philosophy of museums and relating these to contemporary museum practice. The course will examine the role of museums in society through case studies of exhibitions and other museum projects in a variety of settings, including art, history and ethnographic museums.

Detailed course information

Public Engagement for Arts (EL5596)

30 Credit Points

Art and culture are integral to our daily lives, and the ways in which these are experienced are continually changing. Whether it is in a street performance, a public gallery, an academic festival, a webcast, a documentary or in social media, the relationship between the creative artist and those who consume it, is complex and can itself be a creative process. This course explores the many ways in which creative materials can be brought to public view, and how different forms of communication, aural, verbal and visual, can enhance public engagement with aesthetic experiences and the discourses around these.

Detailed course information

Infinite Scotlands: Scotland and the Literary Imagination (EL55C7)

30 Credit Points

This course explores the ways in which place is negotiated in a range of Scottish texts. Looking at a selection of texts about rural, urban, and diasporic experience across the centuries, and including both canonical and lesser-known works, this course will acquaint students with key debates in the study of regional and national fiction. Place in these texts is something to be praised and scorned, embraced and abandoned, but always remains central in any discussion of individual and communal identities. Major themes and issues to be discussed include: the idea of ‘home’; the role of nostalgia and longing in Scottish fiction; the nature of community; the significance of emigration and displacement.

Detailed course information

Places and Environments: Critical Dialogues (EL55D3)

30 Credit Points

This course introduces students to a range of critical, theoretical, and philosophical approaches to environment and place, as well as aligned research methods. Students will read key works of ecocriticism, ecofeminism, environmental philosophy, cultural geography, and related areas. Close reading and discussion of central texts will provide a foundation for further research, including the dissertation. Students will have the opportunity to discuss these ideas in relation to both literary and social contexts. This course is restricted to students on the MLitt Literatures, Environments, and Places, or by permission of the School.

Detailed course information

Documentary Theory and Practice (FS5533)

30 Credit Points

The module offers a comprehensive look at how documentary has interrogated, and in some rare cases even influenced, politics, social values, and even popular culture. Students will be expected to look at how documentary filmmakers have built upon the famous Griersonian quote – ‘the creative treatment of actuality’ – to evolve the form’s style and scope as well as to challenge the very notion of filmic truth and reality. Attendees to the module will also learn how to identify the key documentary modes and be expected to analyse and understand how the movement’s use of transgressive visual images, no matter how apparently ‘genuine’, is frequently presented through a cinematic perspective that is not always objective. Furthermore, the module will require students to produce a short documentary or individual video essay (in documentary form) and, in doing so, explore the challenges of objective presentations.

Detailed course information

Work - Based Placement in Film, Visual Culture, Music (FS5532)

30 Credit Points

Students will gain practical experience in the film industry and/or visual culture organisations, providing real work experience in preparation for the next steps following their degree.

Detailed course information

MLitt Special Study in Film and Visual Culture (FS5526)

30 Credit Points

This course is designed to allow the creation of a programme of individual study where other appropriate course options at masters level are not available. It will run at the discretion of the programme co-ordinator. In discussion with a designated supervisor students will be able to identify and design a programme of research and study, which may include the completion of an undergraduate course, with assessments appropriate to masters-level work, or which may be consist of a short programme of research conducted over one semester. This programme of study will be subject to approval by the convener of the relevant M.Litt programme. Where appropriate courses at masters level are available, this course will not run.

Detailed course information

Stage 2

Compulsory Courses

Research Methods in Film and Visual Culture (FS5022)

30 Credit Points

This team-taught course will introduce students to key research methods in the field of film and visual culture as utilised in the research and practice of faculty members in the department. Each week students will engage with a range of written and visual materials relating to a specific approach to the study and/or production of visual culture. These may include: approaches to working with living artists and documents of ephemeral art; theories of the animal gaze; approaches to practice-as-research; documentary; memory and memorialisation; the relationship between film, art and history; close reading; bricolage; walking; intermediality; and projects in art and science among others. Throughout the course students will explore important theoretical concepts and artistic paradigms in these areas, applying them in weekly exercises and seminar preparations, and ultimately using one (or more) of them in their assessed work.

Detailed course information

Optional Courses

Select ONE from the following:

Museums and the Digital World (AT5050)

30 Credit Points

Given the expanding use of the Internet and new media forms, museums are re-evaluating their relationships with their audiences as well as their relationships with collections. This course introduces students to a wide range of digital technologies as they relate to museums e.g., online exhibitions, smart phone apps, and 3D imagery. Students will examine the impact and consequences of using digital approaches, and the implications for museums and their users of these rapidly changing technologies.

Detailed course information

The Novel: Environments and Encounters (EL50C5)

30 Credit Points

This module explores how the evolution of the novel form has allowed, and required, authors to find new ways of depicting spaces, places and interactions (between characters in particular environments, but also between characters and their environment). This chronologically wide-ranging course moves from the early days of the novel form through to contemporary fiction, allowing for an opportunity to study the many literary tactics that authors have employed to create the settings for their works – from vast historical backdrops, to natural spaces, to urban environments, to smaller domestic and private places. It also us to consider how different cultural moments have prompted authors to rethink how they represent characters’ encounters with the world around them, and with the other cultures, races, species and genders that inhabit that world. As well as narrative theories, students will have the chance to study canonical and less well-known texts from angles informed by current critical approaches such as ecocriticism, animal studies, postcolonial and queer theory.

Detailed course information

Fundamentals of English Language (EL50D2)

30 Credit Points

This core course introduces students to advanced study of the English language. Three key aspects of the structure of English are introduced: the sound patterns of English (phonology); the structure of English words (morphology) and the structure of sentences (syntax). We then consider the relationship between the semantic meaning of linguistic constructions and their pragmatic implications. The course will enable students to refer confidently to the structure and use of the English language in their own research projects, whether the focus is literary or linguistic.

Detailed course information

MLitt Special Study in Film and Visual Culture (FS5026)

30 Credit Points

This course is designed to allow the creation of a programme of individual study where other appropriate course options at masters level are not available. It will run at the discretion of the programme co-ordinator. In discussion with a designated supervisor students will be able to identify and design a programme of research and study, which may include the completion of an undergraduate course, with assessments appropriate to masters-level work, or which may be consist of a short programme of research conducted over one semester. This programme of study will be subject to approval by the convener of the relevant M.Litt programme. Where appropriate courses at masters level are available, this course will not run.

Detailed course information

Work - Based Placement in Film, Visual Culture, Music (FS5032)

30 Credit Points

Students will gain practical experience in the film industry and/or visual culture organisations, providing real work experience in preparation for the next steps following their degree.

Detailed course information

Contemporary Issues in Aesthetics (MU5016)

30 Credit Points

This course will introduce students to the work of key contemporary texts in aesthetics relating to music and the other arts. Texts will be studied, discussed and related to one another. While selected texts will vary from year to year, readings will be taken from writers such as Adorno, Badiou, Benjamin, Barthes, Bloch, Boulez, Deleuze (and Guattari), Dahlhaus, Derrida, Dufrenne, Eco, Gadamer, Habermas, Heidegger, Husserl, Jameson, Jencks, Lachenmann, Lyotard, Nancy, Nietzsche, Rancière, Rihm, Sartre, Schoenberg, Serres, Sloterdijk, Spivak, Stockhausen, Vattimo, Wittgenstein, Zizek.

Examples of issues and questions that may be covered include the nature of modernity, post-modernity more idiosyncratic variable theorisations of recent aesthetic history; the nature and purpose of the contemporary artwork; the beautiful and the sublime; relationships between the arts; the materiality of contemporary art forms; musique informelle.

Detailed course information

Programme Fees

Fee information

Fee category	Cost
EU / International students	£15,865
Tuition Fees for 2023/24 Academic Year
Home / RUK	£7,385
Tuition Fees for 2023/24 Academic Year

Stage 1

Compulsory Courses

Projects in Film and Visual Culture (FS5527)

30 Credit Points

Projects in Film and Visual Culture gives students the opportunity to design a project or event in response to a Call for Proposals. In this way, the course simulates the management and development of project or event proposal through to a funding pitch (in the form of an assessed presentation) and will require students to address a variety of elements necessary to any successful arts project. The course is taught through weekly seminars and workshops. Students will engage with a variety of projects in film and visual culture in the form of case studies, including work produced by leading Scottish arts organisations. These content weeks are supplemented by sessions devoted to theory and workshops that will address the key aspects involved in designing a project or event in a film and visual culture context.

Detailed course information

Optional Courses

Select ONE from the following options:

The Museum Idea (AT5526)

30 Credit Points

Why do human beings collect and what is the purpose of museums? ‘The Museum Idea’ examines these questions by focusing on the history and philosophy of museums and relating these to contemporary museum practice. The course will examine the role of museums in society through case studies of exhibitions and other museum projects in a variety of settings, including art, history and ethnographic museums.

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Public Engagement for Arts (EL5596)

30 Credit Points

Art and culture are integral to our daily lives, and the ways in which these are experienced are continually changing. Whether it is in a street performance, a public gallery, an academic festival, a webcast, a documentary or in social media, the relationship between the creative artist and those who consume it, is complex and can itself be a creative process. This course explores the many ways in which creative materials can be brought to public view, and how different forms of communication, aural, verbal and visual, can enhance public engagement with aesthetic experiences and the discourses around these.

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Infinite Scotlands: Scotland and the Literary Imagination (EL55C7)

30 Credit Points

This course explores the ways in which place is negotiated in a range of Scottish texts. Looking at a selection of texts about rural, urban, and diasporic experience across the centuries, and including both canonical and lesser-known works, this course will acquaint students with key debates in the study of regional and national fiction. Place in these texts is something to be praised and scorned, embraced and abandoned, but always remains central in any discussion of individual and communal identities. Major themes and issues to be discussed include: the idea of ‘home’; the role of nostalgia and longing in Scottish fiction; the nature of community; the significance of emigration and displacement.

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Places and Environments: Critical Dialogues (EL55D3)

30 Credit Points

This course introduces students to a range of critical, theoretical, and philosophical approaches to environment and place, as well as aligned research methods. Students will read key works of ecocriticism, ecofeminism, environmental philosophy, cultural geography, and related areas. Close reading and discussion of central texts will provide a foundation for further research, including the dissertation. Students will have the opportunity to discuss these ideas in relation to both literary and social contexts. This course is restricted to students on the MLitt Literatures, Environments, and Places, or by permission of the School.

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Documentary Theory and Practice (FS5533)

30 Credit Points

The module offers a comprehensive look at how documentary has interrogated, and in some rare cases even influenced, politics, social values, and even popular culture. Students will be expected to look at how documentary filmmakers have built upon the famous Griersonian quote – ‘the creative treatment of actuality’ – to evolve the form’s style and scope as well as to challenge the very notion of filmic truth and reality. Attendees to the module will also learn how to identify the key documentary modes and be expected to analyse and understand how the movement’s use of transgressive visual images, no matter how apparently ‘genuine’, is frequently presented through a cinematic perspective that is not always objective. Furthermore, the module will require students to produce a short documentary or individual video essay (in documentary form) and, in doing so, explore the challenges of objective presentations.

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Work - Based Placement in Film, Visual Culture, Music (FS5532)

30 Credit Points

Students will gain practical experience in the film industry and/or visual culture organisations, providing real work experience in preparation for the next steps following their degree.

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MLitt Special Study in Film and Visual Culture (FS5526)

30 Credit Points

This course is designed to allow the creation of a programme of individual study where other appropriate course options at masters level are not available. It will run at the discretion of the programme co-ordinator. In discussion with a designated supervisor students will be able to identify and design a programme of research and study, which may include the completion of an undergraduate course, with assessments appropriate to masters-level work, or which may be consist of a short programme of research conducted over one semester. This programme of study will be subject to approval by the convener of the relevant M.Litt programme. Where appropriate courses at masters level are available, this course will not run.

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Programme Fees

Fee information

Fee category	Cost
EU / International students	£7,935
Tuition Fees for 2023/24 Academic Year
Home / RUK	£3,695
Tuition Fees for 2023/24 Academic Year