Course summary
Working from a materially diverse basis, this programme engages with a range of empirical, aesthetic, conceptual and material issues that traverse and exceed both 'art' and ‘politics’ to speak with our current contemporaneity. Why study MA Art & Politics at Goldsmiths
- Explore practices and issues related to our current contemporaneity in terms of public space, democracy, equality, participation, states of exception, collectivity, performance and justice.
- Examine a range of material practices and strategies which, in the encounter between art and politics, play out in numerous forms and very different kinds of social spaces.
- Develop frameworks and spaces that are mixed and mobile, and which can operate in trans-disciplinary settings. You'll join students from a range of backgrounds and disciplines, meaning that the political character of both theory and material practice take on renewed vigour and urgency.
- Investigate the potential of art, material practice and trans-disciplinarity in times of political and cultural crisis. You will have the opportunity to interrogate the relationship between material practices and theoretical work, to work within constraints but also within the interstices of artistic, cultural, social and political practices.
- Choose from a range of option modules that encourage you to work across areas of particular interest to you including practice-based Individual and Group project work, the politics of space, gender politics and human rights.
Modules
Compulsory modules: Art and Politics 1: Theory History Event 30 credits MA Art & Politics Dissertation 60 credits You will then take at least one of the following practice-based modules: Counter-Mapping: The Politics of Space 30 credits Designing politics (group project) 30 credits Material encounters (Individual project) 15 credits Option modules You will then complete optional modules with your remaining 60-75 credits. A list of optional modules will be produced annually by the Department of Politics and International Relations. Recent modules have included: Comparative Political Thought 15 credits Material encounters (Individual project) 15 credits Islam, Revolution, and Empire 15 credits Art, War, Terror 15 Credits Memory and Justice in Post-Conflict Societies 30 credits Decolonising Knowledge: Debates in Human Science 30 credits Global Capitalism: Theory and History 30 credits The United States in the World Economy 15 credits Politics of Human Rights 15 credits Psychopolitics 15 credits Theories of International Relations 30 credits The Political Economy of the Anthropocene 30 credits Finance and Power 15 credits Experts and Economies 15 credits Project work You are required to undertake project-based work in accordance with your own political and aesthetic interests. The purpose of this project-work is to find ways of ‘doing’ politics which employ ‘artistic’ strategies and interventions in their realisation. Projects have a student-centred material focus, complementing the theoretical emphasis of core and optional modules, and will seek to raise awareness of particular issues and draw attention to their position in the public arena. They may be written, broadcast, performed, curated, made, or involve any other kind of appropriately documented submission. Training in digital and genetic media will be provided where necessary. Project training is monitored and co-ordinated by the artist-in-residence in the Department of Politics – who will oversee students’ individual needs while ensuring that there is continuity of support and opportunities to identify and build upon individual strengths and weaknesses. Please note that due to staff research commitments not all of these modules may be available every year.
Assessment method
Assessment consists of coursework, extended essays, reports, presentations, practice based projects or essays/logs, group projects, reflective essays, and seen and unseen written examinations.
Entry requirements
You should have (or expect to be awarded) an undergraduate degree of at least upper second class standard in a relevant/related subject. You might also be considered if you aren’t a graduate or your degree is in an unrelated field, but have relevant experience and can show that you have the ability to work at postgraduate level. If English isn’t your first language, you will need an IELTS score (or equivalent English language qualification) of 6.5 with a 6.5 in writing and no element lower than 6.0 to study this programme.
Fees and funding
Tuition fees
No fee information has been provided for this course
Additional fee information
Unless otherwise stated the annual fee for part-time students is half the full time fee quoted.
Provider information
Goldsmiths, University of London
New Cross
Lewisham
SE14 6NW