Frameworks: Histories and Theories of Art, Architecture, Photography

• Credit value: 30 credits at Level 7
• Convenor: to be confirmed
  
• Tutors: Professor Emerita Annie E. Coombes, Professor Patrizia Di Bello, Professor Emerita Leslie Topp, Dr Zoe Opacic, Dr Dorigen Caldwell, Dr Robert Maniura
• Assessment: a 1500-word essay (30%) and a 3500-word essay (70%)

In this module we introduce you to current theoretical and historiographic issues in the study of art history, including the specialist disciplines of history of architecture and history of photography.

The module consists of four integrated elements, which lay the foundation for your progress through the programme. Lectures explore key issues for the history of art, architecture and photography now, and work-in-focus seminars analyse individual artworks, photographs or buildings through discussion. Historiography seminars map the formation of history of art, architecture and photography and grapple with some of its key texts. And research skills classes provide guidance on research, the framing of questions, the construction of arguments, and academic writing techniques.

Indicative syllabus

• Art and its institutions
• Description
• Space and materiality
• Time and the document
• The local and the global
• Power and representation
• Agency and reception
• Identity and collectivity

By the end of this module, you will have:

• begun to develop acuity in analysing artworks, buildings and architecture
• acquired an enhanced understanding of art (including architecture and photography) within the social and cultural context of its production
• acquired knowledge of methodologies concerned with the discipline
• engaged constructively in current debates concerning the discipline and its changing nature.