Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in History with Public History

at Goldsmiths, University of London United Kingdom

The best journalism is based on a sound understanding of the history that has shaped the world we inhabit today.

There is a strong and growing tradition of deeper journalistic investigation into issues and events in the recent and more distant past (however that might be defined). This might be to unearth new knowledge, to investigate and reinterpret existing thinking, or to revise and update past ideas and understandings.

This innovative, collaborative, and interdisciplinary programme, jointly delivered by the Department of History and the Department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies, emphasises that the causes and results of events in the past are fiercely contested by historians.

Why study BA History and Journalism at Goldsmiths?

• History - the study, analysis and understanding of the past - is as important today as it has ever been, and it continues to make vital contributions to how we comprehend and interact with the world around us. It is a relevant, dynamic, fascinating and important field of study which, at Goldsmiths, is approached in creative, innovative and exciting ways.
• Understanding past societies fosters emotional intelligence and allows us to appreciate the diversity and adaptability of human life. Understanding our pasts can help us to shape our futures and, crucially, help us shape those futures intelligently, insightfully, fairly, and with compassion.
• The essential skills of researching, interviewing, and writing in a number of different long-form and short-form styles and formats are delivered alongside tuition for a range of digital tools including video reporting, the use of social media for research and dissemination, and how to work in the world of online, multimedia journalism.
• An international body of staff research and deliver modules covering a wide geographical range including Asia, Africa, the Americas, the British Isles, Eastern and Western Europe, and the Middle East. Academic staff in both departments are nationally and internationally recognized award-winning experts in their fields who are at the forefront of research excellence and research-led teaching.

The MA Contemporary Art Theory is for those with a special interest in contemporary art, and an aptitude for theoretical work in the subject.

Why study MA Contemporary Art Theory at Goldsmiths?

• This degree explores a range of theoretical perspectives that shape art and visual culture, and attitudes towards them in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
• You’ll be encouraged to conceptually and creatively explore the ways in which contemporary artistic practice and urgent theoretical and political matters intersect.
• You’ll expand your knowledge of contemporary artistic developments and deepen your understanding of the interdisciplinary nature of academic discourses on visual culture.
• The programme draws on the shifting fields of performance studies, art history, continental philosophy, ecology, feminist theory, queer theory, postcolonial/decolonial studies, and cultural studies in addressing the critical challenges posed by artistic practice, and you’ll be able to focus on an aspect that particularly interests you.
• You’ll take part in an assessed symposium, which provides you with a chance to present your dissertation topic at an early stage in order to define and progress your final project.

Conceived in the context of world-systemic transformation, this MA will give you the analytical tools to understand contemporary developments and world(s) through an encounter with post-colonial theory and international political economic issues.

We're witnessing today a tectonic shift in global geopolitics. The emergence of China, Brazil and India as global players, the development of global governance, the financial crisis, climate change – are all symptoms.

On this Masters you’ll grasp concepts like race, diaspora, hybridity, difference, grassroots development, HDI, multitude, immanence, and human rights.

These concepts are used to analyse practical, policy and activist issues arising from globalisation: global civil society, the role of international organisations (the IMF, WTO, UN and World Bank and global NGOs), intellectual property rights, social capital, financialisation, global governance and deep democracy.

You'll deal with issues like terrorism, microfinance, indigenous people, gender and sexuality, multiculturalism and environmental justice.

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 and 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.

This degree provides a grounding in some of the major aspects of politics and international relations. You'll learn about international systems and global governance political theory, UK, European and US politics, international political economy and undertake area-based studies of Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Why study BA Politics with International Relations at Goldsmiths?

• We offer a distinctive approach that combines the study of politics and international relations, giving you the opportunity to gain broad knowledge and experience of both disciplines.
• The Department of Politics and International Relations provides a lively interdisciplinary environment, specialising in the study of institutions and conflicts in a way that crosses boundaries between traditional understandings of political phenomena.
• You’ll be able to choose from an unusually wide range of module options which explore the aesthetics of terrorism, critical approaches to security, the politics of development, US politics and foreign policy, the geopolitics of the Middle East, and contemporary movements from the Arab Spring to ISIS. We offer a range of area-based modules covering the Middle East, China and East Asia, Africa and Latin America.
• We have a lively events programme that attracts renowned speakers, meaning that you'll have the opportunity to hear the latest political arguments, theories and ideas.
• Our unique work placement module gives you the opportunity to gain work experience relevant to the degree and we also give you the opportunity to study abroad.

This MA examines contemporary issues concerning justice. You will learn how to conceptualise and study the possibilities of human rights, going beyond legal formulations to look at the conditions in which human rights claims are made.

Human rights mobilise millions of supporters across borders, inspiring passion and hope. And they operate at and between all the scales involved in globalisation: local, national, international, transnational. They are moral claims to justice. Although often associated with law, human rights are not the same as legal rights – human rights can be claimed where no legal rights are codified, even if changes in the law are invariably called for as part of attempts to realise human rights in practice.

Human rights are carried by different actors:

• Grassroots social movements, small Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and huge International Non-Governmental Organisations (INGOs)
• Lawyers and judges
• Bureaucrats and experts in Inter-Governmental Organisations (IGOs) even, sometimes, national politicians
• Journalists, novelists, translators, artists, filmmakers

These different actors are often at odds with each other in defining and defending particular justifications of what human rights are and should be.

In this Masters you will learn about how human rights are constructed, exploring framings of human rights through case studies; and you will begin to practice some of the methodologies and methods that are currently used in NGOs and grassroots activist networks trying to remedy global injustices.

This Masters programme in Cultural Studies offers you the opportunity to engage with some of the key theorists and the significant debates in Cultural Studies, spanning from its inception in Britain in the mid-1970s, to the present day. Cultural Studies has developed a distinctive set of concepts and methodologies to help better understand social institutions and practices, objects, items, and their circulation in consumer culture. Cultural theory permits close analysis of topics including race, youth, music, fashion, and the creative economy, and embraces the history of sexuality, emotions and affects. This course will consider current permutations on key topics such as music, sound and technology, national identity, the rise of ‘public feelings’, the cultural dynamics of precarity and austerity, art, and cultural expression for the new feminist activism.

Why study MA Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths?

• Explore the impact and influence Cultural Studies has on a wide range of research interests, not only in the English-speaking world, but also internationally. The programme will teach you about a range of Cultural Studies methodologies that you can then apply in your own writing and research. It will also include a Critical Ethnography Afternoon where students explore the place of this kind of research in the cultural studies tradition.
• Examine the effect media technologies have on the cultural practices of production and consumption. As the course has a strong focus on new developments in sonic technology, this might include, for example, emerging local music scenes. This might also involve mean a focus on changes in fashion consumption, such as platform providers, and the role of influencers.

This programme is an exciting opportunity to focus on global issues within the framework of a History degree, crossing continents and chronologies.

History at Goldsmiths is global. It explores the multidirectional travel of people, practices, resources and ideas across boundaries (local, regional, national, continental, oceanic) and the changes occurring along the way. It explores questions of power, domination, and asymmetry, as well as responses to global processes from the people worst affected by them.

This programme will allow you to explore the following themes:

• World history
• Migration
• Empire, decolonisation and race
• Subaltern history
• The global south
• Postcolonialism
• History in transnational perspective

Studying Global History at Goldsmiths involves applying knowledge and understanding of these themes to contemporary issues such as the UK’s changing place in the world, colonial/postcolonial relationships, and complex histories of race and racism around the world. You will develop your skills in multidisciplinary approaches and engage with a range of historical methods/ideas.

You will learn about histories of culture, ideas, politics, and power – beyond boundaries and borders. You will be taught by a multi-national community of scholars whose expertise means that history can be understood globally, and you will develop your understanding of how countries operate within global frameworks, both in the past and today, and how empires of the past continue to affect present-day societies and politics.

This programme is one of the few taught Masters programmes of its kind in the world. Covering historical and philosophical bases of theatre and performance practices from different parts of the world, this degree investigates indigenous and contemporary performance and theatre traditions from a variety of cultural contexts.

Why study MA World Theatres at Goldsmiths?

• This degree trains graduates for employment in a range of positions in theatre, government, the cultural sector, and higher education, that require solid intellectual preparation and knowledge of the field.
• You’ll cover the historical contexts and philosophical bases of theatre and performance practices from different parts of the world, some of which are rarely introduced in UK higher education. This will involve studying the indigenous and contemporary performance and theatre traditions from a variety of cultural, national and international contexts.
• You’ll be introduced to the whole range of drama, theatre and performance practices from many areas of the world.
• Where possible, you’ll be provided access to industry opportunities in order to extend your study, in particular with our new Associate Organisation, LIFT, and its biennial festival of international theatre, as well as its on-going programme of activities.

The MA will take a distinctively interdisciplinary and critical perspective. It will highlight the concept of “ecology” in an expanded sense and encompass the complex web of interconnections that bind people, animals, bodies, soils, ideas, technologies, practices, institutions, cultures, and histories with their changing environments. Drawing on perspectives from the humanities and the social sciences, this programme explores the many shifting relationships between natures and cultures around the world. It introduces critical new approaches to the connections between humans and animals in more-than-human worlds, and it will enable you to develop a critical understanding of the ways in which ecological issues are intertwined with the question of social justice, cultural difference, and decolonisation.

You will be encouraged to explore the philosophical, cultural, political, and social dimensions that shape our understanding of contemporary socio-ecological issues and to explore imaginative responses to them. You will also learn to develop and apply ecological perspectives on various forms of social, political, and cultural analysis.

This programme will give you a critical understanding of our times and will help you develop key interdisciplinary skills for critical socio-ecological scholarship, creativity, communication, and activism. It will equip you with the insights, concepts, and skills needed to understand and engage with the tangled relationships between nature and culture, and the ethics and politics of our relationships with animals. You will also acquire knowledge and understanding of key concepts such as Anthropocene, anthropocentrism, value, difference, domestication, human exceptionalism, extractivism, decolonisation, radical pluralism, and the arts of living.