Master of Arts in Contemporary Art Theory

at Goldsmiths, University of London United Kingdom

This innovative programme will explore how people experience the world around them, particularly when using technology. You'll learn how each layer of technology, from core hardware through to the way that media is handled, can affect user experience and gain the skills for transforming user requirements into appropriate technical solutions.

Why study the MSc User Experience Engineering?

• This specialist masters degree provides more focused employment possibilities than a more general computing programme.
• You'll learn to design and produce computing-based systems and solutions that have been validated to meet the functional requirements of users, be accessible and inclusive, and provide users with a satisfying user experience.
• A variety of optional modules in advanced technologies and psychology means you can choose a path that emphasises the technology of your choice.
• The vocational nature of the programme gives you the option to complete a field study thesis project as an alternative to the conventional academic thesis.
• Through presentation and demonstration of your work, we'll prepare you to enter a field of work characterised by the agile approach and team working within multi-disciplinary cohorts.
• You'll benefit from the expertise of the Department of Computing, as well as drawing on the knowledge of staff in the Department of Psychology and the Institute of Management Studies (IMS).
• The Guest Lectures and Field Project modules will introduce you to the professional aspects of working as a User Experience designer, developer or engineer and hearing from industry professionals will give you an insight into what it's like to work in the field.

Why study for an MA in Creative Writing and Education at Goldsmiths?

• This is an MA in Creative Writing like no other. If you want to thrive as a creative writer and are passionate about learning, then this unique programme is for you. You will not only progress exponentially as a writer, but also learn how to research and teach writing in a wide range of contexts. You will study how writing can be used in dynamic, real-world settings such as charities, prisons, schools, creative and mental health organisations, and the cultural/corporate sector.
• The programme will provide you with an invaluable toolbox of writing, teaching, and research strategies that will help you personally and professionally. You will grow as a writer, and gain skills and experience which could open doors to creative professions such as publishing and arts management, as well as roles in educational institutions. Alumni include some of the most significant writers to emerge in recent years such as Raymond Antrobus, Dean Atta, S.K. Perry and Sara Hirsch – read what our students and graduates had to say below.
• You will be taught by some of the best known prize-winning authors and innovative teachers in the country, including Ros Barber, Maura Dooley, Blake Morrison, Francis Spufford, Ardu Vakil, and Erica Wagner. The Head of Programme, Francis Gilbert, has taught creative writing to all ages, and is the author of best-selling memoirs, novels, and educational guides.

If you are passionate about pursuing a career as a cinematographer in an environment that promotes innovative filmmaking, this programme is for you. With its unique blend of hands-on workshops, studio and location filming exercises, and high production value collaborative film projects, the MA Filmmaking (Cinematography) elevates your skills as a moving-image storyteller to the level of Director of Photography.

What we offer

• The MA Filmmaking (Cinematography) is a pathway of the Goldsmiths MA Filmmaking. It is housed in a new purpose-built media facility with state-of-the-art teaching spaces including film and photography studios equipped with Arri cameras and lighting.
• You'll learn sophisticated camera, lighting and gripping techniques, and will perform all camera department roles from Director of Photography to Camera Operator, Focus-puller, Gaffer, Camera Assistant, Spark and Grip. You’ll work on a number of exercises and films per term in your specialist role, culminating in a major film production towards the end of the degree. Throughout the degree, you’ll also gain parallel experience in related cine roles by crewing for your fellow cinematographer classmates.
• In addition to developing professional-level skills in your specialist craft area, you’ll attend classes in related disciplines such as Directing and Editing and advance your collaborative skills by working with students across all specialisations, including writers, producers and sound designers. The horizontal framework is designed to stimulate collaborative practice by introducing you to a breadth of filmmaking knowledge combined with a high level of expertise as an accomplished cinematographer.

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 pioneering Masters offers interdisciplinary perspectives on international performance, and aims to understand performance in relation to the culture to which it contributes.

Why study MA Performance and Culture at Goldsmiths?

• The programme takes in diverse forms of theatre, including multicultural and street theatre, and practices such as:
  • Performance art
  • Dance
  • Ritual
  • Site-specific performance
  • A wide range of hybrid forms
• You will explore performance as a sociocultural process, using analytical principles from sociology, cultural theory, anthropology, history, philosophy, politics and theatre and performance.
• We have numerous links, locally and internationally, with a wide variety of theatres, companies and performers, all of which enhance your research possibilities.
• The programme will provide you with the appropriate categories of thought and methodological procedures for analysing, understanding and explaining performance processes as sociocultural practices: how and why they emerge from specific sociocultural and historical time place and space.

The BA in Drama and Theatre Arts is designed to foster creative, radical theatre-makers and thinkers. It is adventurous in form, international in scope and hands-on in practice.

The Complete Theatre Maker

• This degree supports you to become the complete theatre maker. At the heart of the programme is a balanced integration of theory and practice. Knowledge gained through making and doing adds to your conceptual understanding, while the insights gained in writing about theatre and society inform the choices you make in your practice-based work.
• Tutored by our diverse and talented team, you will develop technical skills in acting, directing, writing, sound, lighting, scenography, and costume. Bringing these skills together, you will learn how to collaborate and operate in companies, ready to take your own show on the road.
• You will be introduced to a wide range of theatre thinkers, and explore the history and cultural diversity of performance. You will develop a complex understanding of what it means to make theatre in an increasingly global 21st-century society. And with London’s rich theatre culture on your doorstep, you can draw on an exciting range of contemporary practice to inform your thinking and making.

The BA Drama and Theatre Arts is a radical and innovative degree. The curriculum is responsive to the global reach of our teaching staff, including expertise in African, American, Francophone, Japanese, and South Asian performance, as well as British, European, and Russian theatre traditions. We prepare theatre-makers who are socially, culturally, and politically engaged.

The degree explores what it means to perform in contemporary culture, mobilising a range of theatre and performance practices from the interpretation of play texts to devised ensemble work and the possibilities opened up by political protest, live art, and the avant-garde.

This programme engages with the newest military history research, addressing conflict, communities and identities to take military history beyond ’great men, great horses, great battles’.

The BA History with Military History will, of course, allow you to study aspects of national armies, world wars, and major battles. But our cutting-edge approach to the discipline also means expanding the way you think about militaries and learning to make links between military history and politics, society, gender, race, and culture.

Study military history from many different angles
Our military history places armed forces in broad contexts, examining how they are influenced by the societies from which they are drawn, and how they have influenced those societies. Central to this is an understanding of the politics of the military, analysing the causes for which people fight and the interplay between national identities and the military. Gender, (homo)sexuality, race, non-combatants, and ‘home fronts’ all figure here. National armies are still part of our approach to military history, as are those labelled ‘freedom fighters’ by some and ‘terrorists’ by others. Consequently, this programme analyses militaries in a broad sense, including those who took part in revolutions through arms, and those who resisted occupations and conquest by military means.

This programme will equip you for working life in the arts and cultural industries, with a specific focus on working in and managing the arts.

Why study BA Arts Management at Goldsmiths?

• Culture and the arts are vital to the global economy. You'll develop a powerful combination of theoretical insights and professional practice skills to help you navigate these important and expanding sectors.
• You’ll learn how to understand arts and creative organisations, from small community endeavours through to world renowned flagship organisations. This will prepare you for a career in this fascinating subject, in settings such as museums, galleries, theatres, dance and live music venues, festivals, and cultural centres.
• The programme includes talks from experts and visits to cultural organisations, so you’ll gain direct experience of professional practice. You may also benefit from a work placement as part of your studies in, for example, an audience development, fundraising or event management context.
• We're based in London - a global leader in the arts and one of the most important cultural centres in the world. London is the perfect place to study this subject, giving you unrivalled access to a diverse range of arts organisations. The city will become your classroom.
• You can tailor the degree to your unique interests, through independent work in your final year.

A unique programme for dramaturges and playwrights, this programme concentrates on the process of writing for live performance, together with an ongoing evaluation of the work in process.

Why study MA Dramaturgy and Writing for Performance at Goldsmiths?

• This Masters will help you establish a distinctive, individual approach as a writer and dramaturge. You will work on projects including site-specific work, writing for a specific audience, verbatim theatre and interdisciplinary collaboration.
• You will develop texts for performance, and refine your intellectual understanding of the diverse forms and contexts in which live performance can be made.
• You will be taught by experienced permanent staff, as well as visiting tutors, including Goldsmiths alumnus Ian Rickson (former Artistic Director of the Royal Court), April De Angelis, Duncan Macmillan, Penny Black, and Hanna Slattne.
• You will have the opportunity to work on an interdisciplinary project with MA Performance Makers and composers from the Department of Music. Your final project texts, performed and directed by industry professionals at the Soho Theatre in London, and attended by key industry representatives.

This unique international laboratory programme brings diverse individuals into collaborative research, acknowledging the challenges of creating original, performer-driven theatre in today's complex, globalised culture.

Why study MA Performance Making at Goldsmiths?

• Studying at Goldsmiths gives you access to all the cultural stimulus that London offers, allowing you to enhance your practice and develop compositional, critical, technical and management skills and strategies for forging independent and self-motivated careers. Our graduates work as practitioners, teachers and cultural leaders worldwide.
• The Masters will help you conceive, research, construct and deliver your ideas, and articulate what motivates them. You will study with distinguished international artists and scholars. The emphasis throughout will be on encouraging collaboration across disciplines and cultures, and on contextualising practice within its social, political and architectural environment.
• You’ll undertake physical training, scenographic/environmental exploration, and hands-on introduction to technologies (lighting, video and sound), to support your composition and artistic experimentation. You will identify your own practice within the historical and contemporary field, and write critically and creatively.