Second Year Modules

Compulsory modules

Research Techniques in History of Art (10 credits)

The module examines different research techniques and strategies relevant to history or art themes and topics. Students define their own research areas for the assessments, which can relate for example to other Level I modules, or to their plans for their Level H History of Art Long or Short Dissertation. 

Art History in the Field: Overseas Study Trip (10 credits)

An essential component of art historical enquiry is the study of works of art and architecture in relation to a specific city and its cultural collections. This module requires students to consider images, artefacts and buildings and their relationship to a particular city. As well as considering individual objects in detail, it explores how these objects relate to the historical development of a city, and how and where they are exhibited in relation to this. The module will focus on specific major architectural projects in the specified location, as well as works in major art collections. These will be explored through a series of lectures devised by staff.

If fieldwork takes place for this module, the following costs will be paid by the University: travel from the University of Birmingham or Birmingham central train stations to and from the study trip location, bed and breakfast accommodation and travel insurance. The Department of Art History, Curating and Visual Studies will set out the course requirements and residency requirements for its students in its briefing material.

Optional modules may include:

• Art, Race and the British Empire, 1837-1901: Contexts, Approaches and Legacies 

• Craft: Practices, Concepts, Activism

• Art, Architecture and Design in fin-de-Siécle Vienna

• Impressionism and After: Art and Society in Late Nineteenth-Century France

• Renaissance Art in Italy and the Netherlands c.1400-60

• Inside the Gallery: Curating an Exhibition

• Power, Society, Politics: Religious Art in Northern Europe c. 1400-1600