BA (Hons) History of Art Bachelor's degree at the University of Leeds

Taking art-historical research as a dynamic and inclusive set of practices grounded in questions that matter now, this module draws on the varied expertise of teaching staff to introduce you to the combined and converging challenges of a deep understanding of past cultures, engagement with current issues in the field and methods for developing independent research. This module presents a wide array of art-historical topics, with a global perspective and covering a broad chronology, placing empha

Taking the act of 'seeing' as its starting point, this module asks you to analyse assumptions about art that may appear 'natural', obvious or unquestionable. By exploring the many ways in which 'seeing' is thought and theorised, you'll question the relation between society, ideas, art and writing. You'll consider how visual culture conveys and constructs social values, and how 'seeing' is wrapped up with verbal representations and conceptualisations, gaining skills of critical thinking, visual a

Drawing on a wide array of critical art-historical sources and examples from visual culture, this module considers some of the ideological and conceptual structures associated with shaping the process of seeing. Through close reading, you'll gain an awareness of various categories and structures for seeing, you'll question notions of 'meaning' and 'interpretation'. Using these ideas as a basis, you'll develop critical thinking and writing skills to explore, and reflect on, how our lived experien

This module sets out a broad range of art-historical topics and questions, with a focus on modernity and the contemporary, together with a direct, critical engagement with some of the prevailing myths of the discipline. You'll be equipped with an understanding of key moments in the history of art in texts, practices and institutions, and with an ability to reflect on how the history of art both illuminates and shadows our work as art historians today. While gaining in-depth knowledge of art move

This module introduces a range of approaches to the critical study of practices of curating and the institutions, spaces and cultural formations through which art, in its widest senses, is encountered. From the origins of museums to the most recent forms of socially engaged participatory practice, from heritage sites to the international biennale, you'll be equipped to develop an informed engagement with the wider structures and relationships – political, social, and cultural – which underpin ou

Throughout your degree you will benefit from a range of opportunities to expand your intellectual horizons outside or within your subject area. This course gives you the opportunity to choose from a range of discovery modules. They're a great way to tailor your study around your interests or career aspirations and help you stand out from the crowd when you graduate.

You'll be introduced to some social and cultural formations underscoring the history of 'the West' since the period known as the Enlightenment. It invites you to engage with history from a cultural perspective, develop a 'sense of history' and reflect on what might be understood as 'historical consciousness'. We draw on historical events, developments and concepts to interrogate some of the ideological and political assumptions informing modernity and postmodernity. Using a wide variety of mater

This module builds core skills through a focused critical engagement with methods in art-historical research. Combining detailed reflection on the concerns and approaches of key art historians with work-in-progress explorations of the development of live research, this module equips you to build your own projects with a strong sense of the resources and choices open to us, and of the discipline of Art History as an inclusive, dynamic space to be developed though the questions that matter now.

This module interrogates the history and legacies of the discipline of Art History, with a view to a critical reflection on what art history can do in the world we face today. We explore the distinct formation of Art History as a discipline rooted both in historical or antiquarian studies and in philosophical aesthetics, while also reflecting on its complex entanglements with discourses of nationalism and racial hierarchies and other more or less hidden structures of power. This module equips yo

This module builds on your engagement with critical, socially aware questions of display, institutions, and expanded practices of curating. Setting out key skills and intellectual frameworks grounded both in historical study and contemporary practices, it enables the development of a strong, reflexive approach to research on the varied ways in which art is encountered, and the complex and nuanced relations between such encounters and artworks' effects and meanings.

Are there fundamental differences between the ways you see familiar objects and those from Asia? Are there ways in which the power and meanings of 'seeing' change in an Asian context, so that even though we are 'seeing' the same object, we understand the object differently? How do cultural and historical values and standards shape the act of seeing and how we interpret images? By engaging with wide-ranging historical and cultural examples drawn from a range of specialities from art to science, t

Narrative histories of English Art in the 20th century have tended to imply a succession of movements of varying 'modernity'. You'll look at the different definitions of 'modern' or 'contemporary' art at different historical moments in 20th century England to the present day, as well as studying the underlying critical ideologies. This module will make particular use of the notable collections of Leeds City Art Gallery and the University Collections to understand museological collecting and disp

The Grand Tour's origins lie in the early 17th century, when a small number of British aristocrats left their native islands to explore the cultural capitals of Europe. By the 18th century, it had developed into a rite of passage for privileged young men sent abroad to expand their knowledge of the visual arts, architecture, music and foreign political systems. Its culmination was Rome, where a thriving cultural industry arose to meet the demand for paintings, objet d'art and antiquities. This m

This module introduces some of the main themes in the histories of the art market. It is a chronologically ordered and thematic investigation that focuses on key notions, such as the Primary (production) and Secondary (resale/collecting) art markets, and key segments such as the Fine and Decorative Art ('Antiques') markets. The role of key institutions, such as auction houses and galleries, and key agents, such as art dealers, collectors and artists, are also addressed. You'll critically reflect

This module explores a range of feminist, postcolonial and queer theories of the embodiment of gender, its performance, performativity and representation in art and visual culture, showing the relations between the two. You'll address shifts in the representational schema of the woman's body by the study of a range of feminist perspectives that offer a critical framework for thinking about the body, embodiment and difference in all its intersectional complexity. This module also covers a range o