History of Art and Visual Culture (Taught)

The information provided on this page was correct at the time of publication (November 2025). For complete and up-to-date information about this course, please visit the relevant University of Oxford course page via www.graduate.ox.ac.uk/ucas.

This taught course draws on the established strengths of the discipline of art history in formal, iconographic and contextual analysis and links them to a rigorous approach to questions of theory and method.

This MSc in the Faculty of History's History of Art Department, offers a unique combination of methodological depth and access to excellent primary sources for students who wish to develop and extend their understanding of how visual styles at different times and in different places can be understood in relation to the aesthetic, intellectual and social facets of various cultures.

The course will expose you to the ways in which the subjects of visual history are being redefined on a broad base to include a much wider range of artefacts and visual media, including images and objects produced in contexts ranging from the scientific to the popular.

Course structure
Teaching comprises:

• a compulsory methodology paper, Issues in Art History, which is taught in a seminar series during Michaelmas and Hilary terms. There is also an associated lecture series, workshops on professional practice and object-handling sessions in Oxford collections.

• one option paper, normally taught in small classes during Michaelmas and Hilary terms.

You will also write a dissertation of up to 15,000 words, which will be submitted in Trinity term.

It is expected that about 25% of your time will be spent on self-directed research and study.