Philosophy, Politics and Art BA (Hons)

• A-levels: BBC.
• BTEC: DMM.
• International Baccalaureate: 28 points.
• Access to HE Diploma: pass with 60 credits overall. Humanities, history or politics diploma preferred. At least 45 credits at level 3.
• GCSE (minimum grade C): at least three subjects including English language and mathematics or a science.

English Language Requirement:

• IELTS 6.0 overall, with 6.0 in writing and a minimum of 5.5 in the other elements.

Interview days
Interview days are held throughout the admissions process. The day involves a course talk where applicants can learn more about their chosen degree and, for some, a taster lecture is also available. Existing students are present and you will have the chance to ask them questions. Interviews last between 15 and 20 minutes and are conducted by a member of academic staff. This session offers you a chance to discuss your own personal areas of interest, and to demonstrate your desire and capability for undergraduate study on your chosen course. In some instances these discussions can be conducted via telephone or Skype.

Year 1

You start your study with a grounding in the key disciplinary areas, learning how best to benefit from lectures, small-group seminar discussions and debates, and from individual tutorials. First, you follow a course in Art, Culture and Commerce in which you study the conditions that gave rise to Western culture – the formation of national identities, colonialism, revolutions, collections and museums, and the development of capitalism and consumer culture. You also follow an introductory course in Philosophical Inquiry, where you study two key areas: the relation between moral and political philosophy and between philosophy of science and epistemology.

• In Art, Design and Modern Life, you examine the impact of historical change on art and design, and how techniques of reproduction came to dominate aesthetic and everyday experiences, and affect the unfolding of the difference between elite and popular cultures. 
• In Art: Philosophy and the Politics of Representation students explore notions of truth, beauty and the good in art, and the development of conceptual approaches to art in the twenty-first century. 
• In the final term of your first year, on the Approaching Narrative course, you study the role of ideology, language and semiotics in understanding the narrative structures of images, films, fiction, news reporting and photography.

Year 2

In year two, you follow Critical traditions in Western thought, a course that considers the major philosophical ideas and political events that have moulded the Western intellectual tradition from Liberalism and Marxism to Feminism and Post-Structuralism, and from the French Revolution, through the wars and revolutions of the twentieth century to contemporary imperialism and globalisation. Simultaneously, you will follow courses on Modernity and Modernism (Modernity – Interrogation and Representation and Modernism, Ideology and the Avant Garde) and on the rise and demise of Postmodernism (Art, Politics and Philosophy from Modernism to Postmodernism and Modernism, Postmodernism and Beyond). You also choose an option course from across the provision in the College of Arts and Humanities, including some studio-based options.

Final year

In your final year you develop your individual research project with one-to-one supervision on a topic in which you become an expert. This can take a variety of forms (academic dissertation or a catalogue of a virtual exhibition, for instance) and may involve a placement in a professional studio, gallery, exhibition or conference.

You will also complete two Honours-level modules: Representation and Engagement after Postmodernism and an option course. The former addresses issues of political resistance and its relation to abstraction, war and terror, displacement, globalisation of the art market, commodification and the re-politicisation of art.

Option courses include:

• Feminism and Art
• Conceptualism and its Legacy
• Art, Politics and the City
• Limits of Representation
• Situationist International
• Aesthetics and Politics of Music
• Public Art
• Heritage – the Material Culture of the Past