Material and Visual Culture MA

University College London

This MA provides a broad-based training in social science approaches to the analysis of material and visual media: ranging from art, photography, film and media within visual anthropology, to consumption, museum anthropology and cultural heritage, landscape and genres (such as clothing and the built environment), within material culture. The programme covers a range of contexts such as production, exchange and consumption, and uses anthropological perspectives based on the comparative study of societies, historically and culturally. Skills training is given in social anthropological field research and analysis, and in specific methods for the study of material and visual forms.

The programme develops skills in cultural and social critique through the research and interpretation of the material world. Its aim is excellence in scholarship. Experts in material culture, and our graduates, work in any institution which demands skills in social research and critical thinking. This includes in design research, the arts, heritage and museums, media and film, journalism, design anthropology, market research, academia, art, materials consultancy, and the civil service.

The programme is designed as an advanced research degree in material culture, mostly anthropology and with elements of design history, archaeology, museum studies, social geography and architecture. Whoever is interested in material things and materials is interested in material culture: art, architecture, photography, consumer products, consumption, design, heritage, film, sound, fashion, infrastructure, landscape and innovation.