Course Catalogue

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This course is about art history practice. The focus is on transferable skills, which are essential in a variety of art world professions, such as critical analysis, writing reviews and cataloguing objects. These are developed through practice based assignments and both guided and individual research.

5 x 2hr workshops on alternate weeks, as scheduled on MyCampus.

5 x 2hr fieldwork (Gallery visits) on alternate weeks, as scheduled on MyCampus.

Available to all students fulfilling requirements for Honours entry into History of Art, and by arrangement to visiting students or students of other Honours programmes who qualify under the University's 25% regulation.

None

Junior Honours Methodology of Art History (HISTART4031) must be taken by Single Honours students as a co-requisite for this course.

The assessed Portfolio consists of the following elements:

■ an analysis of an exhibition review (500 words)

■ an exhibition review (1000 words)

■ artist biography or an analysis of artist interviews (500 words)

■ exhibition label (150 words)

■ catalogue entry (700 words)

These will be submitted together and marked as one piece of work.

Reassessments are normally available for all courses, except those which contribute to the Honours classification. For non-Honours courses, students are offered reassessment in all or any of the components of assessment if the satisfactory (threshold) grade for the overall course is not achieved at the first attempt. This is normally grade D3 for undergraduate students and grade C3 for postgraduate students. Exceptionally it may not be possible to offer reassessment of some coursework items, in which case the mark achieved at the first attempt will be counted towards the final course grade. Any such exceptions for this course are described below. 

The aims of the course are:

■ to expand the acquisition of skills of independent research and study required in the preparation of a representative range of written/verbal output in the discipline;

■ to foster the acquisition of conceptual and transferable skills which will complement students' taught option work and provide a secure basis for progression to Senior Hons and beyond;

■ to strengthen the relationship between research and teaching in the Department; and,

■ to enhance students' potential to proceed to postgraduate study or to relevant employment.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

■ to apply in Honours essays and/or Honours dissertations, a range of techniques and methods of independent art-historical research, whether involving primary or secondary text-based, visual or other source material;

■ to employ in art-historical research and analysis diversity of common formats (e.g. exhibition review, catalogue entry), as relevant to the needs of their particular audiences;

■ to reflect and critically evaluate a diversity of types of presentation of art-historical research by others by means of a review or verbal critique;

■ to recognise ethics protocols as relevant to art-historical research; and,

■ to propose a viable research topic for Honours essays and/or Honours dissertation by justifying its choice and identifying appropriate research questions and methodologies.

Students must submit at least 75% by weight of the components (including examinations) of the course's summative assessment.