University of East Anglia (UEA), MA, The Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas

The one-year course will provide you with detailed knowledge of the visual arts, contemporary and historical, of three geographical areas: Africa, Oceania and the Americas. It also highlights the methodological and theoretical issues involved in the analysis and display of these works of art, both in their original contexts and in the contexts of museums and exhibitions.

You will examine this material at the intersection of anthropology, art history, archaeology and museology. This MA is therefore essentially cross-disciplinary, aiming to frame regional developments and important shared themes across these fields; for example, traditions in art and architecture, making, ritual, social and power relations, colonialism, and contemporary arts. Throughout the programme we place a strong emphasis on current theoretical approaches.

This flexible programme offers a range of possible essay and dissertation topics; there is also the possibility to take a research tutorial option, allowing the course to be tailored to your interests. Whether you wish to focus, for example, on the anthropology of art, on archaeology or on Oceania, you can weight your course in that direction by selecting essay subjects in that area. Working closely with academic staff, the dissertation also allows you to study a topic of your choice intensively, possibly as a precursor to PhD research.