Visual, Material and Performance Cultures and Practices
Visual, material and performance cultures and practices have much to tell us about society and its values and beliefs. Cultures and practices represent diverse spheres of human experience, from ideas and values to the political and economic systems.
Our researchers study these topics using distinctive analytical approaches, often drawing on cutting-edge digital research technologies.
Our research ranges from antiquity to the present day, encompassing many different countries and subject areas. Academics from across the Faculty of Arts study these topics using distinctive analytical approaches, drawing on cutting-edge digital research technologies. Collaboration with external institutions is common, ensuring that our innovative thinking has the widest possible impact, from shaping curatorial practice around the world to engaging diverse publics with the work we do.
Classics and Ancient History
A world leader in the study of numismatics (ancient coins), the department is home to two major European Research Council projects changing our understanding of ancient coinage. Researchers use linked-data technologies in their work on coinage and on tokens, which were created for a whole host of purposes across the Roman empire related to specific events, places and communities’ resulting in a greater understanding of the ancient world and its cultural legacy.
History of Art
The department works with institutions across the world to generate research, make an impact on the heritage sector and on wider public understanding, in particular through its extensive use of Warwick’s research base in Venice.
The School of Creative Arts, Performance and Visual Cultures
This newly formed School will secure the University as a powerhouse for the artistic, cultural, creative and media industries in the region and beyond. Incorporating Theatre and Performance Studies, Cultural and Media Policy Studies, and the Warwick Writing Programme, it will build on Warwick’s research in the arts, cultural and creative industries to offer great opportunities for new research partnerships across the sector.
Making an impact...
Research from the School of Modern Languages and Cultures has led to a unique collaboration with English Heritage to recreate the stage situated within the Norman castle keep of Portchester Castle, built by French prisoners-of-war in 1810. Based on original research into prisoners’ memoirs, documents preserved by the prison governor, and a prisoner’s drawings, Warwick advised English Heritage how to recreate the stage to give visitors an impression of what the theatre would have looked like 200 years ago. The opening of the newly recreated theatre also staged a performance of Roselika, a play written and performed by French prisoners-of-war at Portchester Castle in November 1810.
Find out more about this research theme in the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance and Film and Television Studies.
Visual, Material and Performance Cultures and Practices relates to our research themes of Sustainability and Development, Histories, Creativity and Theory, Understanding the Human and Ethics, Rights and Social Justice.
