Explore our Philosophy of the Arts taught Master's degree.

P-V7PN

MA

1 year full-time;
2 years part-time

3 October 2022

Philosophy

University of Warwick

Philosophy and the Arts is an interdisciplinary degree, allowing you to combine philosophy with any or all of the three arts disciplines. This MA is designed for students to take advantage of Warwick's strengths across Philosophy, English, History of Art and Film and Television Studies.

This course allows you to combine the study of philosophy with any/all of three arts disciplines. Warwick has been a home for interdisciplinary work in philosophy and literature since the early days of the university.

This degree is designed to take advantage of our strengths across Philosophy, English and Comparative Literary Studies, History of Art, and Film and Television Studies. Warwick has excellent research strength in all of these areas, and it also has considerable scholarly interaction across these fields, especially through the programming of the Centre for Research in Philosophy, Literature and the Arts.

On this course, you will follow a programme of taught modules. If you choose to take the dissertation route, you will take three taught modules followed by a 10,000-word dissertation. If you take the non-dissertation route, you will take five taught modules. Your exact pathway will depend on your selection of optional modules. Philosophy modules are assessed through essay-based assignments.

Seminar class sizes range from 8-20 people for this course.

For taught components, there are typically two hours of teaching per module per week for this course.

You will submit assessed essays during the academic terms. If you take the dissertation route, you will also begin planning your dissertation and generally you will undertake your supervision sessions for this with your agreed supervisor during the summer term. As long as you pass your taught components, you will then focus on completion of your MA dissertation in the summer months of July and August.

Reading lists

Most departments have reading lists available through Warwick Library. If you would like to view reading lists for the current cohort of students you can visit our Warwick Library web page.

Your timetable

Your personalised timetable will be complete when you are registered for all modules, compulsory and optional, and you have been allocated to your lectures, seminars and other small group classes. Your compulsory modules will be registered for you and you will be able to choose your optional modules when you join us.

2:i undergraduate degree (or equivalent) in a related subject.

• Band B
• IELTS overall score of 7.0, minimum component scores of two at 6.0/6.5 and the rest at 7.0 or above.

There are no additional entry requirements for this course.

Topics in Philosophy and the Arts

This module introduces students to a range of question in the philosophy of art, addressing questions about art in general and about particular art forms or works.

The first half focuses on methodological and foundational questions. What is it to study the arts philosophically? Is the philosophy of art a descriptive or normative endeavour? What is the relation between artistic and other forms of value?

The second half focuses on a diverse range of artists, authors, works or genres from across the arts; these provide an opportunity to explore the philosophical challenge of individual cases. The module aims to integrate study of broad theoretical questions with reflection on - and provocation from - specific art practices. Students will be encouraged to draw on their own experience and expertise in relation to the arts, to test claims on offer.

Optional modules

The programme gives students access to a wide range of modules across four departments.

If you write a dissertation, you will take three optional modules (one from Philosophy and two from the other contributing departments). If you follow the non-dissertation route, you will take five optional modules (up to three from Philosophy and at least two from the other departments). In previous years, optional modules have included:

• Kant’s Aesthetics
• Hegel's Aesthetics
• Revolutionary Aesthetics
• Origins of Mind
• Genealogy, Epistemology, Critique
• World Literature and the Anthropocene
• Critical Theory, Culture, Resistance
• Feminist Literary Theory
• Queer Theory and Praxis
• Ecopoetics
• Screen Cultures and Methods
• Film Criticism, Film Style
• Issues in Documentary
• Irony in Film
• Post-Colonial Cinemas
• Colour and its Meaning
• Visual Art and Poetry
• Reality after Film
• Latin American Modernism
• East meets West: the Visual Arts in Colonial and Post-Colonial India

We have revised the information on this page since publication. See the edits we have made and content history.

This is a holding content block which does not currently display on the page. To make it live, update the copy above, change the Title to remove the brackets, and delete this sentence.