MA in Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London

MA in Cultural Studies

This MA provides an intensive study in cultural theory and in substantive cultural studies. It is in every sense a programme in global cultural studies, both in its engagement with cultural difference and in its encounter with the geopolitics of 21st-century capitalism. By the end of the programme you will have covered a very considerable amount of high-level cultural theory.

"The Centre for Cultural Studies offers an exciting and unique research space for interrogating existing forms of knowledge. Students and researchers are relatively free to experiment with new ideas and political strategies, and exchanges can be lively, sharp and sinewy. I used my MA research here to develop much of the material for my forthcoming book with a leading political-philosophy publisher, and I met a lot of interesting people in the process. Whilst at CCS I co-organised reading groups, a conference, and edited the Nyx Noctournal publication, and I now coordinate a men's suicide prevention campaign in London."

Dan, MA in Cultural Studies (graduated 2009)

Length:
1 year full-time or 2 years part-time.

Applying:

Apply now

Applicants are encouraged to submit by 31 May, though applications after this date may still be considered. Deadline for applicants applying for funding: 1 March.

Find out more about applying

Entrance requirements:
Degree of at least UK upper second class (or equivalent) in a related subject. If your first language is not English, you normally need a minimum score of 7.0 in IELTS (including 7.0 in the written element) or equivalent. Find out more about our English Language requirements.

Funding:

UK/EU students may be eligible for AHRC funding. Applications must be received by 1 March. Contact Lisa Rabanal, l.rabanal@gold.ac.uk, for further information.

Careers:
Around half of students completing this programme progress to PhD level, and others go into practical work – in the creative industries and in NGOs in a great number of countries.

Skills:
High-level knowledge of cultural research; transferable skills within social and critical theory, aesthetics and performance, communication and multimedia; ethnography skills; critical appreciation of current debates in the media, the culture industries and the wider contemporary cultural environment.

Fees:
Please see Tuition fees.

Staff research interests:
Please see Staff research interests.

Contact the department:
Contact Lisa Rabanal

About the department:
Centre for Cultural Studies

Download a booklet [PDF, 1,334KB]

A core course enables you to study the most advanced theorists of and questions surrounding both the ‘new’ cultural theory of Deleuze, Negri and Agamben as well as classical British cultural studies of the tradition established by Stuart Hall. Your other core courses extend this groundwork by familiarising you further with both critical theory and methods of cultural analysis. In addition you take a range of options that introduce a material focus to complement the theory you have covered – for example, in digital and genetic media, in urban space, in the creative industries, in art and the visual culture of everyday life. You write a dissertation that consolidates this learning and prepares you for further study or engagement in the culture of today’s global capitalism.

What you study

The MA consists of:

Two compulsory core courses:

Cultural Theory
Text and Image

Two standard-length option courses or equivalent (two half-length courses may be taken in place of a standard course where available)

Dissertation (Methodology and Research) – includes submission of a 5,000 word methodology report and a final dissertation of 10,000-12,000 words.

You must successfully complete all the above components to complete the MA.

Full-time students take the core course Cultural Theory in the autumn term, and the core course Text and Image in the spring term. Option courses can be taken in either autumn or spring term, depending on when they are offered and on your individual workload. A methodology report, including a dissertation proposal/outline, is submitted in May. The final dissertation (10-12,000 words) is submitted at the end of August/beginning of September.

Part-time students have some flexibility. They must however take core courses in Cultural Theory and Text and Image in their first year. Progression into the second year depends upon successful completion of these courses. The Dissertation is submitted at the end of the second year.

Core courses

Cultural Theory

This course adopts a unique approach; it enables you to study post-structuralist or Continental philosophical thought whenever possible as it ‘plays out’ among cultural practitioners – in art, architecture and urbanism, in digital media, in lifestyles, in design, in the press and televisual communications, in cinema.

The course seeks to depart from a tradition in cultural studies which understands culture in terms of domination on the one hand and resistance on the other; or commodification on the one hand and authenticity (or ‘singularity’) on the other. Here we aim to understand the culture industries (for example, digital media, architecture, art, design, new journalism), not just in terms of domination through the commodity, but as far more complex arenas in which a complex texture of innovation, creativity, and restructured power relationships are emerging.

Text and Image

This course traces lines of intersection and divergence between theories of language or of textual media and theories of the image. It aims to familiarise students with the epistemological as well as political and ideological problems that contemporary cultural theory has inherited from previous attempts to think the relations among looking, seeing, knowing and writing, description, or inscription.

We will explore the shifting investments of theories of text and of image in disparate ontologies and publics through readings in optics, aesthetics, and literary theory, as well as through theories of race and photography.

Specific topics will include mimesis; aura and fetishism; rhetoric and sophistry; the effects of mass and technological reproduction on the media of collective or cultural memory; aestheticism and decadence; movement and transience; capital, the society of the spectacle, and other theses about an increase in the significance of the image in public space and life.

Dissertation (Methodology and Research)

The dissertation provides students with an opportunity to undertake a research project on a topic of significance to Cultural Studies, drawing on the knowledge, understanding and skills developed through the taught courses studied during the rest of the programme.

General preparation in addressing methodological questions relating to the dissertation, and training on specific research methods, are provided through taught sessions in the first two terms of the year in which the dissertation is taken. This aspect of the course culminates in a 5,000 word essay/report comprised of a reflection on research methods and incorporating a design/outline of the proposed dissertation.

Students then go on to conduct the research and complete the 10,000-12,000 word dissertation under the guidance of a dedicated supervisor.

You also choose two standard-length option courses (or equivalent – see Structure above) from a range of relevant courses across Goldsmiths.

Find out more about the Centre for Cultural Studies, including our varied events programme.

Assessment

Written examination; essays; dissertation.

Register your interest

If you register your interest in this programme we will keep you informed about open days and send you relevant further information. If you subsequently decide to apply for this programme you will be able to use the same login details to apply.