The information on this page is accurate for students entering the programme in 2023/2024 or before. For students entering the programme from September 2024 or after, you can find the details of your programme: BA History of Art (For students entering from September 2024 onwards)
The BA History of Art at Leeds explores practices and interpretations of art across an exceptionally wide array of intersecting cultures and different periods. In a world increasingly defined through images and material culture, we approach art history as a vital and dynamic framework for understanding both our shared histories, and some of the most pressing questions we are faced with now.
With an emphasis on the interconnections between art and larger social dynamics, the programme offers an active engagement with questions of power, politics and society, and the potential for a deep understanding of art history to illuminate the wider frameworks that shape our culture, such as those of race, our relations to nature and the environment, class, gender and sexuality.
Our students are equipped to become global citizens, as experts in their fields of study and as socially aware thinkers with a panoply of dynamic, relevant and transferrable skills.
[Learning Outcomes, Transferable (Key) Skills, Assessment]
View Timetable
You will be required to study the following compulsory modules:
| Code | Title | Credits | Semester | Pass for Progression |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ARTF1028 | From Art History’s Myths to Critical Art History | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| ARTF1049 | Art History as Practice | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ARTF1056 | Critical Approaches to Display, Institutions, and Engagement | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| ARTF1300 | Ways of Seeing | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ARTF1301 | Ways of Thinking Seeing | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) |
You may take up to 20 credits from the following optional module or any Semester 1 Discovery module.
| Code | Title | Credits | Semester | Pass for Progression |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ARTF1027 | Cultural History | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) |
You may take up to 20 credits of Semester 1 discovery modules.
[Learning Outcomes, Transferable (Key) Skills, Assessment]
View Timetable
You will be required to study the following compulsory modules:
| Code | Title | Credits | Semester | Pass for Progression |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ARTF2203 | Expanding Fields of Display, Institutions and Engagement | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ARTF2212 | Methods in Practice: Art-Historical Research | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| ARTF2213 | Origins, Structures, and Critique: Framing the Discipline of Art History | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) |
You will be required to take up to 20 credits from the following optional modules in either Basket 1 OR Basket 2. Note that the list is indicative, and may change year by year:
Basket 1:
| Code | Title | Credits | Semester | Pass for Progression |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ARTF2055 | Variant Modernism: British art in the short 20th Century | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ARTF2064 | Live Issues and Contemporary Art Practice | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ARTF2069 | The Art Market: Moments, Methodologies, Meanings | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ARTF2092 | The Museum | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ARTF2142 | Cinema/Post-Cinema | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) |
Basket 2:
| Code | Title | Credits | Semester | Pass for Progression |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ARTF2049 | The State of Utopia | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ARTF2051 | Seeing in Asia | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ARTF2094 | Art, Power and Portraiture | 20 | Not running in 202526 | |
| ARTF2141 | Thinking the Culture Wars: Local and Global Contexts | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ARTF2210 | Absence, Representation, Violence | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ARTF2211 | Art and the Social | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) |
In Semester 2 you will be required to take one option from Basket 3 AND one option from Basket 4.
Basket 3:
| Code | Title | Credits | Semester | Pass for Progression |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ARTF2047 | Image, Music, Text: Reading Roland Barthes | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| ARTF2111 | Bodies of Difference: Gender, Power and the Visual Arts | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| ARTF2140 | Earth and Environment in Nineteenth-century British Art | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| ARTF2525 | Essaying Feminisms | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) |
Basket 4:
| Code | Title | Credits | Semester | Pass for Progression |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ARTF2052 | Showing Asia | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| ARTF2059 | The Grand Tour: travels, excavations, collections | 20 | Not running in 202526 | |
| ARTF2208 | African Art: Context, Representation, Signification | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| CSER2206 | Developing Your Professional Identity: Preparing for a Career in Within The Arts, Heritage and Creative Industries | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) |
You can take 20 credits of Discovery modules in place of an option from ONE of any of the baskets.
[Learning Outcomes, Transferable (Key) Skills, Assessment]
View Timetable
Candidates MUST choose one of the following dissertation modules
| Code | Title | Credits | Semester | Pass for Progression |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ARTF3060 | Dissertation | 40 | Semesters 1 & 2 (Sep to Jun) | PFP |
| ARTF3170 | Dissertation | 60 | Semesters 1 & 2 (Sep to Jun) | PFP |
Candidates will be required to study a minimum of 40 credits and a maximum of 80 credits from the following optional modules.
| Code | Title | Credits | Semester | Pass for Progression |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ARTF3003 | Deconstruction Reading Politics | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ARTF3034 | From Trauma to Cultural Memory: The Unfinished Business of Representation and the Holocaust | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| ARTF3042 | Cultural Diversity in Museum and Material Culture - Case Study | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ARTF3054 | Anthropology, Art and Representation | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| ARTF3056 | Unmaking Things: Materials and Ideas in the European Renaissance | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ARTF3058 | Reading Sexual Difference | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| ARTF3059 | Critical approaches to photography | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ARTF3063 | Postcolonial Feminisms | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ARTF3064 | Art, Ecology and Empire | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ARTF3077 | Humanity, Animality and Globality | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ARTF3099 | Antique Dealers: The Market for 'Decorative Art' from Curiosities to Retro | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| ARTF3109 | Prehuman to Post-Anthropocene | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| ARTF3168 | Africa and the Atlantic World: History, Historiography and the Visual Arts | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) | |
| ARTF3173 | Movies, Migrants and Diasporas | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| ARTF3174 | Collecting and Curating Popular Culture | 20 | Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) | |
| ARTF3212 | Art and Existentialism | 20 | Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) |
Candidates may study 20 credits of discovery modules
Last updated: 21/07/2025 16:45:37
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