Course Overview
Status
Applications to open in October 2026
Location
Vernon Square Kings Cross, London WC1X 9EP
Duration
9 months, full-time
Awarding body
University of London
Intake
200 - 250 students per year
Special Option modules offer new perspectives on visual and material cultures, drawing on the research expertise of lecturers and often engage closely with adjacent studies in history, anthropology, politics, philosophy, literature and religion. All MA Special Option teaching is research-led. In making your choices, explore our faculty profile pages on the website to discover more about individual research interests and approaches to art history.
Please note: Our Special Options vary from year to year as we seek to refresh and expand our offer. We reserve the right to amend or withdraw the options which run if necessary. In the event that a course tutor is on sabbatical, takes up a fellowship, or otherwise is not able to teach the course, they will be replaced by another experienced course tutor for a semester or in some cases the academic year. We aim to confirm these at least twelve months in advance and will always contact applicants immediately in rare instances where changes have to be made.
Special Options 2027/8
- Architecture, Art and Empire: Imperial Legacies at Home and Abroad c.1620-c.1920. Course leader: Dr Kyle Leyden. Webpage to be added shortly.
- Art and the Matter of Global Encounter in Early Modern France, c. 1650-1800. Course leader: Dr Sarah Grandin
- Body and Experience in Renaissance Art. Course leaders: Dr Felix Jäger, Dr Robert Brennan, Professor Guido Rebecchini
- Black British Art, 1945 to now. Course leader: Dr Indie Choudhury
- Byzantium and its Rivals: Artistic encounters across the medieval Mediterranean. Course leader: Professor Antony Eastmond, Teaching Fellow
- Culture Wars: Art in China, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Course leaders: Professor Klara Kemp-Welch, Dr Maria Mileeva, Dr Wenny Teo, Teaching Fellow
- Empires of Art: Early Modern Asia, 1500-1900. Course leaders: Professor Sussan Babaie, Professor Stephen Whiteman, Dr Tom Young
- Experiencing Modernism: Utopia, Politics, and Times of Turmoil. Course leader: Professor Robin Schuldenfrei
- Gothic Encounters: Architecture & Emulation in Medieval Europe. Course leader: Dr Tom Nickson
- Painters in the Studio, 1945 to now. Course leader: Dr Pia Gottschaller, Teaching Fellow
- Pre-Modern Fashion: From the Mediterranean to Mongolia. Course leader: Dr Meredyth Winter, Teaching Fellow
- Reinterpreting the Object. Late Medieval and Renaissance Art in Northern Europe c. 1360-1520. Course leader: Professor Susie Nash
- The Sixties: Eccentric, Erotic, Psychotic. Course leader: Professor Jo Applin
- The Surrealist Century: Mediums, Madness, Magic. Course leader: Professor Gavin Parkinson, Teaching Fellow
- The Supernatural Middle Ages: Images of the Extraordinary. Professor Alixe Bovey. Webpage to be added shortly.
- Wordplay: The Verbal and the Visual c. 1870 to the present. Course leader: Dr Caroline Levitt