Masters Programme

The SRU MA course provides coverage of the three regions (taught in three separate modules) and a core module focused on general theoretical and methodological issues and on museum anthropology. Through lectures and coursework, the course explores some of the following themes: Architecture, cosmology and organisation of space | Representations of power and legitimacy | Ceremonial practices | Spirits and ancestors: the interface of politics, ideology and art | Valuables, exchange and the market | Production, style and the role of the artist | Ethnographic museums and display | Current perspectives on collecting and museums | The agency of objects. There is a strong emphasis throughout the course on cross-cultural comparison and examination of contemporary theory.

MA course assignments are: six regional essays (a Gallery Talk essay and Seminar Paper for each of the three regions), a Portfolio and a Dissertation. The 15,000-word dissertation is an important part of the course, allowing students to work intensively on a topic of their choice, possibly as a precursor to doctoral research.

Regional modules
Three 12-week regional modules run during the academic year. Within each module, faculty members deliver a lecture series that provides students with an overview of each region’s visual material, while also covering the main methodological and theoretical issues raised in the area literature. These lectures provide the background against which two assignments are chosen, prepared and delivered by students: a Gallery Talk (a 2,000-word essay on an artwork in the Sainsbury Collection) and a Research Seminar (4,000-word essay). Each student receives two personal tutorials for each assignment. Practical instruction is provided in presentation and teaching techniques, so that students become experienced in presenting written and visual material to an academic audience.

Objects and Collections in Theory and Practice
Taught in two sections, this module concentrates in the first semester on theory, and in the second on museum practice, as they relate to the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas.

'Objects' and 'Collections' will be dealt with as conceptual categories with complex histories connected to material culture studies, cultural property and heritage which continue to be located at the centre of contemporary museum practice. The module culminates in the development of a student-led exhibition in the SRU Library.

SRU Dissertation
The Dissertation (15,000 words max.) is the culmination of the MA in the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas. Building on your work in other modules, you will identify a topic of interest and work with advisors and the Course Director to formulate a feasible research project. Once assignments for the other modules have been completed, you will work exclusively on this from early May with the support of a supervisory team. The submission deadline for the dissertation is at the end of August.

Museum study visits
MA students undertake study visits to the British Museum in London, the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, and the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge. A longer 3-day trip to Scottish museums takes place in the Spring. SRU alumni work as curators in several of these museums.

Supplementary sessions
These provide training in research techniques, bibliographic research, computing, work presentation, object handling, editing, design and other professional matters. There are also regular seminars at the SRU and the Department of Art History, with presentations by SRU faculty, students and visiting speakers.

The Arts of the Americas
This module examines the distinctive arts and cultures of the Americas. Lectures, discussions, readings and assignments are to provide an overview of selected indigenous traditions of the New World – both ethnographic and archaeological – with a focus on their remarkable achievements and material things, including architecture, sculpture, ceramics, metalwork, basketry and textiles. We will examine how scholars have interpreted them as ‘arts,’ using a range of approaches and viewpoints. The SCVA and its assemblage of objects from different parts of the Americas are crucial in the teaching of the module. There will be special focus on how Amerindian cultures can be studied on the basis of shared dimensions in cosmology, organisation and aesthetics. We will highlight ways that objects inform about the people and societies who produced them, particularly in terms of negotiating identity, ritual practices and socio-political status. We will also have documentary films to illustrate and analyse the close relations between art, performance and socio-cosmological meanings. 

The Arts of Africa
You will explore the complex and continually evolving field of African Art. Through a combination of lectures, seminars, readings and artefactual histories, you will examine how the category of “African art”— to cite Peter Probst —has been made, remade and unmade over time through the work of a range of actors, institutions and disciplines. A historically grounded approach will enable you to recognise the constructed nature of categories and classifications, while critically reflecting on how some works came to be included/excluded from the history of African Art. Artefacts and their biographies will be central to our approach, offering opportunities to consider how they have been created, circulated and displayed in a range of contexts from the fifteenth century onwards, including the acceleration of collecting during the colonial era, the embrace of African Art by the Pan-African and Civil Rights movements, as well as recontextualisations by museums both on and beyond the African continent today. We will also address pressing contemporary issues surrounding representation, restitution, and the attempted decolonisation of cultural institutions, as well as engaging with calls for the ‘De-Africanization of African Art’. Sessions deepening your engagement with current work in the field will include presentations by external scholars, curators and museum professionals, as well as PhD researchers.

The Arts of Oceania
Examining ‘art’ in the diversity of its forms (visual, aural, kinetic, tactile), this module will provide a working knowledge of the distinctive cultural traditions and histories of Oceania. Through lectures, discussions, readings, assignments and films, we will address the history of the region, and some of the central conceptual issues that have arisen in the study of Oceanic sensorial ‘things’ (sculptures, architecture, textiles, paintings, ceramics, dance, chants). The aim of this module is to draw on interdisciplinary approaches and methodologies, particularly from anthropology, archaeology, art history and museum studies. After an introduction to the region and a discussion about the politics of mapping and naming, we will discuss the historical engagements of Pacific peoples with Euro-America. These encounters will be examined with an eye to the various routes by which the ‘arts’ of Pacific communities moved into museums and collections. There will also be intensive surveys of Oceania’s various art forms found in various regions, historical and contemporary. These surveys will be supplemented by case studies on Australia, contemporary art, Vanuatu and Fiji.

Bursaries and Scholarships to part or fully cover fees, living expenses and travel are available. All applicants who are accepted for a place on the MA course are considered for funding. Please see MA Funding for details.

Apply for a 2027/28 Postgraduate Taught Master's Course

We welcome enquiries concerning any aspect of the MA programme. Please contact the SRU Admissions Office for information or to discuss your interests.

MA Applicants should have, or be about to complete, a good undergraduate degree in anthropology, archaeology, art history or a related subject. Exceptions, such as candidates with extensive museum experience, may also be considered.

Applicants wishing to be considered for SRU funding should apply no later than 31 January for the course starting in September that year. Potential applicants are encouraged to get in touch with the SRU Admissions Office and apply as early as possible. Self-funding applications after 31 January may be considered, depending on available places.