Aesthetics and Art Theory MA

This course combines a grounding in philosophical aesthetics in the modern European tradition with a study of contemporary art theory and the philosophy of art history. It offers an overview of philosophical approaches to modern art, distinguishing between 'aesthetic', 'Romantic' and 'Modernist' problematics, and considers current debates on situated and 'planetary' aesthetics.

Modules engage with figures like Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Rancière, Rosalind Krauss and Benjamin Buchloh.

You will study at the UK's leading Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy at Kingston University, which hosts conferences, workshops and regular seminars.

After you graduate

Our graduates often progress to research degrees in European philosophy and critical theory, or to careers in media/journalism, publishing, the arts, education, and public policy.

For example, recent graduates from the Aesthetics and Art Theory MA course have progressed to the following:

• Michael Sperlinger has become assistant director of the arts agency Lux (London);
• Marta Kuzma has become director of the Office of Contemporary Art Norway (Oslo);
• Ruth Blacksell has become a lecturer and associate director of O-SB Design, University of Reading;
• Louise Hanson has begun a PhD at Brasenose College, Oxford;
• Dessislava Dimova is finishing a PhD at the Bulgarian Academy;
• Anda Klavina is now a curator at the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art (Riga);
• Kate Parker is director of City Projects (London);
• John Millar began a PhD at CRMEP in autumn 2015 having been awarded a TECHNE-AHRC Consortium Studentship;
• Andrey Shental is senior editor at Theory and Practice while contributing to several other Russian periodicals, including Artchronika;
• Alex Fletcher has been awarded a 3-Year PhD AHRC Studentship by the TECHNE consortium, to work on 'Spaces of Capital: Narrating Social Space and Time in the Photo and Video Essay' in the CRMEP;
• Josefine Wikström has begun a PhD in the CRMEP on Ontologies of Production and Performance;
• Luke Skrebowski submitted his PhD in CRMEP simultaneously with the dissertation for this, his second MA. He now lectures in art history at the University of Cambridge;
• Gil Leung is distribution manager at the Lux Arts Agency, London, and editor of VERSUCH journal. She previously worked as assistant curator for Tate Film and Live Programmes; and
• Pilar Villela Mascaro is a freelance curator in Mexico City.