Museum Cultures (MA / MRes / Postgraduate Diploma / Postgraduate Certificate) - 2013/2014 entry

Museums are far more than storehouses of treasures or curiosities, since they both represent and construct culture. Museums have been of enormous importance in shaping empires, nations and cities, and their collections remain inextricable from histories of conflict, colonialism and trauma. Museums establish powerful narratives of progress and primitivism, knowledge and ignorance, inclusion and exclusion. To study museums is to study the development and fierce contestation of our collective cultural imagination and memory.

This programme offers you a unique opportunity to study the history and operations of museums in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia. We will investigate the cultural significance of museums, their histories and contemporary issues. You will acquire and refine skills in archival and historical research and verbal and written communication. You can opt to take a work placement in one of our prestigious partnership museums.

Find out more about why you should choose Birkbeck and about studying with us.  

Read a blog by a current student on the programme.

• Close links with a number of key cultural institutions, museums and galleries in London.
• Either develop your research skills in a project, or gain experience with a work placement in a museum or gallery.
• Guest speakers include international curators, museum directors and artists.
• Taught by internationally renowned academics in the field of museum studies.

MA: one core module, two option modules, a work placement or a research project, and a dissertation. Full-time students take the core module and an option in the autumn, one option in the spring, a research project or work placement in the summer term and work on their dissertation from January. Part-time students take a core module in the autumn term, an option module in the spring term and a research project or work placement in the summer term. In Year 2 they take a second option and begin work on their dissertations in January.

MRes (full-time only): one core module and one option, and an extended dissertation of 30,000 words. Students take the core course and an option in the autumn, and work on their dissertation for the remainder of the academic year.

Postgraduate Diploma: one core module, two option modules, a work placement or a research project. Full-time students take the core module and an option module in the autumn, one further option in the spring and their research project or work placement in the summer term. Part-time students take a core module, an option module and their work placement/research project in Year 1, and a second option module in the autumn term of Year 2.

Postgraduate Certificate: one core module and one option module. Full-time students take both courses in the autumn term. Part-time students take the core module in the autumn and the option module in the spring.

Core module

This introduces you to contemporary debates within museum cultures. A linked seminar series allows you to develop research skills appropriate to the museum sector and its academic study.

Option modules

Option modules offer you the opportunity to follow specific interests and areas of research. Theses may include:

• Art and Museums in a Digital Age
• Curating as Critical Practice
• Ethnographic Museums and Collection
• Exhibiting the Body
• Framing and Narrating Modern Art in the Museum
• London Metropolitan Archives: Contemporary Policy and Practice
• Museums, Memory and National Identity 
• Nostalgia in the Museum Landscape
• Research Project
• Work placement.

Find out more about this programme in our departmental handbook.

We have close links with a number of key cultural institutions, including the British Museum, the Cambridge Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology, the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), the Horniman Museum, Foundling Museum, Raphael Samuel archives, and London Metropolitan archives.

Our location in Bloomsbury offers excellent access to all the major museums and art galleries in London, as well as specialist libraries of the University of London. The British Library is within close proximity as well as the British Museum, National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, Tate Britain, Tate Modern, and the V&A. Commercial galleries and temporary exhibition galleries like the Barbican Gallery, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, the Hayward Gallery and the Royal Academy make London an excellent place for undertaking research.

The department attracts a rich programme of visiting scholars and practitioners. Our Centre for Film and Visual Media Research also offers screening and reference facilities.

Find out more about our world-class research resources, as well as our specialist resources.

If you are interested in further research, we offer PhD/MPhil programmes in related subjects.

Graduates go on to careers in museum and gallery administration, in auction houses, as curators, or as researchers and journalists.

• In addition to the online application, you will need to complete and submit a written exercise.

• Early application recommended, but later applications also considered.
• Interviews March–September.