Program Overview

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BA Art History & Visual Culture and History - 2026 entry

Overview

Navigate history to learn about changes in society, culture, politics, religion and apply them to current theories and practices. Art, history and culture embedded on campus with the Exeter Northcott Theatre, Bill Douglas Cinema Musuem, Lemon Grove and Great Hall as music venues and student theatre Roborough Studios. Cover time periods from the Roman Empire to the 1960s and topics as diverse as the Vikings, early medieval empires, the Norman Conquest and magic and witchcraft in early modern Europe. Learn to collect evidence using libraries, archives, the internet, interviews, languages, palaeography and environmental fieldwork.

Entry requirements

• A-Levels: ABB
• IB: 32/655
• BTEC: DDM
• Contextual offers: A-Level: BBC, IB: 28/554, BTEC: DMM

Course content

Year 1

• 30 credits of compulsory Art History & Visual Culture modules
• 45 credits of compulsory History modules
• 30 credits of optional Art History & Visual Culture modules
• 15 credits of optional History modules

Compulsory modules

• HIH1137: Becoming a Historian: Core
• HIH1421: Understanding Medieval and Early Modern History
• HIH1422: Understanding Modern History
• AHV1011: Questions and Methods in Art History and Visual Culture

Optional modules

• AHV1005: Inside the Museum
• AHV1009: Topics in Art History and Visual Culture II
• AHV1012: Approaches to Art History and Visual Culture
• HIH1598: The Medieval Inquisition
• HIH1141: Plants and People in the long Eighteenth Century
• HIH1142: Women, Gender and Education in Britain, c.
• HIH1143: Antisemitism and Assimilation: Images of Jews in the Modern World
• HIH1002: Losing an Empire, Finding a Role: Britain Since 1945
• HIH1042: Murder in Early Modern England
• HIH1402: Britain, America and the Global Order,
• HIH1411: From Wigan Pier to Piccadilly: Britain between the Wars
• HIH1501: The Viking Phenomenon
• HIH1505: The First Crusade
• HIH1506: The First Day of the Somme
• HIH1532: The History of Strategic Thinking
• HIH1585: Ladies of the Night: Prostitution in the Victorian World
• HIH1586: Early Modern Venice: Representations and Myths
• HIH1596: The Good War? The United States in World War II
• HIH1612: Renaissance Florence
• HIH1043: The Collapse of Communism in Central-Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union
• HIH1014: The Body in Eighteenth-Century Britain
• HIH1057: The Opium War: the British Empire encounters the Middle Kingdom
• HIH1063: Sex, Marx and Rock 'n' Roll: The Soviet 'Sixties',
• HIH1618: Body, Border, Partition: Understanding Violence in South Asia

Year 2

• 30 credits of compulsory Art History & Visual Culture modules
• 30 credits of optional Art History & Visual Culture modules
• 60 credits of optional History modules

Compulsory modules

• AHV2015: Art History and Visual Culture Field Study for Blended Learning

Optional modules

• EAS2089: Creative Industries: Their Past, Our Future
• MLM2003: Chinoiserie and Europeenerie: Artistic and cultural exchanges between China and Europe
• AHV2012: Revolutions: Art and Society in France,
• AHV2018: Comics Studies: Histories, Methodologies, Genres
• AHV2019: Common Threads: Art, Craft and Activism
• AHV2016: Contemporary Art and Curation
• AHV2020: Deconstructing the Dutch Golden Age: Nationalism, Exceptionalism and Decline
• AHV2023: Global Impressionisms
• AHV2013: Photography and Evidence
• AHV2024: Renaissances North and South: Italy and the Netherlands
• AHV2009: The New York Avant-Garde
• AHV2002: Debates and Contestations in Art History
• AHV2007: Contemporary Visual Practices
• HIH2011A: Forgetting Fascism, Remembering Communism: Memory in Modern Europe
• HIH2036A: Albion's Fatal Tree: Capital Punishment in England,
• HIH2037: American Frontiers: The West in U.S. History and Mythology
• HIH2137A: Inventing Modern Man: Constructions of Mind, Body and the Individual,
• HIH2138A: History of Development: Ideologies, Politics and Projects
• HIH2145A: Spain from Absolutism to Democracy
• HIH2185A: China in the World,
• HIH2186A: Deviants and Dissenters in Early Modern England
• HIH2208A: Medieval Paris
• HIH2210A: The Russian Empire,
• HIH2218A: Religion, Society and Culture in Tudor England
• HIH2238: Slavery, Revolution, Independence: Saint-Domingue and Haiti,
• HIH2241: Rise and Demise of Communism in Global Perspective
• HIH2242: British Settler Colonialism and its Legacies
• HIH2243: Britain and Ireland: Union, Conflict, and Independence,
• HIH2588: Empire, Identity and Heritage in South-East Europe and the Middle East )
• HIH2590: An Age of Iron? Europe in the Tenth Century
• HIH2591: Philip Augustus and the Making of France,

Placement year (if taken)

• Typically, any placement year will take place in Year 3
• 120 credit compulsory placement module

With Study Abroad

• 120 credit compulsory placement module
• For your year abroad you will agree a suite of modules in your host institution with the Faculty Study Abroad Coordinator

With Employment Experience

• 120 credit compulsory placement module
• The sector you choose to work within is very much your choice as you will be responsible for finding and organising your placement

With Employment Experience Abroad

• 120 credit compulsory placement module
• The sector and country you choose to work within is very much your choice as you will be responsible for finding and organising your placement

Final year

• 0-30 credits of compulsory Art History & Visual Culture modules
• 0-30 credits of compulsory History modules
• 30-60 credits of optional Art History & Visual Culture modules
• 30-60 credits of optional History modules

Compulsory modules

• AHV3000: Art History and Visual Culture Dissertation
• HIH3005: General Third-Year Dissertation
• HIH3006: Research Project Dissertation

Optional modules

• EAF3515: Something to See: War and Visual Media
• EAS3421: Picturing the Global City: Literature and Visual Culture in the 21st Century
• SML3052: The Place of Meaning: Gardens in Europe and Asia
• MLG3036: Dictatorships on Display: History Exhibitions in Germany and Austria
• AHV3017: 'Queen City of Europe': Art, Culture and Society in Renaissance Antwerp, c.
• AHV3013: Art, Industry and the Modern,
• AHV3016: Conceptual Art
• AHV3007: Global Modernisms
• AHV3012: Installation Art
• AHV3008: Performance Art
• AHV3020: Subjectivity and Storytelling: From Decorative Arts to Digital Futures
• AHV3018: The Body in Art and Disability Studies
• AHV3003: The Face
• AHV3002: Understanding Space in Renaissance Italy
• HIH3415: Everyday Stalinism: Life in the Soviet Union,
• HIH3416: Critics of Empire
• HIH3417: The Yes, Minister Files: Perspectives on British Government since 1914
• HIH3418: The Russian Revolution
• HIH3421: Magic in the Middle Ages
• HIH3422: Street Protest and Social Movements in the Modern Era
• HIH3423: The Holocaust and Nazi Occupation of Eastern Europe,
• HIH3426: Health and its Politics in the 20th Century
• HIH3430: From the Grand Tour to Gladiator: Modern encounters with the ancient world
• HIH3431: The Population Problem: Conservation, Eugenics, and Food in the Twentieth Century
• HIH3433: Beyond Cannibalism: Indigenous Peoples and the European Colonisation of Brazil,
• HIH3434: The Body in Early Modern England
• HIH3437: Death to the Traitors: Rebellion and Resisting Tyranny in the Middle Ages
• HIH3441: Britons Abroad: The Experience of Travel, c.
• HIH3446: The Celtic Frontier
• HIH3450: Decolonisation and Colonial Conflict
• HIH3452: Whiteness: A Global History
• HIH3453: Violence or Non-Violence? Gandhi and Popular Movements in India,
• HIH3454: Reformation and Resistance in an English Village: Earls Colne,
• HIH3456: A New Jerusalem? Being Protestant in Post-Reformation England
• HIH3330: Truth
• HIH3333: Disease
• HIH3334: War
• HIH3336: Revolution
• HIH3331: Elites
• HIH3455: Sexualities
• HIH3335: Violence

Course variants

BA Art History & Visual Culture and History with Study Abroad

• UCAS code: VV32
• Our four-year ‘with Study Abroad’ degree offers you the possibility of spending your third year abroad, studying with one of our many partner universities

BA Art History & Visual Culture and History with Employment Experience

• UCAS code: VV33
• Our four-year ‘with Employment Experience’ degree, offers you the possibility of spending your third year carrying out a graduate-level work placement or placements within the UK as part of your degree

BA Art History & Visual Culture and History with Employment Experience Abroad

• UCAS code: VV34
• Our four-year ‘with Employment Experience Abroad’ degree, offers you the possibility of spending your third year abroad, carrying out a graduate-level work placement or placements as part of your degree

Fees

• UK students: £9,535 per year
• International students: £24,700 per year

Scholarships

• The University of Exeter has many different scholarships available to support your education, including £5 million in scholarships for international students applying to study with us in the 2025/26 academic year, such as our Exeter Excellence Scholarships

Learning and teaching

• You will be taught by internationally respected staff, who are leading researchers in their specialisms
• We use a wide variety of techniques and approaches including seminars, lectures, study groups and web-based learning, as well as valuable field study
• We integrate the latest approaches with traditional learning and teaching to give you a varied and challenging programme

Assessment

• Assessment methods vary between modules, but generally include coursework, project work, written exams and various forms of presentation

Contact time

• You’ll receive ten contact hours per week with staff, both in teaching time and with your personal tutor
• You’re also expected to invest a lot of time in independent study; this involves individual study and contact with your study-group (for example, in preparation for seminars)

Research-inspired teaching

• Teaching that is inspired by research ensures lectures are up-to-date and relevant: you will benefit from access to the latest thinking, equipment and resources

Academic support

• All students have access to a personal tutor, who is available for advice and support throughout your studies
• There are also several services on campus where you can get advice and information, including the Students’ Guild Advice Unit

Optional modules outside of this course

• Each year, if you have optional modules available, you can take up to 30 credits in a subject outside of your course

Proficiency in a second subject

• If you complete 60 credits of modules in specified subjects, you may have the words 'with proficiency in’ added to your degree title when you graduate

Your future

• Studying Art History & Visual Culture equips students with a broad range of highly desirable transferable skills in analysis, critique, research and theoretical and practical creativity
• You will also develop specialist knowledge of everything from traditional art forms such as architecture and sculpture, to today’s visual practices such as film, video, performance and digital art

Employer-valued skills this course develops

• Analysis
• Critique
• Research
• Theoretical and practical creativity

Further study

• The Art History & Visual Culture programme prepares its graduates to undertake postgraduate study or training in areas such as education, arts management and journalism, amongst others

Career support and pathways

• We have a dedicated, award-winning Careers Service, ensuring you have access to careers advisors, mentors and the tools you need to succeed in finding employment in your chosen field on graduation

Related courses

• Art History & Visual Culture and Classical Studies BA
• Art History & Visual Culture and English BA
• Art History & Visual Culture and Film & Television Studies BA
• Art History & Visual Culture and Drama BA
• Art History & Visual Culture and Modern Languages BA
• Art History & Visual Culture BA
• Liberal Arts BA
• Flexible Combined Honours BA/BSc (Exeter)