Program Overview

Program Overview

The M1 & M2 in LLCER – Specialization in Art and Visual Culture of English-speaking Countries is a research-focused program that offers students the opportunity to learn the fundamentals of iconography and visual studies applied to the study of painting, photography, plastic arts, multimedia arts, British and American cinema, visual culture, and contemporary practices of images.

Program Description

This program, the only one of its kind in France, partners with other institutions such as the École du Louvre and the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, and works alongside museums, foundations, and publishers in the artistic sector, both locally and abroad. The program discusses the history and status of images, their connections with cultural institutions, their assimilation into the English language and English-speaking cultures, and their position today.

Program Structure

The program takes place at Université Paris Cité and its partner institutions and includes a number of courses relating to discipline-specific methodologies where students can learn to analyze still and moving images in English and produce in-depth commentaries on esthetics, theories, and critiques in English. Students have the possibility of doing an internship in the first year of the program.

Internship Opportunities

All students are strongly encouraged to do an internship in the second year of the program as the seminars will primarily take place in the first half of each semester. The second year also offers a professional track where the internship and the corresponding report have an equal weighting as the master’s thesis. There are two possible options in the professional track, namely:

• Translation/publishing
• “Cultural landscapes” (i.e., working in a cultural institution or museum in France or abroad)

Admission Criteria

Admission to the professional track is based on the results from M1 and an outline of students’ professional goals and objectives.

Pre-requisites

• A degree in Anglophone Studies (or equivalent, submitted to the agreement of the Admissions Committee)
• Excellent oral and written English (C1 minimum)
• Ability to argue a point in English
• Excellent knowledge of the cultures and literatures of the anglophone world
• Autonomy and self-reliance

French Language

French proficiency is not required for the Research Programmes, but a basic command of French is recommended.

General Criteria for Admission

The Admissions Commission will pay particular attention to the student’s undergraduate curriculum and grades (especially third-year results), and to the cover letter, which must be written in English. Extra-curricular activities (projects, internships, volunteer work…) may also be taken into account.

Guidelines for Writing the Cover Letter

When writing the cover letter, students should:

• Explain why they wish to attend this programme and what aspects of the syllabus interest them most
• Describe the types of objects they are most interested in (cinema, painting, photography, video games, art theory, gender theory, etc.) and why
• Discuss their cultural practices and activities (which kinds of museums, galleries, or exhibitions, what types of films, books, video games, etc.) and explain why
• Think of thesis subjects they would like to explore and describe them in a few lines each (what medium, what period, what corpus…), and sketch the approach they would adopt (what type of sources would be relevant, what methodologies, what theoretical works?)