Museum Cultures

Museums and galleries are contested zones. How history is presented and to whom, and what constitutes culture, have been discussed in the press, in academia and in museums themselves. This MA Museum Cultures introduces you to the long history of museums and to some of the pressing issues that face them today.

Why choose this course?

• Museums have been of enormous importance in shaping empires and nations, towns and villages, and their collections are connected to wider histories of conflict and social change. To study museums is to study the development and fierce contestation of our collective cultural imagination and memory.
• You will be taught by internationally acclaimed scholars and will have the opportunity to critically consider topics such as the place of museums in a postcolonial age, the impact and use of digital media, the role of community museums, class and the country house, and museum professionalism.
• You will benefit from our close links, in teaching and research, with the numerous museums, galleries, archives and heritage organisations across London and beyond.
• You will have the opportunity to take a ten-week supervised work placement in a museum, gallery or archive. Previous placements have been offered at Tate, the British Museum, the Science Museum, Whitechapel Gallery and the Horniman Museum to name a few. Past students have helped design and run school programmes, documented collections that were previously uncatalogued, conducted visitor research, and assisted curators in producing exhibitions.

What you will learn

You will master the wide range of methods and sources needed to understand how museums operate and how their role is shifting in the twenty-first century. This will give you advanced skills, much desired by employers, in analysis, argument and communication.

You will learn to understand and to question the role and impact of the museum, thus preparing you for a wide range of careers in the sector. You will be introduced to critical issues facing the museum today, and be able to follow your interests taking specialist option modules that will allow you to explore a subject in depth, such as decolonisation, the art of Renaissance Italy, modern photography, or curatorial practice in the twenty-first century. Subject-specific training in research skills is also provided.

How you will learn

MA Museum Cultures is available to study in the evening either full- or part-time, so you can fit your studies around other commitments. Classes may include short lectures, seminar and small-group discussions or tasks such as the analysis of texts and visual material. Option modules may also include organised visits to museums, archives and heritage sites.

We encourage vibrant debate, enlivened by the diverse perspectives and the experience of Birkbeck students, some of whom already work in the museum and gallery sector. In your final year, you will devise your own research project, supervised by one of our specialists.