MA Course: Photographic History and Practice

[Michael Pritchard]

De Montfort University, Leicester, UK, is currently recruiting students for the second year of its innovative MA programme in photographic history. The course offers a one-year full-time or two-year part-time programme of study and provides a series of modules ranging from photography and theory to practical work in photographic archives. The first year attract an international intake of students and the course has been widely acknowledged as the best in the field.

This course is dedicated to the study and focusing on the important technological, visual and historical material which makes it an interdisciplinary subject. It aims to help students develop the necessary critical tools to research photography history, and provides access to primary materials through visits to local, regional and national archives and collections. The course is part of an active research community and benefits from visiting subject specialists and opportunities provided by course partners which include the National Media Museum, Bradford, Birmingham Central Library, the British Library and the University of Zurich, Switzerland. Some further information about the teaching methods used can be found here: DMU HoPP.pdf

The course is for students from a variety of disciplines including conservation students, archivists, historians of science and those from various fields of visual studies, for instance visual anthropology, photography or art history. The MA Photography History and Practice is delivered on a full-time weekly basis, over three semesters and includes workshops, lectures, seminars and practical sessions, with written and oral assessments, and a dissertation, or part-time over two years.

Potential students also have the opportunity to apply for a Wilson Fellowship which provides a scholarship of £5,000. Applications for the bursary close on 1 August 2010. This scholarship is available to one student entering the M.A. Photographic History and Practice in September 2010. Funding has been made available by The Wilson Fellowship in Photographic History, and can be used towards tuition fees and other programme-related costs. Click here to link to a PDF giving further information about the Fellowship.

For more information about the course click here or contact the Course Leader: Dr Kelley Wilder by email at: [e-mail] or telephone: [phone].