Update

Overview

The GLAADH project continues to influence our thinking about the curriculum of the BA Art History and, beyond that, our approach to critical studies on School's practice degrees.

APU tried out a piecemeal approach as its contribution to the GLAADH project. In order to expand the range of an overwhelmingly Western curriculum rapidly, we inserted elements of African, Central American and Asian study into a number of existing modules. These elements remain in place, for the third year running. Students are receptive to this enlargement but are impatient with its timidity.

Future Developments

The second stage of curriculum revision is due next year, when APU overhauls all of its degree programmes. The expansion of our outlook will involve the design of thematic modules, on art and anthropology in Cambridge, encounters between the west and its neighbours, sacred art from a range of cultures and, eagerly anticipated by students, Islamic art.

We also intend to look at ways in which the interests of the practice degrees could be both concentrated and expanded:

The study of Chinese and Arabic calligraphy might be incorporated into the MA Typographic Design and Mughal miniatures into the BA Illustration. In the new BA Fine Art, we intend to consider the problem of visual appropriation and, in the BA Photography, the issues inherent in the picturing of difference.

These aren't very remarkable ideas but they would not have gained focus here without the GLAADH project.

Back to top