The GLAADH Survey: Some Preliminary Results

Craig Clunas, University of Sussex

GLAADH (Globalising art, Architecture and Design History) was a project of art and design historians at the University of Sussex, the Open University and Middlesex University, funded by HEFCE and the Department for Higher and Further Education, Training and Employment under the Fund for the Development of Teaching and Learning. The project sought to encourage and embed cultural diversity in the Art, Architecture and Design History curriculum, starting from the premise that much of the current range of teaching was not properly identified in the last subject review, which criticised the field in general for an overly narrow concentration on the art of Europe and North America.

One of the first substantial acts of the project therefore was a survey of current practice, carried out in the summer of 2001 through face to face interviews in forty-seven departments throughout the UK. The survey aimed to establish existing teaching provision and resources, future curriculum plans and ways in which GLAADH can contribute to future plans.

We approached forty-seven departments throughout the UK that were assessed under the last round of Subject Review in Art Architecture and Design History. The group opted for face to face informal interviews with department heads to encourage interaction and elicit more candid responses. Some Universities arranged meetings with other staff members, including slide librarians, widening the scope of the research. Before each visit, GLAADH members researched course descriptions and requirements available on the web.

This short report is a preliminary summary of some of the findings of that survey, which would have been impossible without the willingness of colleagues to spend time discussing their present curricula, and the possibilities for their development, with members of the project team; we are extremely grateful to them all for the frankness and openness of their reception.

Perceptions

In what is certainly an intellectually diverse field, it is to be expected that a range of responses to the project and its aims was encountered. Some institutions took the opportunity of the GLAADH visit to affirm or reaffirm their commitment consciously to a curriculum firmly centred on the art of Europe. Scepticism, debate around the controversial terminology of 'globalisation' and 'cultural diversity', and warnings of the dangers of a sort of 'cultural tourism' approach were also encountered, while some voiced a fear that a more diverse curriculum could only be achieved at the expense of standards.

The issue of students' preparation for degree level study was raised in several visits, with people saying in effect that there was a need to get European art sorted out in students' heads first, before any thoughts of diversification. (The issue of student resistance to less familiar materials was also cited on a couple of occasions.)

The fundamental challenge posed by advocates of the emerging paradigms of visual culture and material culture, now visible in a number of degree programme titles, were also advanced as rightly complicating the notion of a unitary 'art, architecture and design history' (a piece of HEFCE-speak, it should be said, to which the project team has no unshakeable allegiance).

Current Practice

The survey certainly confirmed the project team's intuition that current practice is a lot more diverse than we know, and that there is much teaching going on which addresses a wider view of the subject than some 'Giotto to Cézanne' stereotype. This is especially so if one takes into account the fact that 'historically less-studied areas' can also include Eastern and South-eastern Europe, Scandinavia, the Baltic, even Ireland and Scotland (not to mention the art of diasporic communities within Europe over a long duration). One colleague put forward the argument that today the art of Greece and Rome is just such a 'less-studied area' which a broader curriculum might wish to address.

We have evidence that a variety of new courses has come on stream since the last round of Subject Review, and that this is a continuing process. Apart from a few centres already known for including discrete Asian, African or Latin American elements in their degree programmes, there is also teaching of such material which is not identifiable in terms of separate courses or programme elements, but is integrated into courses with more generic titles; part of the pleasure of the survey process was the discovery of the richness of provision, encompassing high-quality teaching in topics such as Indian architecture, Moroccan jewellery, or African-American quilt-making.

Many theory/methodology courses include material on 'Orientalism' or on cultural difference, whether identified in separate units or not, and there is a fairly strong tradition of engaging in teaching with Western representation of the 'Other', what might be called a 'Picasso and 'Primitivism'' approach. A number of those working on contemporary art of necessity are engaged with areas of interest to the project, and their work is likely to be inflected to a greater or lesser degree by issues of the post-colonial, and of cultural or racial difference. Courses which are thematically, rather than historically or geographically, defined, offer many colleagues a conceptual space for engagement with work from a broader area of artistic or cultural practice.

Having said that, it is probably also true to say that, with regard to historic traditions, and to artistic practice outside 'the West' (as opposed to critiques of 'the West's' view of the rest), coverage and activity is patchy. In terms of pre-20th century, China probably has the best coverage, followed by elsewhere in Asia (e.g. Japan and India). There is very little pre-20th century teaching of Latin America or Africa outside a very small number of well-established centres. However many institutions are currently engaged in or seeking to widen their curriculum, and the following are just some of a range of points which came up in discussion:

Resources and Opportunities for Development

A range of strategies for broadening the curriculum was encountered, but one of the most successful appeared to be a growing willingness to allow students access to units from other departments or programmes; these could include anthropology but also drama, religious studies, and post-colonial studies in English departments.

There is the question of the 'latent' interests of teaching faculty; for example many Renaissance and medieval specialists have an interest in the Islamic world which is not currently reflected in their teaching, and there are also those who have equivalent interests in native North American, or Japanese, art. The question of the linkage between teaching and research is relevant here - institutions are quick to claim (indeed QAA mechanisms arguably demand) that teaching and research are intimately linked. The degree to which this is necessary for all teaching is clearly an issue for debate. Is it necessarily the case that only a full specialist in an area (which clearly costs a lot) will ensure the embedding of that area within the curriculum ? What are the possibilities of using smaller amounts of resources to allow a member of staff to develop a latent interest in ways which influence teaching but are perhaps not reflected in research ? Does the dependence by some institutions for 'diverse' elements of the curriculum on part-timers necessarily mean less integration into the curriculum as a whole ?

In a number of institutions the survey observed a situation where the practice-based degree taught alongside the history degree (often by the same people, or through supply teaching) was much more diverse in its teaching, and the material to which students were exposed was much wider geographically. Obviously the learning and teaching issues in the two types of programme are not identical, but what are the possibilities for using the resources amassed to support practice degrees to broaden the curriculum in terms of the history of art and design ?

One perhaps surprising finding of the survey was that lack of resources in the form of books or slides was not the most commonly cited obstacle to a wider curriculum, indeed there are surprising pockets of quality here (partly connected to the previous point). Furthermore, with regard to collections of actual works, Britain's colonial past means it may be easier for students to see African sculpture, Chinese ceramics or works from the Pacific outside a few metropolitan centres, than it is to see High Renaissance or Abstract Expressionist painting. The issue is; how are those collections to be exploited in the absence of subject specialists ?

With regard to issues of copyright and intellectual property the survey encountered a very wide spectrum of willingness to share things like course materials or course outlines, sometime driven by the policies of University managements but sometimes not. Similarly there was a range of practice regarding the emerging practice of web-based courses, with some institutions restricting access to registered students, and some happy to see them available on a wider basis. This is clearly an issue much bigger than the GLAADH project, indeed the intellectual property and copyright issues are much bigger than the HE sector itself, but the need for widening the debate appears to us to be an urgent one.

These and other issues raised in the survey have been used to inform the design of the GLAADH workshop, to be held at the University of Sussex on 9-10 November 2001, and to be attended by a representative of every department included in the survey, with their attendance funded by the project.

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