Art History and Visual Culture and Modern Languages

Art History and Visual Culture combined with Modern Languages is a degree that brings together two disciplines that each, in their own way, take cultural difference and cross-cultural understanding seriously. Art History and Visual Culture analyses how images, objects, spaces, and visual experiences are made and interpreted across different periods and cultures, developing the skills of close looking, contextual analysis, and critical writing that allow you to engage with visual culture as a form of meaning-making. Modern Languages gives you direct linguistic access to traditions and cultures beyond the English-speaking world, developing the fluency and cultural sensitivity needed to engage authentically with other peoples' ways of seeing and thinking.

At the University of Exeter, this three-year, full-time degree provides access to work experience in local arts centres and museums alongside extensive academic engagement with visual culture across the world. The programme includes a sandwich year, work placements, and the option of a year abroad, giving you the opportunity to encounter the art and cultures you study in person and to develop professional and international experience that the cultural sector values highly.

Graduates of this combination work in museums and galleries, arts journalism, cultural diplomacy, heritage management, international organisations, publishing, education, and roles that require both visual literacy and cross-cultural communicative competence. The pairing of art history's analytical depth with the linguistic and cultural knowledge that modern languages develops is particularly valuable in a globalised cultural sector. Postgraduate study in art history, museum studies, modern languages, or cultural studies provides routes to more specialised roles.