Arts and Humanities

The arts and humanities encompass the disciplines through which human beings have tried to make sense of their existence: literature, history, philosophy, languages, the visual arts, music, film, cultural studies and more. These fields ask questions that resist simple answers, about meaning, value, representation, power and the nature of human experience, and they develop in students a capacity for nuanced, critical and imaginative thinking that is increasingly valued in a complex world. Far from being detached from contemporary concerns, the humanities are directly engaged with the forces shaping society, from digital culture and globalisation to inequality and environmental change.

At Birkbeck College, this three-year full-time degree is designed with flexibility at its core, allowing you to move across disciplines and develop a genuinely cross-disciplinary education in the arts and humanities. You will engage with diverse fields of knowledge, building your analytical, interpretive and communicative skills through close reading, critical writing, seminar debate and research. The programme explicitly connects your academic study to questions of career and employability, helping you to understand how the skills you develop translate into a wide range of professional contexts.

Birkbeck's location in London gives you access to an extraordinary cultural environment, with museums, galleries, theatres and archives that enrich your studies.

Graduates from arts and humanities programmes go on to careers across education, the creative industries, publishing, journalism, policy, communications, the arts, heritage, museums, the law and the civil service. The analytical and communication skills developed through humanities study are highly transferable, and employers across many sectors value the critical thinking, research ability and cultural awareness that humanities graduates bring. Many graduates also pursue postgraduate study in specific disciplines, including English literature, history, philosophy, cultural studies, film studies and related fields.