History of Art/Scottish Literature

History of art and Scottish literature is a pairing rooted in a shared concern with how culture is produced, what it expresses, and how it relates to the societies from which it emerges. History of art investigates why paintings, sculptures, buildings, and designed objects look the way they do, and what those forms reveal about the beliefs, values, and social arrangements of the people who made and used them. Scottish literature, with its rich tradition running from medieval Gaelic and Scots writing through the Enlightenment and Romanticism to a vibrant contemporary scene, offers a distinctive national literary heritage that is also deeply engaged with European and world cultures.

At Glasgow you will develop skills in visual analysis and art-historical interpretation alongside close reading of literary texts in Gaelic, Scots, and English. History of art training teaches you to look carefully and to interpret what you see in relation to historical, cultural, and theoretical frameworks. Scottish literature study develops your understanding of how a national literary culture is formed, contested, and renewed over time, and what distinctive concerns and forms that culture has produced.

The four-year full-time programme includes a year abroad, giving you the opportunity to engage with art and literary culture in a different national context and to see Scottish culture from the outside.

Graduates pursue careers in galleries and museums, arts administration, publishing, journalism, education, the cultural sector, and heritage organisations. Many students continue to postgraduate study in art history, Scottish literature, cultural studies, or related fields. The combination of visual literacy and literary critical skill is distinctive and valued in organisations that work at the intersection of culture and the public.