Archaeology/Theatre Studies

Archaeology and theatre studies make an unusual but intellectually rich combination, bringing together the material study of the human past and the performative arts that have helped human beings make sense of their experience for thousands of years. Archaeology is the study of how people in the past interacted with their world, through a detailed study of their objects, sites, monuments and landscapes, recovering evidence of lives and cultures that left no written record or whose written records tell only part of the story. Theatre studies examines performance as an art form, a cultural practice and a site of social and political meaning, from the theatrical traditions of ancient Greece to contemporary performance.

At the University of Glasgow, this four-year full-time programme includes a year abroad, giving you the chance to study one or both disciplines in a different national context. You will develop skills in field archaeology, object analysis, historical and theoretical interpretation and the excavation and documentation of sites, alongside critical engagement with dramatic texts, performance history, theatre theory and the practice of making and analysing performance. The programme encourages you to think about what the two disciplines share: an interest in how material and embodied practices create meaning, record experience and connect the present to the past.

Graduates move into careers in heritage, museums, archaeology, cultural management, arts organisations, education, publishing, journalism and a wide range of other fields where the analytical and communication skills developed in humanities disciplines are valued. The year abroad adds an international dimension that is useful in careers with a global or comparative dimension. Many graduates also pursue postgraduate study in archaeology, theatre studies, heritage management, museum studies or cultural history, and the combination of disciplines develops an unusually broad set of research and interpretive skills.