MSc in Visual, Material and Museum Anthropology

at University of Oxford

The MSc is structured around teaching for four papers:
 

Contemporary themes in visual, material and museum anthropology

This paper focuses on topics such as visual culture (including photography, the internet, art and aesthetics); music and performance; museum ethics and relationships with 'source communities'; landscape and the built environment; dress and body modification; religion and ritual; material culture, mass production and trade; debates concerning tradition, modernity and authenticity; transnational cultural flows and the wider issues of cross-cultural investigation.
 

Option paper

You will select one option paper from those taught each year for students in the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography (SAME). Titles of options available will be made known at the beginning of each academic year.

Research methods in visual, material and museum anthropology

This paper consists of two parts. Paper 3a is an outline proposal for the MSc dissertation. Paper 3b is a methods portfolio consisting of reports (including notes) on trials of three visual and material anthropological methods and/or ethnographic museological methods relevant to the research proposed in Paper 3a.
 

Fundamental concepts in visual, material, and museum anthropology

This paper focuses on anthropology’s distinctive contribution to understanding social and cultural form and process, and the role of human creativity within them, with particular reference to artefacts of material and visual culture, and to the collection, display, production, circulation and consumption of such artefacts.
 

Dissertation

You will then use the next three months to research and write a dissertation for submission in September; you will be able to choose and refine the dissertation topic in consultation with your supervisor and other tutors as appropriate, but you will be required to write the dissertation unaided as a piece of independent research.

Degree-level qualifications
 

As a minimum, applicants should hold or be predicted to achieve the following UK qualifications or their equivalent:
 

• a first-class or strong upper second-class undergraduate degree with honours in any discipline.
   

Under the UK system, applicants should have a minimum of 65% in at least one prior degree.
 

For applicants with a degree from the USA, the minimum GPA sought is 3.7 out of 4.0.
 

GRE General Test scores

• No Graduate Record Examination (GRE) or GMAT scores are sought.
• Other qualifications, evidence of excellence and relevant experience
• Publications are not expected of applicants.
   

Further guidance
 

The conditions for applicants to proceed from an Oxford master's degree to a doctorate are:

• a viable project

• agreed supervision

• an overall mark of at least 67% in an Oxford anthropology master's degree

• the agreement of the School of Anthropology as a whole.
   

This degree involves the close analysis of published sources as well as verbal and written critical reflections in the form of oral presentations, essays and exam answers. It is therefore essential to your chance of successfully completing the program that you meet these higher-level English language requirements as stipulated by the University.

Home  
£16,010

Overseas    
£30,330

Many graduates enter teaching and research, though this often requires a doctorate. Others often go on to work in museums and galleries, design and market research companies, development agencies, NGOs etc.