This course allows you to combine the study of philosophy with any/all of three arts disciplines. Warwick has been a home for interdisciplinary work in philosophy and literature since the early days of the university.
This degree is designed to take advantage of our strengths across Philosophy, English and Comparative Literary Studies, History of Art, and Film and Television Studies. Warwick has excellent research strength in all of these areas, and it also has considerable scholarly interaction across these fields, especially through the programming of the Centre for Research in Philosophy, Literature and the Arts.
Core modules
Topics in Philosophy and the Arts
This module introduces students to a range of question in the philosophy of art, addressing questions about art in general and about particular art forms or works.
The first half focuses on methodological and foundational questions. What is it to study the arts philosophically? Is the philosophy of art a descriptive or normative endeavour? What is the relation between artistic and other forms of value?
The second half focuses on a diverse range of artists, authors, works or genres from across the arts; these provide an opportunity to explore the philosophical challenge of individual cases. The module aims to integrate study of broad theoretical questions with reflection on - and provocation from - specific art practices. Students will be encouraged to draw on their own experience and expertise in relation to the arts, to test claims on offer.
Optional modules
The programme gives students access to a wide range of modules across four departments.
If you write a dissertation, you will take three optional modules (one from Philosophy and two from the other contributing departments). If you follow the non-dissertation route, you will take five optional modules (up to three from Philosophy and at least two from the other departments). In previous years, optional modules have included:
- Kant’s Aesthetics
- Hegel's Aesthetics
- Revolutionary Aesthetics
- Origins of Mind
- Genealogy, Epistemology, Critique
- World Literature and the Anthropocene
- Critical Theory, Culture, Resistance
- Feminist Literary Theory
- Queer Theory and Praxis
- Ecopoetics
- Screen Cultures and Methods
- Film Criticism, Film Style
- Issues in Documentary
- Irony in Film
- Post-Colonial Cinemas
- Colour and its Meaning
- Visual Art and Poetry
- Reality after Film
- Latin American Modernism
- East meets West: the Visual Arts in Colonial and Post-Colonial India
