Your MA program
Our graduate degrees are research-focused and include courses designed to build knowledge and enhance research- and career-related skills.
Our Master of Arts in art history and visual studies (AHVS) normally consists of 15 units and is designed to be completed in a two-year residency (5 terms).
- (1.5 units) AHVS 501 Colloquium in Theories and Practices
- (1.5 units) AHVS 509 Workshop in Art Historical Writing
- (7.5 units) 5 electives, 1.5 units each
- (4.5 units) AHVS 598 Research Paper
Students are to complete a major research paper in the form of a journal article (approx. 10,000 words), which will be defended in an oral exam.
You may take up to 3.0 units at the 400 level including Cultural Resource Management courses, and you may take up to 3.0 units from another department, as electives. These courses must be related to your art-historical research, at the graduate or 400 level, and approved by your supervisor.
The Workshop in Art Historical Writing is essential support for the development of your MA research paper proposal.
Language requirement
Masters’ students must demonstrate proficiency in one language other than English that is related to their research project, as determined by their supervisor.
The requirement for the language is considered satisfied when the student has completed one of the following:
- demonstrates reading proficiency in the language (assessed by a 2-page translation);
- speaks the language natively;
- has been educated in the language selected;
- has an undergraduate major in the language;
- has successfully completed a minimum of the equivalent of 3 units of university level courses in the language, with at least a second class (B-) average; or
- has passed the equivalent of a 3-unit reading course in the language.
Other mechanisms for assessing the language requirements for special cases may be established. In all cases, the student is responsible for submitting a proposal to the Graduate Adviser and Department Chair, prior to fulfilling the requirement. The supervisory committee is then responsible for accepting or refusing the proposal, by considering the relevance of the language chosen to the student’s research and the pertinence (and practicality) of the evaluating process suggested.
The oral examination for the research paper may not take place until the language requirement has been satisfied.