University degrees: Postgraduate
Course length: 1 year full-time
Course city: New York
We offer an intensive one-year M.A. in Arts Politics and an undergraduate minor taught by internationally recognized leaders in their fields. Our program is a meeting place for arts activists whose work cannot be contained by a single discipline or motivation. We rigorously explore the interplay between critical theory and creative practice.
Our flexible curriculum allows students to develop highly individualized paths of research and professional development. Our graduates are connected to the pulse of social justice on six continents. They work as artists and scholars, curators and activists, arts administrators, educators and cultural innovators.
We provide a space for action and reflection. We push our students to think about their role in a transnational world that must contend with issues around race, class, gender, sexuality, dis/ability, and religion. Our courses examine histories of political frameworks in the arts, as well as contemporary advocacy strategies and tactics for change. Together we ask, “How do we make the world anew?”
Students take five core courses inside the Department of Art & Public Policy plus multiple electives across the university. Our flexible curriculum inspires M.A. students to develop highly individualized paths of creativity, research and professional development, while also allowing for collaborative exploration.
The core curriculum has a dual focus: Theory, and Methods and Criticism.
The Theory courses give students a strong background in key concepts in Arts Politics.
The Methods and Criticism courses encourage students to develop critical frameworks in relationship to their own work and the creative and professional transitions they seek to make after school.
A Graduate Colloquium in the fall, and numerous electives throughout the year allow students to further locate and shape their particular modes of inquiry. Students select one elective from the Departmental elective offerings, with three other electives to be selected from the Department or any other open graduate level courses in departments across the university.
Five classes are taken in the fall for a total of 18 units. The course load then lightens to four classes for 16 units during spring to allow students to focus more of their energy on specific projects of their choice, as well as collaborations and post-graduation planning.
