Master's in Art History and Visual Culture

The University of Guelph is a comprehensive public research university located in Guelph, Ontario, Canada. It is recognized for its strong programs in agriculture, veterinary medicine, life sciences, environmental sciences, business, and the arts. The university is committed to providing a transformative learning experience and fostering a supportive community for its students. With a focus on research, innovation, and community engagement, the University of Guelph prepares students to address global challenges and contribute to society.

The MA in Art History and Visual Culture examines the production and consumption of images, objects, and spaces from varied cultures. It challenges prevailing ideas about cognition and perception, and includes the study of the ocular. Because the visual is crucial to our understandings of cultural difference, Art History and Visual Culture Studies is vitally concerned with the manner in which the interdependent elements of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and class construct identity. It demands that we think across cultures and national boundaries, and within a global context. Students will learn to discuss and write critically about objects and images in their material, critical, theoretical, and contextual totalities. Students will also explore the concept of identity, the power of visual rhetoric, and the shifting power dynamics inherent in art and its disciplines both in historical and contemporary contexts.