MA Museum and Artefact Studies

Before making your application to our MA in Museum and Artefact Studies course for September 2013, please contact Helen Wood, Postgraduate Secretary at helen.wood@durham.ac.uk

Overview

Our MA in Museum and Artefact Studies is unique due to its focus on collection management, the provision of hands on experience, the small size of its teaching groups, the professional museums expertise of its teachers, and the use of case studies from varied periods and geographical locations.

Designed to provide high quality education and training for your career in museums, the cultural heritage sector, and the academic world, this programme will equip you with a sound knowledge and critical understanding of current professional principles, good practice, and contemporary debates in museum and artefact studies. We will support you in developing professional skills related to artefact research, museum communication, curatorship, teamwork, and professional conduct. You will be given opportunities to work with a wide range of artefacts (not only archaeological), create museum exhibitions or other public resources, monitor museum environments, and undertake a museum work placement as part of this course.

Facts

Find out more about entry requirements, mode of study, duration of the course, and tuition fees here. (Note: this link will direct you to the University's central course tool. Use the link provided to return to the Department of Archaeology homepage.)

Find out more about funding your programme here.

Programme structure: Either Route 1 or Route 2 (see below)

How will I be taught?

You will be taught via a combination of lectures, seminars, workshops and practicals, tutorials, museum and gallery visits, and museum placements.

There are two distinct routes through the MA in Museum and Artefact Studies for you to choose from:

Route 1

The first route is intended for students who firmly intend to pursue a career in museums and galleries. It is made up of six compulsory taught modules.

Route 2

The second route provides students with a choice of modules. The route is designed for students who may wish to pursue a career in the cultural heritage sector or to undertake further postgraduate research (such as a PhD) in museum or artefact studies after completing the MA course. Student take four compulsory modules (one of which is a dissertation) and a choice of a fifth module.

What will I be studying?

Route 1

• Approaches to Museum and Artefact Studies
• Museum Principles and Practice
• Artefact Studies
• Care of Collections
• Museum Communication
• Research Paper

Route 2

Either:

• A module from one of the MA in Archeology strands (Prehistory, Roman, Historic, EAINE), when available

Or:

• Museum Communication

Or:

• Care of Collections

Dissertation: You will produce a dissertation of 10,000 words, which enables you to develop and demonstrate research skills in an area of your choice, related to museum and artefact studies. In this, you are encouraged to gain a detailed familiarity with relevant published literature, to consult with a wide range of academic and professional specialists, and to gather a body of data, evaluate it and draw appropriate conclusions.

And one of the following:

• Approaches to Museum and Artefact Studies
• Museum Principles and Practice
• Artefact Studies

Who will teach me?

Dr Robin Skeates, is a Reader and director of the Museum and Artefact Studies postgraduate programme. His research explores themes within the overlapping inter-disciplinary fields of material culture, visual and sensual culture, museum and heritage studies. He is the author of Debating the Archaeological Heritage, editor of the Oxford Handbook of Public Archaeology and the journal editor of the European Journal of Archaeology.

Dr Chris Caple, is a Senior Lecturer and has been director of the postgraduate programme in artefact conservation at Durham since 1988. He is actively teaching, researching and publishing in conservation, analysing and researching ancient artefacts and has been directing and publishing archaeological excavations since 1982. He is the author of Conservation Skills: Judgment, Method and Decision Making and Objects: Reluctant Witnesses to the Past and editor of Preventive Conservation in Museums, all of which are used widely as textbooks.

Dr Mary Brooks is a Lecturer and is director of the MA International Cultural Heritage Management. She previously worked as a conservator and curator in the USA, and Europe. Her research focuses on how society engages with material things and how these are, or have been, collected, interpreted and represented in museums. She is particularly interested in how conservation approaches operate as means for engaging with ideas of identity and belonging, as well as ideas about absence, presence, collective memory and cultural material. Recent publications include ‘Seeing the sacred: conflicting priorities in defining, interpreting and conserving Western sacred artefacts.’ Material Religion, 8 and ‘Sharing conservation ethics, practice and decision-making with museum visitors.’ in the Routledge Companion to Museum Ethics.

Dr Ben Roberts is a Lecturer who joined the department from the British Museum where he worked as the Curator for the European Bronze Age collections. This was a wide-ranging role which, in addition to the research and presentation of existing museum collections, encompassed the recording of metal-detecting finds and the researching and co-writing of 41 programmes in the British Museum/BBC Radio 4 series and accompanying book A History of the World in 100 Objects.

The staff of University's Oriental Museum and the Old Fulling Mill Museum of Archaeology, notably Dr Craig Barclay and Helen Armstrong, also teach on the course.

What is my next step?

For further information about applying for the MA in Museum and Artefact Studies, please visit How to Apply.

All Home/EU applicants offered a place on the MA in Museum and Artefact Studies course will be asked to pay a £500 deposit by 1 April 2013. For offers made by the Department after 1 April 2013, each applicant will have 4 weeks to pay the £500 deposit from the official offer letter. This £500 deposit will be deducted from the first instalment of fees after starting the course in September 2013. Please note, that this £500 deposit will only be refunded in the event of the applicant not meeting their conditions set out in the official offer letter.

All Overseas applicants offered a place on the MA in Museum and Artefact Studies course will be asked to pay a £1000 deposit no later than 6 weeks following any official offer emailed letter. Please note, that this £1000 deposit will only be refunded in the event of the applicant failing to meet their conditions set out in the official offer letter or refusal of a visa for entry to the UK. Please ensure that you read this information concerning the deposit.

This £1000 deposit will be deducted from the first instalment of fees after starting the course in September 2013.

'The work I saw showed particular strengths in care of collections and artefact studies - aspects of the course which are distinctive points of focus in the Durham programme. Students were trained to be meticulous in their attention to detail and exploitation of technical resources. This is an area that museum studies students elsewhere often struggle with but which the Durham course has made into an area of distinction.'

External Examiner's Annual Report 2008/9, Prof Simon Knell, University of Leicester