units

AHT4503

Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture

18 September 2017 23 April 2024

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This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2016 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

Monash University

6 points, SCA Band 1, 0.125 EFTSL

Undergraduate - Unit

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered.

Faculty

Art, Design and Architecture

Organisational Unit

Department of Fine Art

Coordinator(s)

Professor Rex Butler

Offered

Caulfield

  • First semester 2016 (Day)

Synopsis

This unit aims to help students develop their knowledge and understanding of various key theoretical writers and concepts relevant to advanced studies in contemporary art. Prevailing critical theories and terms are outlined in order to open up research venues considered particularly productive for the art researcher's own personal directions. The unit is designed as a training for independent research and encourages students to investigate a wide range of ideas circulating in contemporary visual culture.

Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, students will:

  1. be aware of current discourses in a range of disciplines which bear on contemporary artistic production
  2. be able to pursue critical arguments with a sense of their ideological relativity
  3. assess the bias of an investigative method, considering gender, class and ethnicity
  4. understand methodology as a critique of method and be able to practice criticism in their chosen field
  5. identify assumptions inherent in the formulation of critical questions and cultivate caution against prejudicing the outcomes of research by foreclosing on the terms of inquiry
  6. be ready to explain the basis of art works not merely as the outcome of practical constraints but the expression of cultural values.

Assessment

Assignments (two written papers): 30% and 70%

Workload requirements

3 hours of lectures and tutorials and 9 independent study hours per week

See also Unit timetable information

Chief examiner(s)

Professor Rex Butler

Prerequisites

Admission to honours year