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DEGREE REGULATIONS & PROGRAMMES OF STUDY 2015/2016

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DRPS : Course Catalogue : Edinburgh College of Art : History of Art

Postgraduate Course: From Jacobitism to Romanticism, The (re)invention of Scotland in visual and material culture (HIAR11022)

Course Outline
SchoolEdinburgh College of Art CollegeCollege of Humanities and Social Science
Credit level (Normal year taken)SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) AvailabilityNot available to visiting students
SCQF Credits20 ECTS Credits10
SummaryIn recent years, literary historians and to a lesser extent, art historians, have written of(f) aspects of Scottish culture as part of a 'myth' fabricated in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Perhaps most controversially for Scots, part of their national dress - the tartan kilt - has been (mis)understood as an English invention of the late eighteenth century.

Course description This course aims to get to grips with the peculiarities and particularities of these so-called 'romantic myths' of Scotland as they were (re)invented in visual and material form. It will go beyond the theoretical framework of Roland Barthes' Mythologies to reinstate their antiquity and also their much-neglected basis in reality. We will examine a number of paintings by distinguished alumni of the Scottish School, including works by Henry Raeburn and David Wilkie. But the course privileges a thematic approach to these Scottish artists and their painted output rather than a biographical one. Our timeframe will be hinged on key historical events in Scotland's history: from the 1715 and 1745 Jacobite rebellions, to the visit of George 4th to Edinburgh in 1822 and on into the later nineteenth century when the 'land of cakes and whisky', the 'region of mist and snow' became the favoured retreat of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The visual and material culture generated in response to these historical events will be extended into that surrounding the literary phenomena that was the publication and illustration of Sir Walter Scott's poems and novels. Scott's many representations - in portraits, marble busts and sculptures and his monument in Princes Street - will be studied as part of the transformation of Scotland into 'Scott-land'.
Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites Co-requisites
Prohibited Combinations Other requirements None
Course Delivery Information
Academic year 2015/16, Not available to visiting students (SS1) Quota:  None
Course Start Semester 2
Timetable Timetable
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) Total Hours: 200 ( Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20, Feedback/Feedforward Hours 10, Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4, Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours 166 )
Assessment (Further Info) Written Exam 0 %, Coursework 100 %, Practical Exam 0 %
Additional Information (Assessment) Principal means of assessment is a 4,000 word essay. A limited number of essay questions will be made available by the course organiser, but you will be encouraged to slant the question according to your developing interest in the subject. You will take responsibility for at least one oral presentation, although it will not be formally assessed. This presentation may provide the basis for an essay
Feedback You will submit an essay plan to the course organiser and you will receive informal feedback on the plan, typically in oral form. Written feedback on the essay will be provided and one-on-one meetings will be arranged to discuss the essay in detail
No Exam Information
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
  1. acquire detailed knowledge and understanding of over a century of visual and material culture in Scotland, from the eighteenth to the nineteenth centuries
  2. tackle an ambitious secondary bibliography by academics from the discipline of art history and other related areas
  3. engage with a range of materials
  4. think creatively and critically about demolishing some of the cultural myths that surround Scotland
  5. deconstruct notions of romanticism which could be said to plague the entire legacy of art history
Reading List
None
Additional Information
Course URL http://www.arthistory.ed.ac.uk
Graduate Attributes and Skills Not entered
Additional Class Delivery Information Location will be confirmed in Handbook
KeywordsNot entered
Contacts
Course organiserProf Viccy Coltman
Tel: (0131 6)50 8426
Email: Viccy.Coltman@ed.ac.uk
Course secretaryMiss Jennifer Watson
Tel: (0131 6)51 5744
Email: Jennifer.A.Watson@ed.ac.uk
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