This highly relevant double degree is your stepping stone to a global career in the field of creative and cultural arts. Co-located with the nationally significant Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA), you’ll work with some of Australia’s most successful artists, art theorists and cultural commentators. With our Bachelor of Arts you can choose from 40 different major and minor areas of study, including languages, social studies, communications, politics, human rights, and international relations to develop an informed, critical awareness of the fields you're most passionate about. This course leads to two separate degrees. Depending upon your specialisation, you will be awarded one of:Bachelor of Art History and Curating, or Bachelor of Fine Art and Bachelor of Arts. You will gain all the benefits of each degree course and be fully equipped to pursue a career in either field separately or to combine the two in your chosen work. If you choose the Art History and Curating specialisation, you’ll develop your understanding and appreciation of art including its origins and significance. You’ll gain hands-on experience developing an exhibition concept and internship opportunities will develop your curating skills in ‘real-life’ situations.
The history major empowers you to make sense of our complex and contradictory world through knowledge about the past. Through training in critical thinking, research, and writing, you will learn to recognise, understand, and confront the political, cultural, and economic structures that define societies. The major is structured to develop in you a range of skills and knowledge. You will learn critical reading, research, and writing skills at every level of the major, but each year puts one aspect of the historian’s toolkit front and centre. Two gateway units provide an engaging, wide-ranging introduction to the past across a broad chronological sweep. In semester 1, you are exposed to the study of the modern era, and in semester 2, they dive deeper into the pre-modern past. In first year, we focus on learning source analysis—how to ask questions of historical evidence, understanding the limits of the evidence, and the circumstances that created it. Second-year cornerstones cover core thematic concerns of historical inquiry across the pre-modernmodern divide. In second year, we build on these skills by delving more deeply into historiographical concerns, i.e., how historians have written about the past. Majors will gain a deeper appreciation of historical methodology through inquiry into debates among historians. With the capstone, you have the opportunity to pursue a major research project of your own design. Our emphasis is on the craft of writing, while developing advanced skills in source analysis and historiography.
