M1 & M2 in LLCER – Specialization in Art and Visual Culture of English-speaking Countries
Art and Visual Culture of English-speaking Countries (Research Team : LARCA – UMR 8225)
This program, the only one of its kind in France, offers students the opportunity to learn the fundamentals of iconography and visual studies applied to the study of painting, photography, plastic arts, multimedia arts, British and American cinema, visual culture, and contemporary practices of images.
We partner with other institutions such as the École du Louvre and the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, and we also work alongside museums, foundations and publishers in the artistic sector, both locally and abroad. We will discuss the history and status of images, their connections with cultural institutions, their assimilation into the English language and English-speaking cultures, and their position today.
This program is research-focused and takes place at Université Paris Cité and its partner institutions.
It includes a number of courses relating to discipline-specific methodologies where students can learn to analyze still and moving images in English, and produce in-depth commentaries on esthetics, theories and critiques in English. Students have the possibility of doing an internship in the first year of the program.
All students are strongly encouraged to do an internship in the second year of the program as the seminars will primarily take place in the first half of each semester.
The second year also offers a professional track where the internship and the corresponding report have an equal weighting as the master’s thesis. There are two possible options in the professional track, namely translation/publishing and “cultural landscapes” (i.e., working in a cultural institution or museum in France or abroad). Admission to the professional track is based on the results from M1 and an outline of students’ professional goals and objectives. A meeting on internships is held at the beginning of the year.
Download the course brochure here
PRE-REQUISITES
Compulsory pre-requisite
A degree in Anglophone Studies (or equivalent, submitted to the agreement of the Admissions Committee).
Expectations
Excellent oral and written English (C1 minimum). If you’re not from a EU country and not from an anglophone country, you’ll need to provide an internationally recognized language test certificate (eg scores: 7 for IELTS, 100 for TOEFL, 130 for Duolingo, or the Cambridge Proficiency certificate).
Ability to argue a point in English; excellent knowledge of the cultures and literatures of the anglophone world. Autonomy and self-reliance.
French Language
French proficiency is not required for the Research Programmes, but a basic command of French is recommended.
General criteria for admission
The Admissions Commission will pay particular attention to the student’s undergraduate curriculum and grades (especially third-year results), and to the cover letter, which must be written in English. Extra-curricular activities (projects, internships, volunteer work…) may also be taken into account.
Guidelines to help you write your cover letter
Make sure you don’t write a standard chatGPT-style cover letter. Avoid clichés and instead try to give an idea of who you are, what your interests are. You can try answering these kinds of questions:
- why do you wish to attend this programme ? What aspects of the syllabus interest you most?
- what types of objects are you most interested in (cinema, painting, photography, video games, art theory, gender theory, etc.), and why. Try not to stick to your tastes, but explain why you’re interested in this or that medium.
- What are your cultural practices and activities (which kinds of museums, galleries or exhibitions, what types of films, books, video games, etc.). Here too, explain why.
- Think of thesis subjects you would like to explore: choose two topics and describe them in a few lines each (what medium, what period, what corpus…), and sketch the approach you would adopt (what type of sources would be relevant, what methodologies, what theoretical works?). Note that faculty members will help you find and formulate your final thesis topic across the first semester. Your thesis advisor will then supervise your research.
- Are you a native English-speaker, or have you visited or lived in anglophone countries? If so, for how long?