 Hi, my name is Ashley Thompson, and I am a professor in the Department of History, Art and Archaeology here at SOAS. I work on Southeast Asian art, all sorts of things of Southeast Asian art, including questions of what an icon is, questions of gender and art, all sorts of fun and interesting things. But I'm not here today to talk about what I do. I'm here to talk about what our department does and what the opportunities for study on any one of our seven, I believe, MA programs for you all. So let me turn on our PowerPoint, and I will walk you through the slides. And after that, I will be looking at the questions that you will have been sending over the course of the presentation, and we'll have discussions in that way. So let me get my slides up and share them with you here. There we go. Okay. So postgraduate studies in the history of art and archaeology, here you are. So the first thing to say about our fantastic department is that we have the broadest range of expertise in non-Western art found anywhere. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that. Perhaps somebody will come back to me one day and say, no, there's this other place, but as far as I'm aware, we have the broadest range found in any university. What is really important about so as art history and archaeology is that we don't just do non-Western art as a token addition to a mainstream art course. We are devoted to non-Western art. I'm sure that many of you are aware that in most art history programs, be they in the UK, be they in Europe, be they in the United States, be they in Australia, be they in the many countries that we study in the non-Western regions of the world, do include components of non-Western art. However, very, very few art history programs actually take that as their focus, actually commit themselves entirely to that, and that's really who we are. So we work on African materials, East Asian materials, Near Middle Eastern materials, South Asian materials, and Southeast Asian materials. So if you want to be studying Renaissance art, it's not here. If you want to be studying something outside of the West, this is what we do. Okay, so to characterize a bit what we do, our general learning and teaching goals within the art history and archaeology department is that we provide disciplinary training in art history. We do not do field archaeology, but we have a few archaeologists on staff who also think about archaeology and work in archaeology themselves, and that's integrated into the delivery of their modules. We provide historical depth. I think that's something that's been very important in the history of our program here at SOAS, is that while we, a number of our staff members, and indeed all of the staff members in one way or another, are attentive to questions of modern and contemporary art, we have a very deep historical training embedded into the entirety of the program. And I think that's really quite important for understanding the kind of difference that SOAS offers. So even if you will be doing modern and contemporary art, you have access to historical depth within the program. We have regional breadth. If you go back to my first slide, you can see the different regions that we work on. And we have theoretical rigor. This is very important to us to not just be developing students who are able to, shall we say, found knowledge on a particular region, but who are able to think critically. That too is embedded into all of our modules, developing processes, supporting processes of critical thinking in our student body. Okay, so let me keep going here to give you an idea. So for the following slides here, I've listed the, first of all, I've listed different areas. Okay, so we'll start with Africa. And I've listed a number of modules, a sampling of modules out of each of these areas. Now, what I should say here is that this will give you an idea of the range of modules, that is the range of courses, as you like, as class of class that we deliver, the topics that we teach on. And then you get the year, many of these will be offered. Some of them will not be offered. That has to do with student demand. That has to do with the specialists being on statical or being here. That has to do with us alternating our delivery so that we're not delivering the same thing every year, such that we can be constantly integrating our current research into our delivery, this sort of thing. But I've put this out here for you to get a sense, to enable you all to get a sense of really the kinds of topics we treat and the diversity of the work that we do here. So, Modern and Contemporary Arts in Africa, Museum of Anthropology and the Arts of Asia in Africa, Photography and the Image in Africa. Let's move on to the next slide. East Asia, we have a wide East Asia offering. This is indeed one of our most popular degrees. I'll get on to the degree programs themselves a bit later. But we have a lot of students who are working in East Asia. So, Art and Archaeology of the Silk Road, Visual Arts of Dynastic China, Arts of Modern and Contemporary China, Ceramics in Chinese Culture, Chinese Porcelain, Modern and Contemporary in Art, Sacred Art and Architecture of Ancient Korea, Arts of Koryo and Chosun Korea, Popular Practice in the Edo Period Arts, Shogunol iconography in the Edo Period. So, as you can see, China, Japan, Korea, we have a wide offering in each of those areas in fact. Next, for the Near Middle East, you see we have Arab Painting, Persian Painting, Architectural Boundaries in the Body, Art and Architecture of the Fatimids, Art and Architecture of the Early Ones and the Bilux, Islam in the West, Islamic Archaeology, Islamic Art and Architecture of the Eastern Mediterranean Crusades, Islamic Art and Architecture of Medieval Anatolia and the South Caucasus, Visuality and Islamic Art. So, you can see, for example, if you take the Near Middle East as a region, there, if you look at those regional offerings, you can see that within that there's a wide diversity of topics and a wide diversity of approaches. So, there's a more archaeologically-based approach, there's a more art-oriented-based approach and there's a, and there's a more theoretically-oriented, aesthetics-based approach, okay? So, each of these of course overlaps and each of the modules would have an element of that, but you can see within the Near Middle East that the kinds of well, the dynamism, I think, of the program. So, South Asia, Arts of the Tamil Temple, the Indian Temple, Tibetan Buddhist Monuments in Context, Critical Themes in Tibetan Art, Imagining Buddhaheads in South Asia, Interpreting Visual Expressions of the Mandala. On to Southeast Asia, Southeast Asia, we have Buddhist and Hindu art of the Maritime Silkroot, Injury in Southeast Asia, Aesthetics and Politics of Sexual Difference, Issues in Contemporary Southeast Asian Art, Monuments in Sculpture of Angkor, The Figure of the Buddha, Theory Practice and the Making of Buddhist Art History, Southeast Asia's Art Histories. So, again, a wide range in Southeast Asia and I'll take the opportunity to tell you here about a particular program we have for Southeast Asian Art, which is really quite wonderful, we're very lucky here. It's so as to to have funding to bespoke funding to support students and staff undertaking study and research in the study of the Hindu Buddhist art of ancient and pre-modern Southeast Asia. So, we have very extensive opportunities for students who are focusing in one way or another on these materials from the Southeast Asian region. So, let me and that is called the Southeast Asian Art Academic Program, as you see on the slide. Moving on now to theory and trans-regional courses. So, we also have courses which are not organized according to one discrete region, but instead cross our regions as we call them and are more theoretically oriented. So, the first one that you have on your screen is theory and method in art history. This is a module which is offered in order to enable students who wish to really develop their knowledge, their background, and their skills in methods and theories in art history. This is not a required module, but it's one we are introducing in the coming year and it's one that we expect the bulk of our students will be taking. Contemporary art and the global, diaspora context and visual culture and representing conflict. So, all of these are modules which are thinking about the discipline of art history and are thinking trans-regional. And thinking specifically about the discipline of art history as it concerns the non-western regions. Museum studies, collecting and curating Buddhist art in the museum, curating cultures, museums, anthropology, and the arts of Asia. So, again, I'll be talking about the specific degree programs in a moment, but this is one area. So, we have the regions, we have the theory and the trans-regional classes, and then we also have a grouping of classes within museum studies. So, let me go on. So, here are MA degree programs. We have the MA in History of Art and Archaeology. This is perhaps our most popular MA program. It is the broadest and it allows for the largest selection of options. The MA in Contemporary Art and Art Theory of Asia and Africa. Again, contemporary art in a very popular MA program at the moment as well. MA in History of Art and Archaeology of East Asia. That is a one-year degree program. Students have the option of applying for the MA in the History of Art and Archaeology of East Asia with intensive language. That's a two-year program and as you can see, you accompany your study of art history and archaeology with study of one select East Asian language in an intensive manner. The MA in the History of Art and Architecture of the Islamic Middle East is again a one-year program and it also includes the option of doing it along with the intensive language program as well for a two-year program. The MA Museums Heritage and Materials Studies. This is a degree program which is offered in conjunction with the Department of Anthropology and then the MA in the Religious Arts of Asia and the MA in Critical Media and Cultural Studies. Now, the classes that I just went through gave you the different classes that I just went through in the previous slides, gave you a sense of the different options available in the bulk of those MAs. What I have them talk to you through is the specific modules that are designed for that last MA on your screen there, the MA in Critical Media and Cultural Studies. For that, I would encourage you to go onto the website, search SOAS, Critical Media and Cultural Studies, to get a sense of what goes on there because it's within the department but it has a different status, so it doesn't share in the same way with all of the other modules available, not in exactly the same way. Let me bring you now. Yes, it's also very important to know that when you're in the Department of History of Art and Archaeology at SOAS, of course you find yourself within a department. We typically have over 100 MA students in a given year who are doing full-time, doing part-time amongst that range of MA programs. You are of course in a department which is within the larger institution of SOAS, but perhaps more importantly to your experience, you are also within the School of Arts. The School of Arts is a very dynamic multidisciplinary school that includes four different units. You have the History of Art and Archaeology, you have Music, you have the Center for English Studies and the Center for Media and Film Studies. There's an intellectual life which is shared amongst staff and students through joint course offerings but also through social activities and through extra-curricular research events which are held within the School of Arts. It's a very vibrant arts community in that way and we certainly encourage students to profit from the diversity of expertise amongst staff but also amongst students who go to SOAS. We have a body of extraordinarily talented students and often I think we think and we see that the students learn as much from each other as they do in the classroom and from us. So learn from each other in the classroom as well but they learn from each other outside the classroom within the larger research environment and within the social environment which grows out of that. So the MA program structure. For the details again I would encourage you to really study the website to get a sense of the structure of each individual MA. What I can tell you here is that what the structure is designed to allow you to do is to develop a barrier of expertise that you have chosen to develop be it in Islamic art, be it in East Asian art, be it in Southeast Asian art, be it in theoretical approaches to art history outside of the West. To really develop that kind of expertise at the same time that you're able to benefit from the absolutely amazing array of modules that are available across the institution as a whole. So while we well we require you to take certain depending on the degree we require you of course to take certain modules within your degree such that when you when you come out with that degree you are you are equipped you are equipped in that area of study. But we also encourage you to branch out to try a language class for example. We really encourage students to show us as of course one of the institutions one of the remaining institutions that offers an array of possibilities of study in rare and endangered languages in fact. And or languages that are perhaps not endangered but are endangered in their study outside of their particular nation-state context. We do offer this study and we encourage our students in art history to develop that kind of linguistic skill which will enable them to be working with archival material to it enable you to be working in the future with with resource material that comes out of the regions themselves this sort of thing. But also perhaps to take depending on your orientation to take a class in anthropology or to take a class in politics it depends on your your interest depends on your degree program but this is this is available and it's it's very exciting I think for us to be able to to make that make that available to students. So all programs include options from the school of arts and from the greater so-as-world. Full-time students will study four modules worth 15 credits each per term that's dear in term one and dear in term two. Students can choose to study up to one and a half modules outside of the history of art and archaeology department and again this is just a fantastic opportunity to study a language or take take options in any of the departments here I've listed anthropology history literature religions and philosophies politics etc etc there's so much out there. Term three for the full year students is devoted to to the dissertation the required dissertation of 10 000 words which makes for 60 credits and this is this allows us to really develop the research component the independent research component of the degree so while you will have done significant amount of classwork over the first two terms in term two you begin to formulate a dissertation project by the end of term two you will have had a first meeting with your with your dissertation supervisor and then in term three you're meeting further with your dissertation supervisor and you're really beginning to develop a very a very individual independent research project that you submit in September at the the end of your full academic year okay so extracurricular opportunities we have the we have the the wonderful chance of being in London this of course allows us to to bring our students on guided visits and to enable our students to undertake research in London museums and galleries this includes of course our own Brene gallery which is in the building at the part of SOAS and it's within the building within which we work we have regular research talks by invited speakers organized through the department organized through every study centers the Southeast Asian study center etc and of course through the institutes the South Asia Institute the China Institute these are these are regionally focused research centers that really contribute to boosting our research environment for students and staff we also have field trips further afield I for one am very lucky to be able to to accompany students on an annual study trip along with a number of other colleagues in the art and archaeology department to collections and research archives of Southeast Asian Hindu Buddhist art in Paris and in the Netherlands we go to Paris we go to Amsterdam and we go to the light we take students to the museums which house the major major collections of Southeast Asian art in those in those locales and we also take them and this is quite important as a part of the training we take them to research archives where you can begin to get your hands dirty begin to understand what are the archives that underpin the museum collections what are the archives that underpin the study of archaeology of Southeast Asia the study of our history of Southeast Asia in Europe so while we're able to do that in London as part of our degree programs we have an extracurricular trip that brings the students who have been focusing on Southeast Asia in particular off to the Netherlands and Paris to really develop that expertise and that that that understanding of what's out there and how to access it from the MA moment this inspires certain students to continue into the PhD program it inspires other students to actually integrate this kind of archival work into their into their MA dissertations as well or future research projects post MA we're able to do that particular trip because of the bespoke funding from the SOAS Southeast Asian art academic program and we we so we we profit from London and we profit from from our placement here in Europe to really give the students as much as we possibly can so resources the SOAS library is a national research library with special collections we are extraordinarily privileged here at SOAS to have these collections at our fingertips literally at our fingertips I can't emphasize enough the the the wealth of these collections and the yeah the privilege that both staff and students have of being able to work with non-western materials as well as materials written in in European languages that support the study of non-western art and archaeology within a national research library that's you know I I can't emphasize that enough we have the Synod house library which is effectively a part of SOAS it's it's not only a SOAS library it but it complements our library in very important ways and it's here as you as you will on our on our campus by Russell Square the British Library what what can you say perhaps the best library in the world which is a 10-minute walk away students can access that as and when they like SOAS teaching collections we have objects which are used particularly in the museum studies courses but not exclusively also for example within a lot of the work on Chinese ceramics we we our our staff members work with their students with the the objects that are in the SOAS teaching collections and as I mentioned earlier we have our own galleries the Brunei Gallery the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art the Lady David Gallery which is situated in the doctoral school again here in our Russell Square site so careers where do our students go they they go all over the place they have exciting exciting careers exciting futures I've just listed listed some of the many many areas where where our students head off it's a very wide world of arts and culture so we have a lot of people going into museums and galleries as you could imagine working in curation working in education working also in development we have students who are doing work in international aid humanitarian kinds of areas development kinds of areas cultural and creative industries government sector arts culture development NGOs art criticism journalism publishing auction houses and art dealers art archives some students going into academia and on and on and on this gives you some sense of it the world the world is yours and many with with the degree so to give you a sense of destinations here's a website where you can get get a sense of who's gone where a sampling at least of that so people who are working in fashion people are working a freelance journalist a freelance media analyst a gallery assistant project managers museum volunteers project coordinators public relations assistants these are some of the recent positions that students who have left us have landed here's a sample of employers okay from Christie's to different off from the Nanjing museum again go to the website here of art graduate destinations to just get a sense of what what people are doing and of course if you're able to come to an open day you can talk to students and talk to staff what they're doing here at psoas but also what they how we got to where we got where we are what we've done with our careers many of us have had had multiple careers or have had very diverse careers that are part and parcel of our academic personas at the moment and we link our students into those networks from where where we come from and many of our students also come to us in the middle of the professional the development of a professional career or some go on to to develop them and come back and talk to our students it's better so so do come on to campus to an open day if ever you can to get a sense of more of a sense of that okay so that's what I have to say now I wanted to open it up to questions and yes to to just uh yeah just talk with you all if there are specific things you'd like to you'd like to know then send those questions my way I can see my screen here if anybody has a question send it my way and uh yeah and we'll go from there okay so this is Selena ah who was wondering what the difference is between undertaking the part time and the full-time MA program okay so thank you for that question Selena um so the MA is comprised of 120 credits okay I believe I have a slide here let me see um perhaps I skipped over that slide the MA is composed of 120 credits if you're doing it uh over the course of one year then you take 60 credits uh in one term 60 credits in another term let me just bring you back to this slide bring me back to the slide if you are taking it over two years and you have of course your MA dissertation if you're taking it over two years then you need to divide um you can you can balance it out as you wish really um most students end up doing 30 and 30 and then 30 and 30 in the second year and their dissertation in the second year now um you can also do it over three years and that obviously enables the the most flexibility so that you can balance if for example in one of the terms you have a heavy workload many people go part time because they're working at the same time you have a heavy workload or you have a carer load whatever it might be uh then uh you're able to take a smaller number of credits in one term and a larger number of credits in a term uh we of course advise you uh to balance it out as well as possible but we are very flexible in relationship to your own schedules and that's really what the part time uh degree program is is for it's to allow you to work the study program into your personal schedule so um and when you're doing it in three years you don't have to put the dissertation into the last year but most people do and it's advisable uh because of course then you will have done your coursework before you move into the dissertation so um the difference is that I think um let's see what else can I say about the part time I think it also so many people do the part time because of other obligations other responsibilities often those are financial but some people do the part time also because it suits better their um it suits better their career development if they're in the middle of a busy exciting career and they don't want to drop out of that career because uh they'll they'll fall out and they might not be able to get back into the same position this sort of thing so they so they'll cut down on their work and add this in um some people do it also uh of their particular study habits their particular study skills study habits and desires uh doing the MA part time depending on the rest of your schedule can allow you to have more time to devote to each module have more time to devote to the reading really try to um commit yourself to going through the weekly reading as um as thoroughly as possible to take advantage of the of the museum visits of the archival visits that are integrated into your degree um and to just give yourself the time to digest the material and for your own research to mature so some people um for some people that suits and this is also um a good reason to look at a part time degree so feel free to follow up with that question if you if you have more if I didn't quite answer what you're getting that yeah okay so now we have a question from Ponapat um who would like to know that if he graduated with a bachelor's degree in fashion design can he or she uh study the MA in art history and archaeology so Ponapat thank you for that for that question uh my the short answer is yes you can uh what we look at when people apply to the MA in art history and archaeology is uh the first one of the first things we look at is of course your BA degree we do not require that you have a BA degree in art history we require that you have a BA degree in art history and or a related field okay um fashion design uh it depends exactly on your program it depends on where you study what's what what is integrated that program and of course how well you did on that program as to whether or not um you would be admitted but in principle a degree such as fashion design is considered uh as a as a possible stepping stone into the MA in art history and archaeology so I would say certainly uh try it out you know put in an application um if you're coming from that area um I think that's also part of the part of the the richness of our student body is that there's not there's not a sOS standard there's not there's not a standard sOS student of art and archaeology we have students with such diverse backgrounds from so many different countries from so many different disciplines from so many different different um different perspectives and they come together in the classroom and everybody has something to give and it's the job of the teacher then is to get that dynamic going to allow people to bring their different kinds of knowledge their different backgrounds to the table and really work together um so some students will come in with uh with very uh standard art historical degrees they will come in with with certain skills um some people will come in with with a history degree some people will come in with a background in curating um and a a maths degree but 10 years in the curating profession uh this kind of thing so we really bring people together to share their share their kinds of expertise share their backgrounds and build together their knowledge okay so please don't shy away if you think oh i'm not quite right nobody's nobody's right what we what we look to do is to is to create a diverse and dynamic student body I should also say that we do another wonderful component of sOS are some um postgraduate diploma programs that enable students who aren't quite ready to enter the ma in art and archaeology um they need they need something they need something they need they need more background in the humanities for example more background in the arts or more background specifically in they want to acquire more background in asian art or in african art something of this order we can we can send students we can recommend that students first do um first do a diploma we have a diploma in asian arts and we have a another postgraduate diploma those are stepping stones again for entering into the ma so um often we recommend that students do that if they aren't quite at the level to enter the ma okay so now i see i have a question from jim um asking if there are opportunities to further interest in the modern southeast asian art particularly singapore malaysia so as who may i talk to you to know more um so jim thank you very much for that question um we are yes absolutely a place where you can do that um as i was saying earlier have a we have a very um a very well supported program in uh in southeast asian hindu buddhist art of the ancient and pre-modern periods um this is where i think the historical depth is also very important for students who are working in um modern and contemporary art we have a specialist on staff of southeast asian modern and contemporary art um so uh we all work together i work on the earlier materials so the way i have a um an interest myself uh in modern and contemporary materials as well my my my teaching and my research is oriented towards the towards the uh the older materials but my southeast asia modern and contemporary colleague and i work quite closely together along with another a wider range of colleagues across the regions but also inside south and southeast asia uh to shall we say animate a program in southeast asian art uh broadly broadly taken so i can say for example that this weekend a number of our students and alumni are running a program called southeast asia currents um which is a platform for modern contemporary and southeast modern and contemporary southeast asian art here in london and they're running three days of events uh screening films artist talks installations all sorts of things um it's not something which grew solely out of soas it's because there are these great people doing things around london they've also taken degree programs at soas they're there they continue to work with soas some of them are in a class that i teach on on buddhist art at the moment um and they're running this program this weekend so it's a very very lively environment for um for folks working on contemporary um and then southeast asian art uh singapore melasia yes uh absolutely um we i should also say that in addition to the students the alumni the my colleagues um we have um many many students who are actually from singapore uh or from melasia who are who are part of our programs and so there's that uh that regional expertise that comes um from the student body directly as well in that way so um yes who should you talk to more you could talk to myself uh you can email me you can also um email my colleague pamela quarry she's on research leave at the moment but um we can we can get a conversation going okay her name is pamela quarry c o r e y okay so jody is there any way to submit the dissertation earlier than the end of the course in september yes yes of course um bravo to you if you're able to do it before the deadline um and yes of course you can do that um some students so the the um the supervisory uh component of the dissertation starts as as i was saying early in term two so if you're doing it um you know one year program it starts in term two it continues into term three and generally the supervisory situation comes to an end in july shall i say that's a generalization but something of that order and the students from that moment on work independently now some students um wish to write their dissertations elsewhere than in london um that can have to do with their research degree it can have to do with their personal lives um that is that's possible um we need you to be here in london you need to be here in london to be having your supervisions early on but if at some point when the supervisions are over you've been able to um to do your face to face supervisions um up to a certain point and you feel confident and you're super confident that you can be writing elsewhere then you're certainly able to do that and that kind of situation people might be submitting them early um but they might also go off somewhere else to uh to complete the writing process okay so i'm reading now from uh that was jody who asked that question thank thank you jody uh now i'm reading from selena um so selena is thinking me let me see if there's another question um in here um so she so selena is also wondering how the credits relate to how many days you would be in class per week right so generally a 15 credit module um so a 15 credit module is um so most modules are 15 credits so let's say you're doing a full-time degree in in a given term term one or term two you would be taking four 15 credit modules generally a 15 credit module will meet for two hours per week now there may be for example the theory and methods course that the theory and methods module that will be offering as of next year that will be meeting for two hours uh in a lecture theater and then there will be a one hour tutorial in smaller groups okay so uh that's so that's that's an exception generally you can think 15 credits means two hours so you can do the math there if you're taking four 15 credit modules they're two hours you'll be you'll be having eight hours of classroom time so this is also something that people try to work out with their part-time scheduling um they try you can choose your classes for your topics but some people by necessity will have to also choose classes according to their own availability vis-a-vis their work schedules so um yes so that's that's how it works so classes are taught from Monday to Friday and um yes the other another um advantage shall I say of doing uh the degree part-time is that you can say oh I really want to do this course this module but the the the the tutor for that module is going to be on sabbatical in term two of this year when that module is taught so I'll take another module in term two of this year while that person is on sabbatical and then when that person's back I'll take the module with them okay so you have a little bit more flexibility in deciding um and really profiting from from the from the from the full array if you're doing it part-time okay um so let me see where are we Catherine Catherine uh so you're interested in doing a part-time masters in the history and art and architecture of the Islamic Middle East and you're wondering on average how many hours each week it would be if you spread it 60 60 each year okay um when you say 60 60 I'm going to take that to mean uh year program um that's what I think you're referring to you're doing it part-time over two years um so that means you would be doing 30 credits so two modules in one term and then 30 credits in the second term of each year um so as I was saying your classroom time will be two hours um times two in it so that would be four uh classroom hours and then in addition to that you have to think about all of the time that you dedicate to reading and to writing and to writing okay um and or extra extra uh archival work extra museum position that you want to do on your own uh that you might be doing any any research talks that you'd be going to available here at the university so you manage your time in that way um I have a hard time estimating how much uh time in the library people need it really varies according to your background it varies according to your to your um to your approach to um to doing the assignments so um I don't really I don't I don't myself dare venture um the amount of time for for a particular module for a given individual um but I think you can go on the basis of two hours for a 15 credit module possibly three hours and do your maths from there so I hope that's helpful enough um okay so here's another question from Selena who is currently undertaking a graduate certificate in the history of art and architecture comes from a fashion design background and wants to know if this would be a suitable course to back up a fashion design degree absolutely absolutely so um to come from to have a fashion design background to then go into a graduate certificate in the history of art and architecture and then to go into the MA program yes this is a this is um I don't want to say a common a common path but yes having that stepping stone of a graduate certificate is very very useful to then come into into the MA so um um another reason why we've developed this theory and methods course is also to enable students who have um who are coming from a you know a slightly different background someone who's coming out of for example uh complet if they did a a comparative literature degree at the BA level um or if they did a fine art degree rather than an art history degree so something that is um that is within the within the realm of related degrees um or even if they they way back when did a maths degree and then they had a career in an auction house um for one reason or another um and then uh we we if one is we the the theory methods course also enables students to develop the to develop the background to really understand the methodologies in art history okay to develop the disciplinary background which will enable them then to work in a specific area of specialization so it's really designed also to to bring people into the discipline from related areas okay so Jodi now Jodi is asking about submitting a dissertation early because she's thinking of applying for the JEP program which is a program in Japan um and to leave for Japan in September after finishing the MA uh yes Jodi I in fact have a student who did that so um so you're not the first and um a student who successfully completed the program and then went on to the JEP program so yes um absolutely absolutely but again you know bravo to you if you're able to to uh to finish your dissertation early and then go immediately off to uh to the to the to the the work in Japan okay so Catherine's question has been answered um Zerkun okay yes so uh hello is it possible to pursue a PhD and so as after you finished your MA program and what should I do during my MA period yes so absolutely um we do of course offer um PhDs we have um we have a very vibrant PhD community and in fact I think the PhD community is also a very um a very important one for many of our MA students um partially because the research environment with research talks and uh is is also animated by the PhD students sometimes it's PhD students giving talks sometimes it's PhD students responding to um to invited speakers who are working on a particular area that they're interested in um so the PhD community is a very um it's it's core to our our dynamic research environment in the school and often PhD students can become mentors for MA students who are interested in moving on to to PhDs um so what we we do have many PhD students who come out of our programs so who do a BA MA PhDs some who do MAs and PhDs many PhDs who come from elsewhere of course as well um and of course many MA students who then go on to do PhDs elsewhere as well it depends on your area of specialization and um where you where you want to be um uh in terms of your expertise at the end of your PhD so um the first thing to do is to get as strong and broad a background in your MA as you possibly can over the course of the MA be thinking about where you might want to be heading with a PhD uh it can be called I think to be applying for the PhD while you are doing your MA such that you move directly into into the PhD after you finish your MA that again takes a very very strong student who's able to carry the MA program while conceiving a PhD program um so that there's no gap between the one and the other it's not impossible but it is um it is impressive if you're able to do that generally what we have for students who are completing MAs with us who want to go on to do PhDs with us is that they complete their MA they cook up as they're finishing their MA dissertations they're thinking about their PhD program they're perhaps talking about it with different tutors uh but they don't begin to develop the project until um after having submitted the MA dissertation in September so the PhD if you're applying for a scholarship you might want to look to be completing your PhD project uh towards the end of the year after you have submitted your MA dissertation so in that December kind of time period and um and then you would have a one-year gap between your MA and your PhD okay so I hope that answers your answers your question cell yes Selena Selena is interested in textiles do any of the modules or themes in the MA courses relate to this so um so I can speak to um one of my classes which has brought people to look at Southeast Asian textiles uh Indonesian Malaysians Island Southeast Asia textiles in the Horniman collection um over over the past year actually we had a special session in there and I actually have an MA student at the moment who is developing a historical project on textiles working with archaeological materials that have come out of recent dicks in in Cambodia and doing comparative work with the representation of textiles in Cambodia but also elsewhere in Southeast Asia on statuary so to look at some of the very very small moments and rare fragments that have actually come out of um come out of archaeological work and trying to think about the trade networks think about the motifs think about the relationships that we might be able to build in terms of research to understand um in her particular case the relations this is an MA student the relations between um local fabrics and imported fabrics so this is a project that she's developing um in some ways in response to her own work before coming to SOAS but also in response to the sessions that we had in one of my classes uh other work in textiles um I'm not entirely sure I would have to ask my other colleagues who is specifically we I do have one colleague who um did a lot of work and she's a museum studies colleague and she works on questions of right now her research focus is on object restitution and she works most specifically on Chinese materials um but she has a very strong and extensive background in textiles uh also Southeast Asian textiles but oriented sort of across the across Asia um and to what degree she's doing that now in her classes I'm not entirely sure certainly some of these museum studies work and some of her own research is oriented towards thinking the conservation issues of textiles so um off the top of my head that's what I can tell you but there may be many other things that are going on um behind those module titles that I'm not aware of so yeah so Yuling uh you're interested in the MA history of art and intensive language Japanese program uh your internet is not working so well okay um yeah looks like you're having a hard time let me just say to you Yuling um I'm going to have to wrap it up and if you're having a hard time with the internet at the moment um please do send me your email if you're interested in the history of art and intensive language Japanese program I may well send you to one of my colleagues um we have a Japan specialist on staff and he can walk you through that program and talk to you about the kinds of work that he does in his own classes um so his name is Taiman Screech you might want to look him on his s c r e e c h you might want to look him up and email him directly about that particular program but otherwise feel free to email me and I will touch base with him on on any questions you have on that okay great we have to wrap it up now so um so I hope to to see some of you in person sometime and um and to hear from you in the meantime okay bye bye