36 credit hours of coursework.

The program is designed to be completed within 2 years.

During their first semester, full-time students (minimum 9 credits per semester) are required to take Methods of Art History and two additional courses at the 5000-level. During the second semester, students usually take three 5000-level courses. During the second year, students take three courses each semester for a total of 36 credits.

The MA Major in Art History requires:

• Methods of Art History
• A course in a field outside the western tradition
• A minimum of three courses—constituting a major field—in one of the three Fields of Study (see below)
• One course in two of the Fields of Study outside of your major field

• A directed independent study aimed at developing research towards the thesis
• A Masters’ thesis

Our internationally renowned faculty are experts in three major areas of specialization: the Post-Ancient and Medieval World, Modernities and Modernisms, and the Visual Cultures of the Americas. Their overlapping interests result in a great variety of disciplinary subfields and innovative research opportunities for students. For examples of graduate student research topics, see our list of ongoing and completed FSU Art History Dissertations.

The Post-Ancient and Medieval World

Faculty research specialties in this area include the Empire of Byzantium, the kingdoms of Armenia and Georgia, the Islamic Caliphates, Gothic France, Byzantine Cyprus, global medieval art, manuscript illumination, and the Iberian Peninsula. Medieval studies are explored across many disciplines at Florida State University. Graduate students who specialize in medieval art may also enjoy participating in FSU’s interdisciplinary Medieval Studies Association and in Vagantes, a traveling conference for graduate students studying any area of the Middle Ages.

Faculty:  Lynn Jones, Erika Loic, Brendan Weaver

Modernities and Modernisms

Art History faculty expertise in Modernities & Modernisms ranges widely from the Renaissance to global modern and contemporary art. Specialties include: Indigenous film and material culture, the history of graphics, African & diasporic art, 17^th– and 18^th-century Europe, 20^th-century American mass culture, the history of photography, modern American art and theory, comic studies, 18^th-century British art, and contemporary Native American art.

Faculty: Mora Beauchamp-Byrd, Tenley Bick, Michael Carrasco, Kristin Dowell, Adam Jolles, Stephanie Leitch, Robert Neuman, Lorenzo Pericolo

Visual Cultures of the Americas

Critical for an understanding of the colonial and modern world, the study of the Visual Cultures of the Americas (VCA) highlights not only the richness of America’s indigenous cultures, as well as the ones born from the colonial experience, but also the dialogue that these cultures have had with the rest of the world. Thus VCA is an interdisciplinary, hemispheric investigation of the art and visual cultures generated through the dynamic and complex exchange between Indigenous, Western, African, and Asian societies from the archaic period to the present. Areas currently covered include: Precolumbian and Mesoamerican art, archaeology and culture; modern US and Canadian art, architecture and film cultures; and issues of mass culture and globalization. While VCA students are expected to focus on a specific topic or area to build expertise, all are expected to explore the larger issues that the visual cultures of the Americas raise.

Faculty: Mora Beauchamp-Byrd, Michael Carrasco, Kristin Dowell, Stephanie Leitch, Robert Neuman, Paul Niell, Brendan Weaver

To succeed in their graduate coursework, students must have a reading knowledge of one research language. This requirement is met by French, German, Spanish or another research language appropriate to the student’s field of study, to be approved by the major professor in consultation with the Graduate Studies Committee. The requirement is fulfilled either by passing an exam in reading knowledge or successfully completing an intermediate-level course. Although it is highly recommended that students meet the foreign language requirement before beginning the program, the requirement must be met by the end of the first year of coursework.

All faculty members in the department review and evaluate each student’s progress toward the end of the first academic year. In early March, students submit a self-assessment of their progress through the program and an MA Review Cover Sheet.