BA Creative Arts and Cultural Industries

This module introduces some of the major musical cultures of selected regions in Asia, Africa and the Middle East through a focus on musical instruments. We explore what instruments can tell us about society, class, and gender; symbolic systems related to music; the histories of musicians and performers; creativity and the imagination; and the transformation of “traditional” musical systems in contemporary societies and global industries.

This course introduces selected popular music cultures of the world, examining case studies from Asia, Africa and the Middle East, as well as diasporic and globalised styles. Each lecture will introduce: representative musical styles with their characteristic sounds, instruments and forms; the cultural contexts within which they have developed; relationships between music and global and local forces including political power structures, gender, nationalism, tourism and globalisation; the roles of musicians and those working in music industries; circumstances surrounding musical performance, recording and dissemination of music.

This module supports students with their transition to Higher Education. It delves into the study of Humanities, with a focus on questions concerning the colonial genealogy of Humanities and the ways of decolonising Humanities, and skills acquired in the various disciplines in the college. Students learn to identify and describe the skills they acquire in this module and during their studies in the Humanities. Students are introduced to research, reading, listening, writing, performance and communication skills through multiple disciplinary lenses, addressing the planetary questions of this age. They compare different disciplinary approaches and are encouraged to reflect on interdisciplinary approaches to studying the Humanities, grounded in different regions. This enables students to make more informed decisions in the designing of their individual educational journey. Students practice their skills and reflect on their skills through real-world projects, drawing on critical content from all disciplines in the College of Humanities at SOAS.

This module introduces the scope, aims and methods of art history as a discipline from its Eurocentric origins through to contemporary approaches to art and its histories in a global era. In conjunction with Theories of Art, this module establishes the methodological and theoretical foundations for further art historical study. In Objects of Art History, approaches to objects and their histories will be explored with a focus on key concepts, such as art, artefact, style, form and media, artists and makers.

Alongside studying individual objects, art historians also examine the spaces, locations, institutions and contexts within which they may be seen and evaluated. This module will introduce the many contexts of use for objects, including the religious, social and material circumstances in which a 'work of art' was created and used.

This module examines a range of key art historical concepts and theories in more detail. Seminar discussions will examine how these theories, issues and concepts may be evaluated in relation to the study of Asian and African art.

A full-year module, this is a practical course on performance in four Asian and African music traditions. Available traditions may vary from year to year. Students will normally have weekly group lessons with established musicians of the respective traditions. Students are assessed by their tutors continuously throughout the sessions based on their effort and progress, yet in the last session of each block (instrument), there is a more formal assessment by the practice tutor and the module convenor.

This module provides a critical introduction to the film and screen cultures of Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Approaching film in terms of cultural identity and self-expression, this module will place screened films within a general framework of national tradition and identity and provide a platform for students to reflect on the unity and diversity of the human condition across different regions. A selection of 21st century films will be explored within their cultural, social and political context of production, exhibition and reception, and students will be guided to reflect on different functions of cinema.

What role do the internet and its associated tools and devices play in facilitating movements for social justice? This first-year module will use examples of prominent digital-driven campaigns and causes from all over the world, from geopolitical conflicts to environmental movements to indigenous and decolonial rights campaigns - to examine the role of digital communications tools and platforms in bottom up" democratic movements, and the challenges associated with these approaches. Do technologies such as AI have a role to play in assisting social justice, or do they merely constitute surveillance? The module may examine formats including social media text, images and video, and podcasting, and these skills will also be covered."

Why is it so crucial to talk about “digital” technology, and what is important or distinctive about it? This is the standard first-year theory module that sets the tone for the course and frame other modules. It will enable students to cultivate a critical distance from digital technologies while appreciating and identifying the aspects of the digital world that they find most interesting as budding scholars and professionals.

Why is there so much hype afforded to new technologies? Who develops these technologies and who stands to gain from them? What kinds of value do they produce for users and developers alike? What is the implication of using a technology developed in one cultural context, in another? This module considers the development of new and emergent digital technologies, such as virtual and extended realities, varied forms of artificial intelligence and algorithms, cryptocurrencies and blockchains - in a global context. It examines the life cycle of new digital technologies, from the ideation and innovation process, venture capital, state sponsorship, development, manufacturing, advertising, cultural meaning, actual uses, and eventual obsolescence.

This module is primarily designed to introduce students who have no background in Film Studies, or in analysing cinema, to the vocabularies that have been used to understand and analyse film. It focuses on the close reading of specific films to explore their technical, visual, aural and spatial features. While it will be inevitable that we look at certain European and North American films – particularly when analysing ‘mainstream’ film language – we will put the emphasis on our regional film expertise to introduce students to important films from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. The module will also introduce students to key moments in film history and to important concepts and ideas in film theory which will give them a firm grounding in order to progress to more sophisticated film studies modules.
Wherever possible, film language and concepts will be explained to students in more practical ways, for example through possible guest lectures or excursions so that students can talk to different filmmakers about how they construct the language of film within their own work, and what the history and theory of film mean to them. Students can choose whether to be assessed via written or audiovisual essays.   

Based around the three broad themes of Religion, Trade and Empire, this module examines a series of individual objects in context from across Asia and Africa to explore the role of material and visual culture in understanding the history of global connectivity. Each case-study will demonstrate the transmission of ideas, motifs, materials, objects and people within Asia and Africa and in interaction with Europe, over around 1500 years from the 2nd-3rd to the 18th centuries CE.

Building upon Global Arts: connected histories (to 1800), this module develops an understanding of the arts of Asia and Africa from the 19th century to the present, encompassing the period when many regions were impacted first by European colonialism and later by nationalist and postcolonial movements.

The module will comprise four thematic blocks, the themes of which will vary each year but may include, for example: Situating the Discipline; Perspectives on Art History; Art and Perception; and Art and Interpretation. Lecture topics may include: Material Culture, Architecture and Space, Context and Value, Museology, Visuality, Gender, Semiotics, Phenomenology, Hermeneutics and Deconstruction and others.

The course is designed to explore themes – around the emergence of the cultural industries, the commodification of art and culture and the potentialities of digital culture – that are relevant across Media, Music and the Arts, and to bring together expertise from each department in a team-taught course. It will give students an overview of the history and scale of the global cultural industries and how they intersect with politics, the economy, and ideas of the self and of community. It will use case studies drawn from across SOAS regions to ground the course in specific examples that address transnational and localised framings.

The module is designed to equip students with a broad range of theoretical and practical approaches to the study of museums. It examines the strategies and practices by which museums interpret, organise and display objects – especially non-Western objects – within diverse cultural contexts.

In this mostly practical module, students take one-to-one lessons in one of the non-Western classical traditions offered at SOAS or in other vocal or instrumental traditions fitting into the SOAS study geography taught by an approved teacher outside the school. In addition to practical tuition, students will be familiar with basics of self-reflective writing and performance theory and start practicing critical reflection on their learning processes around the instrumental or vocal tradition studied.

This module will examine the relationship between cities and film cultures in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and beyond. In addition to examining the city from a film studies perspective, the module will also draw on key ideas from geography, urban studies and cultural studies.

This module offers a historical and contemporary exploration of the important roles played by film festivals in defining, validating, exhibiting, distributing, and (increasingly) producing global cinemas. While it introduces students to some of the oldest and largest international film festivals (such as Cannes, Berlin, Rotterdam, and Toronto), it takes a critical postcolonial approach to the analysis of festivals worldwide and focuses in particular on the experiences of African, Asian, Middle Eastern, and Latin American filmmakers on the circuit. The module's focus on the people involved in making festivals (directors, curators, juries, audiences, filmmakers) also allows for the development of understanding of the socially constructed meanings of films, particularly in geographically diverse locations.
It also looks at smaller, more unusual film festivals to raise debate about cultural difference and resistance to global standardisation and professionalisation in local film cultures and industries. Equally important to the course is an exploration of the interface between the kinds of films usually accepted and awarded by film festivals, and those ‘popular’ film industries which tend to avoid, or be overlooked by, festivals.
Students will have the opportunity to learn about some of the practical dimensions of founding, directing and curating film festivals, and will be required to develop their own idea for a film festival, or a programme within a film festival, as the main part of their assessment.

The objects studied by art historians are often encountered in two dimensions as photographs or digital media even when three-dimensional, such as buildings or sculptures. This module introduces the media, materials and technologies of art history in order to consider how the processes of production of objects affect the evaluation of their meanings and use.

This module introduces students to the analysis and production of creative media using digital technologies of vision, sound and beyond. Against the backdrop of broader questions of the cultural economy, it explores specific processes and techniques of digital creativity, and the cultural meaning attached to them. It will examine topics such as intellectual property, its licensing and revenue, AI-generated art and ethics, digital copying and creative re-use, memes and reusable audio, digital photography, filters and image manipulation, skeuomorphism, futurism and digital aesthetics, current and past digital artists, sampling, pastiche, glitch aesthetics and sounds.

From early explorations through the height of Britain’s global empire to the global contemporary art world, the art of Asia, Africa and the Middle East has been examined, collected and transformed in this global city. This module examines the art of one or more regions of Asia, Africa and the Middle East from the study of objects, collections, buildings and/or art in London.

This module provides theoretical, practical and historical training in decolonising the study of the arts of Asia, Africa and the Middle East. It equips students with decolonising tools and perspectives needed to establish and articulate their intellectual position within the study of the arts.

This module allows students to synthesise their learning in a single project that demonstrates their fulfilment of the programme’s learning outcomes. It integrates their academic knowledge with experiences beyond the classroom and combines their developing knowledge, skills, and personal interests. The project is conceived, designed, and carried out independently, with support and supervision.

This module combines curatorial training with an exploration of key debates in the theory, history and practice of curating art, music and media in a global context. The module includes a series of off-site visits in galleries and arts institutions during which students will meet curators and engage with current perspectives on curating in London. Students will study the histories and debates of curating through a close reading of seminal exhibitions, manifestos and texts, and will cover themes including collecting and display, postcolonial exhibition practice, representation and the ‘other’, curatorial initiatives in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, curating sound and music, and the use of archives and digital technologies in curating.

This module focuses on the music business as an aspect of the contemporary Creative Industries. Using a range of perspectives from economics, cultural studies, digital culture studies, ethnomusicology, and popular music studies, this module will explore live events, funding and sustainability, space and place, digital platforms, and content production. 

This module provides students with a critical understanding of the development of contemporary musical styles, scenes, and listening practices in 20th and 21st century China, Japan and Korea. We explore transnational flows of sounds, commodities and ideas; digital mediation and creativity; DIY and underground scenes and mainstream markets; focusing on the relationships between music and political power, national and local identities, gender and performance, idols and fans.

This module will focus on urban musical practices and soundscapes, including theoretical approaches drawn from contemporary literature in ethnomusicology and associated disciplines, and will enable students to put classroom learning into practice via a guided individual field study.

This mostly practical module follows in some logical way on the practical and theoretical content of Performance and Self-reflective Writing 1 (which is a prerequisite). Students must normally continue the practical training in an instrumental or vocal tradition of Asia or Africa (or other SOAS study geographies) begun in the preceding academic year. This is to deepen their performative skills and theoretical-cultural knowledge of the given tradition. Students are expected to perform a more advanced repertoire for their final exam (which is a public performance) and develop a more critical portfolio compared to Performance and Self-reflective Writing 1. If their technical mastery and knowledge allow, they will also start experiencing creative practice within aesthetic and cultural frameworks of the tradition in question.

This module explores music, aurality, and media in a particular regional context. We will explore what the study of sound and listening can tell us about society and culture, attending to the latest debates in music and sound studies. The regional focus will change according to the current research of faculty in the Music Department.