MA Cultural Studies

The MA Cultural Studies offers an interdisciplinary approach to the study of contemporary to culture, politics and society.

• Explore Cultural Studies’ impact and influence on a wide range of research interests, not only in the English-speaking world but also internationally. The programme teaches you a range of methodologies that you can then apply in your own writing and research. It gives you a background in the tradition/s of Cultural Studies.
• Examine the effect of media technologies, racialisation and gendering on the production, circulation and consumption of popular culture. Topics include music scenes, the prison industrial complex, national boarders, and neoliberalism, for example. Approaches include representation, embodiment and decolonisation.
• Discover your own path through the fields of Cultural Studies, and apply what you have learned to your own research in the form of your chosen dissertation topic on which you will receive appropriate guidance and support from your supervisor.
• Media, Communications and Cultural Studies (MCCS) is an extremely broad and open-minded department – even by Goldsmiths' standards – and we are committed to making your interests as welcome as possible. We are a large and highly interdisciplinary department, and the themes of cultural studies run through the research interests of many academics within it. These span the fields of music, film, digital media, aesthetics, cultural industries, gender and queer studies, postcolonialism, journalism, political economy, critical race studies, and critical theory.
• Immerse yourself in a postgraduate environment shared by numerous creative practice-based MA programmes, such as MA Filmmaking, MA Journalism, and MA Script Writing. You will also share interests and activities with students from several sister programmes, such as MA Race, Media and Social Justice, MA Postcolonial Culture and Global Policy, and MA Culture Industry.
• Participate in extra-curricular activities with field trips to the Stuart Hall archive for instance and Sound System Outernational (SSO) events. These offer opportunities to meet up with students on other programmes, and become involved in Lewisham’s local music scene.
• Our department has been ranked second in the UK for 'world-leading or internationally excellent' research (Research Excellence Framework, 2021) and 16th in the world (third in the UK) in the 2024 QS World Rankings for communication and media studies.
• Study in one of London’s liveliest and most diverse communities. You will study in a stimulating critical and creative research-led environment, which will prepare you for employment in a range of culture-related professions.