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Fall 2025 Graduate Catalog
Art History and Criticism, MA
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 Return to: Master’s Programs
Degree Awarded: Master of Arts in Art History and Criticism
The Graduate Programs in Art History & Criticism at Stony Brook University focus on modern and contemporary art and visual culture. We aim to produce scholars, critics, curators and practitioners who can address global artistic production through contemporary issues and paradigms. Media aesthetics, art and technology, public art and social practice, politics of the avant-garde, photography, film and critical curatorial studies are currently areas of departmental research. We offer a dynamic, interdisciplinary curriculum along with individual mentoring from faculty whose work has won national and international recognition. Students benefit from engagement with the department’s studio programs and with faculty and students from other programs including Philosophy, History, Music, Computer Science and Engineering, and are able to pursue Graduate Certificates in Media, Art, Culture and Technology; Art and Philosophy; Creative Writing and Literature; Women’s and Gender Studies, and Writing and Rhetoric, among others
As a small and selective program in a large, public institution we are able to offer graduate study with low tuition costs, teaching experience with a highly diverse undergraduate population, and the full resources of major research university. Opportunities for curatorial theory and practice are available in conjunction with regular exhibitions at the University’s Staller Center Paul Zuccaire Gallery, the Lawrence Alloway Gallery, and the art gallery at the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics. Our proximity to New York City offers extensive opportunities for research, collaboration, and professional networking at world-class museums and galleries. Our students have been successful in securing tenure-track academic positions at universities around the world and at earning internships, fellowships, curatorial positions, and teaching roles at major New York institutions, such as the Whitney Museum, Creative Time, The Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art.
MA in Art History and Criticism
The MA in Art History and Criticism is a two year 36-credit flexible degree program with a strong emphasis on modern and contemporary art and visual and material culture. In their second year, students must pass a comprehensive exam, and work with a faculty advisor on a written thesis or project that serves as a capstone requirement for the degree. Part-time study is allowed in this degree program. The MA in Art History and Criticism is appropriate preparation for PhD degrees in art history or other fields. Students also move on directly to careers in gallery and museum work, education, publishing, non-profit foundations and business.
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Admission Requirements
Admission into the MA and PhD programs is at the discretion of the art history and criticism faculty with the final approval of the Graduate School. Admission is usually for the Fall semester. Part-time study is permissible for qualified MA candidates only. Admission to the program assumes a minimum of a B average in undergraduate work and meeting the standards of admission to the Graduate School (including English Proficiency Requirements). It is recognized that MA and PhD applicants may come from a wide variety of backgrounds that will require individual structuring of their programs to suit their needs. Applicants will ordinarily have a bachelor’s degree with an art history major or minor; however, this requirement may be waived at the discretion of the graduate faculty. All applicants are encouraged to submit a sample of written work with their application. Degree Requirements
The student will be required to successfully complete 36 credits of graduate work, as outlined in the list of courses below. A student must achieve a 3.0 overall grade point average to receive a degree from Stony Brook. Required Courses (6 credits)
Art History and Criticism Electives (15-21 credits)
Humanities and Social Sciences Electives (3-9 credits)
One to three courses in the humanities and/or social sciences, to be chosen in consultation with a faculty advisor and with the approval of the M.A./Ph.D. Graduate Director. These may be in relevant aspects of studio art practice, literary studies or critical history, musicology, philosophy, dramaturgy, sociology, anthropology. Comprehensive Examination
Comprehensive Examination: This exam assesses foundational knowledge of art history. Full-time students must take the comprehensive examination in their third semester of study to continue in the program. In lieu of the examination, students who enroll in the foundational course series of ARH 520 - Media Aesthetics and ARH 521 - Global Postwar Art in their first year of graduate study may request that successful completion of these two courses (B+ or higher in each course) be accepted by the GPD to meet this requirement. Language Requirement
Students are required to have reading knowledge of at least one language in addition to English that is relevant to their projected area of research. This requirement may be met with a translation exam, coursework, or other evidence of fluency as determined by the GPD. MA students must meet the language requirement before filing their thesis and PhD students before Advancing to Candidacy. Teaching Requirement
All MA students are expected to undertake a teaching practicum under the supervision of a professor. They will be assigned as a teaching assistant for an undergraduate course, usually during the second year in the program. Students will be expected to assist the professor with tasks such as attendance, grading and maintenance of online materials Competency will be judged on the basis of a guest lecture and/or leading class discussion session that will be observed and evaluated by the faculty supervisor. Thesis
By the end of the second semester, the student, together with an advisor chosen by the student, will jointly agree on a thesis topic, based upon a paper they have written for a seminar in their first year-preferably either ARH 520 - Media Aesthetics of ARH 521 - Global Postwar Art . The student will submit to the Graduate Program Director a prospectus outlining the nature and aims of the thesis, signed by the faculty advisor. Over the course of the third and fourth semesters, with recommendations provided by the advisor, this paper will be reworked into a significant interpretive text relevant to art history, criticism, and/or theory. At the beginning of the final semester, the Graduate Program Director will appoint a second reader. The thesis is to be completed and approved by the end of the fourth semester. |
Return to: Master’s Programs
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