The London Consortium is a graduate school in the UK offering multidisciplinary Masters and Doctoral programs in the humanities

Humanities

The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....

 and cultural studies

Cultural studies

Cultural studies is an academic field grounded in critical theory and literary criticism. It generally concerns the political nature of contemporary culture, as well as its historical foundations, conflicts, and defining traits. It is, to this extent, largely distinguished from cultural...

 at the University of London

University of London

-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...

. It is administered by Birkbeck, University of London

Birkbeck, University of London

Birkbeck, University of London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It offers many Master's and Bachelor's degree programmes that can be studied either part-time or full-time, though nearly all teaching is...

, one of the constituent colleges of the University of London, and falls under the Humanities list of courses at Birkbeck. http://www.bbk.ac.uk/study/all_courses/humanities.html The London Consortium is a collaborative program composed of Birkbeck, the Architectural Association, Institute of Contemporary Arts

Institute of Contemporary Arts

The Institute of Contemporary Arts is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. It is located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch...

, the Science Museum

Science museum

A science museum or a science centre is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, industry and industrial machinery, etc. Modern trends in museology have broadened the range of...

 and the Tate Gallery

Tate Gallery

The Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...

. It offers courses taught by faculty from across all five constituent institutions, including professors from Birkbeck and the Architectural Association, curators from the Tate and the Institute of Contemporary Arts, as well as external faculty drawn from various institutions in London and across the UK. Classes are taught in venues at Birkbeck, the Tate Modern and Tate Britain, the Institute of Contemporary Arts, and the Architectural Association. The Consortium's permanent and adjunct faculty include figures such as the psychoanalytic theorist Parveen Adams, cultural theorist Steven Connor

Steven Connor

Steven Connor is the Academic Director of the London Consortium and Professor of Modern Literature and Theory at Birkbeck, University of London.- Biography :* Born: Bognor Regis, Sussex, in 1955....

 http://www.bbk.ac.uk/english/skc/, architectural theorist and philosopher Mark Cousins

Mark Cousins (writer)

Mark Cousins is a British cultural critic and architectural theorist. He is the Director of General Studies and Head of the Graduate Program in Histories and Theories at the Architectural Association...

, Tate curators Marko Daniel and Richard Humphreys

Richard Humphreys (writer)

Richard Humphreys is the Curator of Programme Research at Tate Britain and Deputy Chairman of the London Consortium, of which he was a founding member....

, film theorist and producer Colin MacCabe

Colin MacCabe

Colin MacCabe is a British writer and film producer. He is distinguished professor of English and film at the University of Pittsburgh, professor of English and humanities at Birkbeck, University of London, and a visiting professor at the University of Exeter....

, artist and writer Tom McCarthy

Tom McCarthy (writer)

-Life and work:Tom McCarthy is a writer and conceptual artist. He was born in 1969 and lives in central London. McCarthy grew up in Greenwich, south London and was educated at Dulwich College and later New College, Oxford, where he studied English literature. He lived in Prague, Berlin and...

, film theorist Laura Mulvey

Laura Mulvey

Laura Mulvey is a British feminist film theorist. She was educated at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She is currently professor of film and media studies at Birkbeck, University of London...

, cultural theorist Stuart Hall

Stuart Hall (cultural theorist)

Stuart Hall is a cultural theorist and sociologist who has lived and worked in the United Kingdom since 1951. Hall, along with Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams, was one of the founding figures of the school of thought that is now known as British Cultural Studies or The Birmingham School of...

, psychoanalytic theorist Juliet Mitchell

Juliet Mitchell

Juliet Mitchell is a British Psychoanalyst and socialist feminist, who was a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge and Professor of Psychoanalysis and Gender Studies at Cambridge University. In 2010, she's appointed to be the Director of the Expanded Doctoral School in Psychoanalytic Studies at...

, writer Marina Warner, and psychoanalytic philosopher Slavoj Žižek

Slavoj Žižek

Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher, critical theorist working in the traditions of Hegelianism, Marxism and Lacanian psychoanalysis. He has made contributions to political theory, film theory, and theoretical psychoanalysis....

. Its current chair is the lawyer and writer Anthony Julius

Anthony Julius

Anthony Julius is a prominent British lawyer and academic, best known for his actions on behalf of Diana, Princess of Wales, Deborah Lipstadt and more recently Heather Mills...

.

The Consortium PhD comprises a taught component. First year PhD students follow the same core courses as those studying towards the MRes, courses designed to give a grounding in multidisciplinary research. The core courses for the academic year 2008/2009 are 'Catastrophe', 'Cultures of Collecting', 'St. Paul', 'Flat Baroque: "Special Effects" and the Rigging of the Whole Wide World"', and 'Godard's Contempt: Text and Pretext'. Previous core courses include 'Shit and Civilization', 'Metamorphosis', 'Stoicism: Fate, Chance and Uncertainty' and 'Whiteness'. Through courses like these, the Consortium could be thought of as developing an original conception of Cultural Studies

Cultural studies

Cultural studies is an academic field grounded in critical theory and literary criticism. It generally concerns the political nature of contemporary culture, as well as its historical foundations, conflicts, and defining traits. It is, to this extent, largely distinguished from cultural...

. While the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies

Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies

The Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies was a research centre at the University of Birmingham, England. It was founded in 1964 by Richard Hoggart, its first director...

 at Birmingham University -- founded by Richard Hoggart

Richard Hoggart

Herbert Richard Hoggart is a British academic and public figure, whose career has covered the fields of sociology, English literature and cultural studies, with a special concern for British popular culture.-Career:...

 and for a long time the institutional home of Stuart Hall

Stuart Hall (cultural theorist)

Stuart Hall is a cultural theorist and sociologist who has lived and worked in the United Kingdom since 1951. Hall, along with Richard Hoggart and Raymond Williams, was one of the founding figures of the school of thought that is now known as British Cultural Studies or The Birmingham School of...

 -- conceived of Cultural Studies as the study of contemporary popular culture

Popular culture

Popular culture is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes, images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the...

, the London Consortium has sought to develop a research and teaching climate where the study of older historical periods, on the one hand, and of 'high' culture on the other, can take its place alongside the more traditional foci of the discipline. This also entails a different approach to interdisciplinarity. Where interdisciplinary studies had often been content to merely ignore the traditional academic disciplines, and run roughshod over disciplinary boundaries, the London Consortium prefers to describe its activities as multidisciplinary, reflecting the belief that while the best research will benefit from being approached from two or more disciplinary perspectives, it must also stand up to the most exacting standards of the disciplines.

The Consortium was founded in 1993 by the late social philosopher Paul Hirst

Paul Hirst

Paul Hirst was a British sociologist and political theorist. He became Professor of Social Theory at Birkbeck, University of London....

 (1947-2003), Cousins, Humphreys, and MacCabe. Until 1999, the British Film Institute

British Film Institute

The British Film Institute is a charitable organisation established by Royal Charter to:-Cinemas:The BFI runs the BFI Southbank and IMAX theatre, both located on the south bank of the River Thames in London...

 was part of the Consortium. After the BFI removed its involvement (due to policy changes and external pressures at that institution), it was replaced by the Institute of Contemporary Arts http://www.ica.org.uk/The+London+Consortium+97.twl. In 2007, the Science Museum

Science Museum (London)

The Science Museum is one of the three major museums on Exhibition Road, South Kensington, London in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is part of the National Museum of Science and Industry. The museum is a major London tourist attraction....

joined the collaboration, with its Head of Research, Peter Morris, contributing as a core faculty member.

External links

London Consortium

Birkbeck, University of London

Architectural Association School of Architecture

Tate Galleries

Tate page on the London Consortium

Science Museum

Institute of Contemporary Arts

ICA page on the London Consortium

Birkbeck College Academic Quality Assurance document for the London Consortium graduate programs

Article by Mark Cousins on Paul Hirst and the London Consortium

Article on the early years of The London Consortium