About the school

The School of Media, Arts and Humanities offers high-quality teaching, learning and cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research in a friendly and supportive atmosphere.

• Video transcript

  Hello. Welcome to the School of Media, Arts and Humanities at the University of Sussex.

  I'm Kate O’Riordan. I'm a professor of digital culture, and I'm Dean of the School where you'd be studying your chosen subject with us. The School of Media, Arts and Humanities at Sussex is a really exciting, critical and creative community of students and staff.

  We are home to an amazing array of subjects, including American Studies, Art History, Creative and Critical Media Practice, Drama and Performance, English Language and Linguistics. English Literature, Film, History, Media, Culture Studies and Journalism, Modern Languages including European languages, Arabic and British Sign Language. Music. Music Technology and Philosophy.

  You'll be joining around 3000 students across all levels from all different countries in the world and around 300 staff who work in the school. Your specialist work will be supported in small subject groups that provide a home base and a vibrant, collaborative community.

  You will benefit from developing your specialism within this international community of ideas across media, arts and humanities subjects as a critical mass. We combine theory, practice, industry, art, activism and critical and creative work. We have great graduate employability opportunities thanks to an exciting industry facing curriculum that offers work placements and strong links with cultural institutions like the BBC and theatres and galleries internationally. We work with activist and public sector organisations on social justice issues.

  We also work with other universities around the world with particularly strong partnerships in California and Hong Kong. And there are opportunities to experience time abroad. We understand the importance of inclusion for all in our subject areas, and we are committed to being a force for good in the world in whatever way we contribute. Media, arts and humanities are a crucial part of our culture, and we have created an environment where our staff and many of our students are amazing researchers and makers in their fields create award winning films, installations, performances and music.

  They write cutting edge books and commentary and engage in important social research about knowledge, truth, politics, social justice and creativity across time and cultures. Right at this time, researching, making, working and studying in these areas has never been more important.

  Whatever your subject area of choice, we welcome you to share our commitment to bringing people and ideas together to make them stronger and more developed. Sussex as an institution is committed to being a better university for a better world, and in a time of crisis and its recovery, we have to make good on that promise.

  As a school, we're committed to enabling people to imagine that they can engage in the project of making better worlds in the present for ourselves, for others, and in the future. In the current crisis, we have all become even more reliant on media culture as we use digital platforms to connect with people and follow influence or news sources to try and find out what is going on.

  In such conditions, you need to be able to understand how to make up your mind about different sources, to empower yourself, to understand what is coming to us and from where. And also so that we can independently and with others create our own campaigns, messages or artwork to enable people to hear us. You would have seen the importance of arts and humanities in the world right now as people use poetry, computer games, storytelling, music, visual art, photography and performance to make community. To imagine the world differently and to hold ourselves together.

  We've also seen the importance of history and of heritage, understanding crises and social change and those with the perspective of perhaps centuries of knowledge in science and medicine are able to understand or respond to the challenges in the contemporary world.

  We can be part of making futures where we can flourish. We can only do that with the critical and creative knowledge, tools and ideas that come from rich collaborative work across all the media, arts and humanities disciplines. We aspire to be a truly interdisciplinary and inclusive school, and we are excited to invite you to join us.

About us

We combine theory, practice, activism and critical and creative work.

For students there is a real focus on graduate employability. We have an exciting industry-facing curriculum including work placements and strong links with cultural institutions such as the BBC and museums, theatres and galleries around the world.

From American Studies to Philosophy, the subjects we teach focus on the ability to reason, to analyse, to take critical positions and to research. 

Your studies with us will be an intensive high-level training in ways of thinking about and producing knowledge – whatever your area of study – fitting you with the skills for a wide range of careers.

We have fantastic students, internationally renowned faculty who publish important critical research and make exciting and brilliant media, dedicated professional service staff and excellent technical support teams. We provide access to photographic, video, digital and electronic music studios, together with a wide range of portable equipment, specialist music and drama facilities, media and music labs, a newsroom, post-production facilities and our specialist resource areas, to support your learning.

We hope that you will enjoy the opportunities we offer and work with us in ensuring the School’s, and your, future success – and in pursuing ongoing practices of freedom and inclusion to think, make and create our social worlds.