Welcome to the School of Arts & Humanities
We are one of the UK's most prestigious arts and humanities faculties based in the heart of London with close links with renowned cultural institutions including the British Museum, Shakespeare's Globe and the National Portrait Gallery.
We are the most diverse school in terms of subject range in the University of London and are therefore able to offer undergraduate degrees, postgraduate masters and research opportunities in all aspects of human culture and history, from ancient languages and history to contemporary film studies.
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The School is consistently ranked amongst the world's top 40 facilities, moving from 6th to 4th place in the UK (QS World Rankings)
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Staff in 13 of our departments are in the top six nationally for research judged as world-leading and internationally excellent (RAE, 2008)
Interdisciplinarity is central to what we do, whether through holding high-profile public events which cross many disciplines, joint teaching with other departments in the College or combining research expertise to focus our work on new areas.
Our history
The School of Arts & Humanities was formed in 1989 following the amalgamation of the former faculties of Arts, Music, and Theology. Since then, we have built upon our strong traditional roots with distinctive subjects in decline elsewhere such as Hellenic Studies, Portuguese Studies and Medieval Studies. We now have one of the largest cohorts of research students in the arts and humanities in the UK.
True to our spirit of innovation, we were one of the UK's first faculties to offer a BA in the Liberal Arts in 2012.
The School is now made up of academic departments, programmes and research centres in the following disciplines:
Australian Studies Byzantine & Hellenic Studies Classics (including Classical Art and Archaeology)
Comparative Literature Culture, Media & Creative Industries Digital Culture Digital Humanities English Language & Literature European and International Studies Film Studies French German History Linguistics Medical Humanities Medieval Studies Middle East & Mediterranean Studies Music Palaeography Philosophy Spanish, Portuguese & Latin American Studies Theology & Religious Studies
The School also includes the Modern Language Centre which provides language courses to King's undergraduate and graduate students, and to the local professional and residential community.
The Head of School is Professor Simon Gaunt, who took over from Professor Jan Palmowski in 2013.
Our vision
In addition to building upon our successes in research and teaching, we want to develop our partnerships with other world-class universities internationally and our engagement with the arts sector. We already enjoy close relationships with the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill), with whose staff we co-supervise PhD students and offer joint degrees with Georgetown, the Humboldt University and Stuttgart University.
We also want to cultivate partnerships with the arts sector in London and expand our collaborations with our existing cultural partners. We will work closely with King's Cultural Partners to forge these relationships so that we can maximise the social, cultural and economic impact of our research.
The School by numbers
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4,000 students (2012-13). Students in the School make up about 16 per cent of the student population of King's. 720 students (over 18 per cent) come from outside the EU
- 2,500 students on undergraduate programmes
- 870 (full-time equivalent) students on taught Master's programmes
- 550 (full-time equivalent) research students