Master of Arts in Events and Experience Management

at Goldsmiths, University of London United Kingdom

The MA Luxury Brand Management equips you with the management, entrepreneurial, marketing and professional skills to work in the luxury goods and experiential luxury industry.

The luxury brands sector encompasses the fashion and retail industry, as well as sectors such as tourism, hospitality, food and beverage, film, digital media, dance, music and theatre. This MA debates the concept of luxury in a historical and cross-cultural context, and offers a strong academic underpinning on theories of luxury and consumption.

You will explore the role of luxury in conserving traditional arts, especially with regard to Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas.

The programme combines formal teaching with dissertation research, underpinned with visits to key luxury brand enterprises in London and elsewhere, and draws on Goldsmiths’ alumni for inspirational talks. This programme offers practice-based assignments and voluntary intern opportunities in various cultural organisations and luxury corporations that have established links with Goldsmiths.

If this degree were a film we’d be watching the beginning and the end. We think, like Walter Benjamin, that it’s in these moments – in their inception and their obsolescence  – that you see the utopian possibilities of a form or social movement.

Are we in the midst of a beginning? What can we learn now from visual culture’s past? What’s happening to our bodies when we play a video game? What are the gestures involved in everyday life? How do our bodies relate to technology?

These are the kinds of topics we analyse on this MA. We want to go beyond the borders of a traditional film studies degree so we go back to the beginning of film history to explore what it meant to fashion yourself in an image, or for a society to see itself in an image. Then we explore how images gain meaning now, and where they’re going next.

This MA is designed for students interested in new ways of exploring and understanding the social world through the use of visual, sensory, and other experimental approaches. You’ll study sociological issues alongside innovative methods and gain the tools needed to examine, represent and intervene in the social world.

Why study MA Sociology (Visual Sociology) at Goldsmiths?

• You’ll join students from a wide variety of backgrounds, including art, design, anthropology, media and communications, cultural studies, geography, and sociology.
• You’ll develop the ability to carry out empirical research and present it publicly in a variety of media and materials. You’ll engage with sociology as an inventive research practice, using creative research methods to address classic and changing sociological problems.
• You’ll be introduced to the range of debates in visual research and encouraged to build on these by using visual, sensory and inventive methodological practices to carry out critical social research in your areas of interest, whether this is science and technology, contemporary capitalism, gender and sexual cultures, race, human rights, globalisation, or other aspects of social life.
• Combining lectures and seminars with practical sessions and workshop-based projects, this MA will help you develop a hands-on approach to sociological research. You’ll gain a skills base in methods which could be used in public sector contexts, art or media research, design or commercial application.
• As well as presenting your ideas through writing, you’ll have the opportunity to produce different outputs, including film/video, photography, sound and multimedia pieces. You’ll also have the opportunity to organise and curate some of this work in an exhibition.

This MA draws on urban sociology to explore the meaning of cities, urban life and culture.

The programme covers topics including the politics of gentrification, urban community, infrastructure and the intricacies of urban culture, alongside lectures on urban policy, food politics, poverty and migration.
You will also zoom out to consider the broader meaning of urban sociology and its ongoing contribution to social science. With over two-thirds of the global population destined to live in cities by 2050, there has never been a more important time to research and understand urban life.

Why study MA Sociology (Urban Studies) at Goldsmiths?
Critically engage with urban work

• The degree brings together social analysis, activism, and inventive research methods to critically engage with various dimensions of urban work – from policy-making, research and cultural interventions, to the management of social programmes and institutions.

Take a multi-disciplinary approach

• The MA is distinguished by a focus on experimental empirical research and covers the following disciplines: sociology, geography, anthropology, architecture, cultural studies, history, fine arts, media and communications.

Experience research-led teaching

• We use research-led teaching to explore the importance of sociological knowledge in understanding cities, urban economies, culture, politics and social justice.

Analyse and explore spaces and places

• You’ll analyse the organisation of contemporary cities, including the built environment, commerce, housing, culture, political and social infrastructures. You'll also explore how distributions of wealth, power and culture in spaces and places are constituted through political, material and social processes.

This unique programme introduces you to the variety of ways in which brands are developed and used, and helps you to understand how the growth of branding – in business, but also in politics, government, sport and culture – has changed the societies we live in.

Why study MA Brands, Communication and Culture at Goldsmiths?

• This MA is not a conventional branding or marketing degree – it offers a unique, theory-based approach to the study of brands, reflected in topics taught on our compulsory modules such as gender, colonial history and branding, social media and open source cultures, and geodemographics and new forms of social classification.
• You’ll gain a comprehensive understanding of the history and development of brands and branding, and their relationship to contemporary forms of communication and culture. You'll also ask what happens when the state uses branding techniques to communicate with its citizens.
• You’ll also gain in-depth knowledge of the social, political and economic backdrop against which branding has become so important, and an understanding of the key themes and debates surrounding its development and use, including the relationship between brands and intellectual property, and the extent to which branding promotes or inhibits openness and transparency within organisations.
• You’ll improve your ability to think critically and creatively about contemporary communications and cultural practices. When you have completed the programme you will be able to analyse contemporary communications, make judgments about their significance, and be able to thoughtfully contribute to contemporary communications.

These practical skills will equip you to lead and deliver the twin ambitions of transformation and sustainability driving the global economy. Our programme focuses on the means of generating economic impact through gains in revenue, competitiveness, productivity, project management, and profitability alongside the means of generating social impact through inclusivity, diversity, social mobility and equality.

The management of innovation is a critical element in ensuring countries, organisations, and individuals encourage speed to impact decision-making, enhanced digital skills and strategies for future-readiness. The focus has shifted from serving and valuing shareholders to serving and valuing stakeholders – customers, workforces, investors, regulators, anyone else impacted by your product, service, or brand.

Studying with is will allow you to participate in a lively guest lecturing schedule. In past years, senior leadership from the following organisations have come to discuss innovation challenges and opportunities with students on this programme:

• Technologists like Microsoft, Tesla, and Apple
• Consultancies, and think tanks like PwC, Ogilvy, and Accenture
• Media organisations like Monocle, the Financial Times, or The Economist
• Movements like the Bitcoin and Black Lives Matter

The MA Anthropology, Ecology and Global Justice is an exciting interdisciplinary programme that explores the contemporary crises of global inequality, climate change, and ecological breakdown, and equips you with the tools to respond.

Why study MA Anthropology, Ecology and Global Justice at Goldsmiths?

• Identify and grapple with the structural drivers of global inequality, climate change and ecological breakdown.
• Develop your understanding of these crises in historical perspective, with reference to patterns of colonial power and the formation of the capitalist world-system over 500 years.
• Work with insights from dependency theory; anti-colonial movements; degrowth; ecological economics; and post-development thought.
• Engage with classic texts in critical theory and ecological anthropology, with a focus on thinkers from the global South and Indigenous political ontology.
• Learn about concrete policy alternatives for the 21st century, drawing on the Department of Anthropology’s commitment to building a public anthropology.

The MSc Marketing & Technology aims to transform students into uniquely-trained individuals possessing the knowledge and skills required to be successful marketers in dynamic and technology-driven industries.

Companies such as Netflix, Airbnb, and Tesla have one thing in common: they break with the norms of existing markets and employ unconventional, technology-driven marketing approaches. Traditional marketing education all too often neglects the marketing abilities that these companies possess.

The MSc Marketing & Technology departs from the rather passive marketing logic that assumes markets and marketing channels are fixed features of reality. Instead, it shows how managers can proactively shape and create new markets and marketing landscapes.

The goal of this programme is to transform students into uniquely-trained individuals who understand how to leverage emerging technologies, such as 3D printing, Virtual Reality, and the Internet of Things, to design unique customer experiences, disrupt existing markets, and create entirely new ones.

The programme will direct students’ attention to significant and emerging technological trends, and show how they can address important social and environmental problems.

It seeks to enable students to discover new market opportunities that will have a positive impact on the economy, society, and the environment. Students will be equipped with the skills required to effectively navigate today’s technology-dominated marketing environments, and they will learn how to be successful marketers in the digital marketing era.

This programme is the first of its kind at the University of London. It offers a scientific approach to the study of human behaviour, giving a broad understanding of psychological theory and research, and will help develop your understanding of the processes influencing how people think, feel, behave, and interact.

The programme is particularly well suited to those interested in a career change into the field of Psychology, or who have previously studied some psychology (but not sufficient to meet the BPS criteria for GBC) and would like the accreditation to work in the field professionally. It is also suited to applicants from outside the UK who would like to obtain a BPS accredited University of London qualification which will allow them to follow professional training programmes.

This is a pathway of the MA Applied Anthropology & Community and Youth Work, aimed both at international applicants who may not need a British National Youth Agency qualification and those who want to become specialists in community development.
This MA is a second pathway to the MA Applied Anthropology and Community and Youth Work. It was launched in 2012 as an option for international or home students who do not need an National Youth Agency qualification and for those who want to specialise in community development. A third pathway, the MA Applied Anthropology and Community Arts started in 2015.

The three pathways entail different placements but are taught together, providing much opportunity for exchange of ideas and collaboration amongst students.