From sculptures of ancient Roman politicians to virtuoso feats of Baroque illusionism, we will focus on `why` and `how` art and society interrelate. This module examines the relationship between visual culture and social life through case studies spanning more than two millennia of history. It focuses on a select number of major developments in a range of media and cultures, emphasising the ways that works of art function both as aesthetic and material objects and as cultural artefacts and forces.

This module offers an introduction to the history of museums and galleries. We will consider the basic human instinct to collect and the creation of the first museums. We will examine ideas about taxonomy, ordering the world and the first museum spaces of display, asking questions about privilege and power. How have museums and galleries shaped history and science? What ethical issues are there today around these spaces? Should tobacco, oil and arms companies sponsor museums? Can museums be tools of ‘urban regeneration’? Do online archives and 3D scanning make museums themselves obsolete institutions?

This module tackles some of the biggest questions surrounding the history of art. You will explore some key theoretical issues in the history of art, such as the nature of representation, by engaging critically with seminal texts and artworks. In this module, you will develop your analytical and interpretive skills, and leave with a solid foundation for the study of the history of art.

Realism and Impressionism. Meet the rule-breakers. What is it that motivates an artist to break the mould? Focussing on Realism and Impressionism in France, this module identifies not only how the political, social and economic changes during the nineteenth century affected art and creative thinking, but how these vibrant and multi-faceted artists, who refused to follow the crowd, influenced their world. Through analysis of primary and secondary sources, you’ll explore their historical reputation and their relevance today.

This module provides an introductory overview to the field of heritage and museum studies and explores some of the conceptual, political and ethical issues faced by those working within and researching in the area of heritage and museums. The module defines heritage, discusses how heritage is officially recognised, and presents the instruments that are used to interpret, protect, and communicate heritage, at local, national, and international levels. It also introduces the main aspects of museum studies, explains how the definitions of museums has changed through time and how this definition affects how we preserve and present heritage today. This module will introduce you to the history of heritage and museum management and will lay the foundation of some of the conceptual, political and ethical issues of the heritage and the museum field. It defines heritage as a process in which people makes sense of the past, in the present and for the future and how the aims of heritage and museum management changes according to the heritage process and its contexts.

This module introduces financial accounting and basic principles and techniques needed to analyse and interpret financial statements. Although the module is intended as an introduction for students majoring in accounting it will also benefit students who wish to gain some insight into the practices of accounting. You’ll look at the nature and role of accounting and consider who uses accounting information and for what purposes. You’ll discuss the contents of annual reports, especially the narrative sections, and the qualitative characteristics of accounting information. Finally, the module will be concerned with key elements and the format of financial statements. You’ll earn to prepare company financial statements using trial balance and cover the techniques that can be used to analyse and interpret financial statements.

Introduction to Management is a broad-ranging module intended to provide a foundation in the most significant issues in management theory and practice, as well as to prepare you for related modules in subsequent years of your degree course. Because theoretical explanations – i.e., academic interpretations of what managers do and even of what they say they do – and what managers actually do in real organisations on a day-to-day basis may differ, we will also draw out some of the connections and dis-junctures between management theory and management practice. Our teaching also emphasises the ethics of managing and how to balance the bottom line of the business with the organisation's wider responsibilities to society and other stakeholders.

A key module across all our Business, Management, and Marketing courses Introduction to Marketing sets out the fundamental principles of marketing and covers the core elements of marketing management. The module explores marketing planning; the segmentation, targeting and positioning (STP) process; and the extended marketing mix (product, price, promotion, place, people, process, and physical environment). The module aims to help students develop marketing knowledge and skills that are important for future modules as well as the workplace.

Ours is a world that seems to be shaking at its very foundations. Ideas that have shaped the way we see ourselves and the world around us – ideas like democracy, free speech, citizenship, political authority, individualism, free markets, and human rights – are contested at every turn. These ideas took their definitive modern form during a period of political and intellectual upheaval known as the Enlightenment (ca. 1650-1800). If we want to navigate our way through the chaos of today, then we need to return to the roots of our contemporary world – the Enlightenment. This interdisciplinary module explores this revolutionary period so that we can better understand our world today and bring about the world we want tomorrow. We will focus on political revolutions, on societal inequality, sickness, and control, and the dark side of technology. Graduating students often rank it among the most useful modules they've taken.

Ours is a world that seems to be shaking at its very foundations. Ideas that have shaped the way we see ourselves and the world around us – ideas like democracy, free speech, citizenship, political authority, individualism, free markets, and human rights – are contested at every turn. These ideas took their definitive modern form during a period of political and intellectual upheaval known as the Enlightenment (ca. 1650-1800). If we want to navigate our way through the chaos of today, then we need to return to the roots of our contemporary world – the Enlightenment. This interdisciplinary module explores this revolutionary period so that we can better understand our world today and bring about the world we want tomorrow. We will focus on political revolutions; on societal inequality, sickness, and control; and the dark side of technology.

How do consumers make decisions? Or firms conduct different market strategies? What impact does government policy have on inflation? Or unemployment? Develop your knowledge of economics in relation to a range of contemporary issues. Learn how to apply both micro and macroeconomic principles to the analysis of such problems.

What are the main sources of economic data? And how is data used in economics? Study the methods of quantitative economics, looking at how economic data is described and analysed. Learn to read, understand and manipulate data from both a theoretical and empirical perspective.

What mathematical techniques are required for a modern economics degree? Do you have the mathematical tools to attack economic problems? If you are worried that your mathematical background could hold you back, then learn the mathematical skills needed when studying problems of economic interest.

How do economists interpret data? How can we test relationships suggested by economic theory? How do we use economic theories to analyse real world issues? This module helps you to understand simple and commonly used statistical and econometric techniques, and important software for applied economics. You learn how data can be used to analyse real world economic problems.

Why did industrialisation first occur in Europe, not China or India? How did economic growth lead to the Industrial Revolution? What impact did two world wars have on the global economy? Explore the process of economic change and development from the sixteenth-century to the present day.

What is “Politics”? How have people conceived of political analysis, the state, laws, wars and political parties, across cultures and over time? Gain an understanding of essential concepts in the study of politics and explore the economic, social and intellectual trends that have made democracy possible.

This module offers a formative background in the study of international politics. The course seeks to provide the essential tools and theoretical concepts used to analyze international politics so that a better understanding of specific historical events or contemporary issues is given. Students will apply the key concepts learned in the module to explain significant events and changes in world politics. This includes assessing important features of international politics in the post-Cold War era, including the global spread of democracy and the rise of new security issues. Throughout the module, students practice applying theoretical concepts to real world events and developing their critical thinking skills.

What constitutes a good piece of research? You consider the basics of scientific work and procedures in the social sciences in order to understand the philosophy and theory of social scientific investigations, and to improve your research throughout your degree.

Why do states sometimes go to war? What conditions can promote peace and international stability? When are states able to form cooperative agreements to promote trade, combat terrorism, or address climate change? Explore issues in international relations which help address complicated questions concerning cooperation and conflict between countries. 

What is a public good? Why do people pollute? What is collective action, and what forms does it take? This module provides students with theoretical and empirical insights to understand and analyse problems of collective action – i.e. situations in which members of communities need to coordinate shared interests. The module introduces the analytical concepts of collective action and presents applied local and global cases. The course also covers some of the most important questions about the aims and tools of economic policy.

What rules affect political action? You explore how institutions and the rules they enforce, for example voting under a specific electoral system, affect political and economic outcomes, and whether these are ultimately only second-best solutions to collective action.

This is a module in political theory. We read critics of ‘Western’ and liberal political thought, including readings from class, race, gender, and disability theory. Central to Western political theory is the social contract tradition, which suggests that the exercise of political power is justified by the popular consent of the people. The readings this term argue that the contract is not consented to by everybody (‘we the people’) but between just the people who count, and so hides the ugly realities of oppression and domination. We will discuss how purportedly universal ideas of reason, freedom, and equality, excluded many people. GV151, which teaches the development of western political thought, is recommended as a prerequisite.

Study some fundamental texts in the “Western” philosophical tradition. We examine the assumptions underlying these texts, as well as the implications they have for us today. We explore profound themes of truth, justice, equality, freedom, democracy, liberalism, republicanism, and morality.

How does disease and disaster affect society and the state? How can states and societies can respond and be resilient? In this module, you’ll look at the economic, social, psychological and political implications and responses to disease and disaster from an inter-disciplinary perspective and examine how states build capacity and the importance of state -societal, and interpersonal trust.

Why do we grow up knowing some histories, and not others? The histories taught in schools and discussed in the public realm often tell us about the past experiences of dominant groups – and the fact that these histories are so prominent also tells us that those groups still hold power. Approaching the past from the perspective of those ‘hidden from history’, this module uncovers ideas and experiences often overlooked in traditional accounts of modern Britain. Hidden Histories begins in the revolutionary years of the mid-seventeenth century to examine how radicals questioned dominant ideas about democratic rights and property ownership. It traces the influence of these radicals through to Chartism and Owenism, movements forged in the crucible of industrial capitalism in the nineteenth century. These revolutionaries and radical movements highlighted power imbalances between men and women, in the family and the private sphere as well as in the public. As Britain reached the height of its imperial power, hierarchies of “race”, class, and gender increasingly structured elite discourse. In exploring how the working class, women, and migrants created their own vibrant cultures, the module emphasises histories of protest, resistance, and liberation – and shows that these hidden histories are essential to understanding modern Britain.

Democracy cannot be taken for granted. There was a long road to modern democracy and universal suffrage. Evolution of existing systems, revolutions, and wars created what is generally called Western Democracy. This module will explore the development of democracy in Europe and the United States over the last 200 years. It will examine how democratic states were established, challenged and reborn from the late eighteenth century to the late twentieth century. Europe experienced dictatorships, two World Wars and the fall of the Iron curtain in this time period, but it also saw the expansion of citizenship and civil liberties, the establishment of parliamentary democracies on a global scale and the emergence of the welfare states with greater social provisions for its populations. In the year that followed its creation, the United States rapidly expanded its franchise, but it also continued to exclude many people from the democratic process well into the twentieth century. The module will also investigate the crisis of the welfare state, the rise of Neo-Liberalism, and the rise of populism--all challenges to democratic systems in the past and today.

The early modern period (c.1450-c.1750) saw a profound increase in the number and type of interactions which European peoples had with the other peoples of the globe, resulting in a significant change in transnational movements of people, ideas, diseases, and things. These processes of interaction constituted a decisive turning-point in global and European history and continue to shape the world we live in today. This module focuses on some of the most important of these interactions, exploring when, why and how they happened, and with what consequences (cultural, environmental, material, political, and economic) for the people and places involved.

The seismic upheaval of two world wars shaped twentieth-century society, culture, and politics across much of the globe. While the world wars raged, states directed the resources of all their citizens towards achieving victory, meaning that a range of actors beyond combatants were directly touched by conflict. In turn, those affected by war sought new relationships with nation-state, empire, and each other as they tried to come to terms with its legacies. The world wars therefore also inspired new visions of political and social life, generated subsequent conflicts and battles for independence, and caused the redrawing of borders in Europe and beyond. This module explores experiences, representations, and legacies of the two world wars and the cold war in multiple contexts. Lectures examine themes such as citizenship, trauma, and memory across these conflicts, while seminars focus on specific case studies from across the globe. Our aim is to understand not only how these wars affected different groups and individuals, but to trace the legacies of these conflicts in multiple arenas, and shed new light on how they continue to affect the world today. In emphasising society and culture, and the relationship between the local and the global, War and the Twentieth-Century World challenges conventional views of twentieth-century warfare and introduces students to diverse voices and perspectives.

The past is never dead. It’s not even past’. In a world of conspiracy theories, toppling statues, and ‘culture wars’, the novelist William Faulkner’s most famous line resonates more than ever. Across the globe, History is co-opted to multiple causes and used to justify contradictory positions. Such uses of History often rely on myths, stereotypes, and misunderstandings. How can we separate political belief, personal opinion, and false information about the past from historical knowledge and understanding? Rebellious Pasts looks at the creation, consolidation, and operation of historical myths and stereotypes – and at how we, as historians, can use the tools of our trade to identify and challenge misleading representations of the past, replacing them with richer forms of understanding. The module helps you to develop the critical mindset needed to analyse historical arguments wherever you find them, but also the constructive skills essential to researching and writing your own histories. It combines lectures and seminars exploring how history “works” in different contexts with archive visits and library workshops that expose you to the raw materials of History. On Rebellious Pasts, you will undertake self-directed research drawing upon digitized collections, archives, and heritage sector institutions, and translate your findings into accessible public history artefacts. At its heart, History is the refusal to accept easy assumptions and the insistence on negotiating with evidence, no matter how tricky that is. By the end of the module, you will understand why History is a rebellious discipline – and how to harness its unruly powers.

Revolutions are cornerstones of history. Radical political change often required the violent overthrow of existing systems of politics and government. This modules studies major revolutions to ask: What counts as a revolution? Who makes revolutions happen? Why do revolutions succeed or fail? How has the world been changed by revolutions? We will study key revolutions from across global history, from the American and French revolutions of the late eighteenth century, to the revolutions in Haiti, Japan, and China, and finishing with the Russian Revolution and the failed German revolution of 1918. The module will allow students to study some of the biggest turning points in world history, and to understand how and why the world changed at these moments.

What are human rights? How do we protect them? And what challenges do we face when promoting human rights on an international level? Discover the fundamental principles and practices, including topics related to international law and ethics, which underpin the protection and promotion of our human rights.

This module introduces you to the production of language sounds and their distribution in words, in particular, but not exclusively, in English. You will study the basic principles of phonology and develop the knowledge required to understand and begin to analyse sound systems. You will also discuss phonological processes and investigate the context and motivation of occurrence.

Discover how to describe and analyse the structure of words, phrases, and sentences in this introductory half module. With topics including the English parts of speech, word structure and the distinction between inflection, derivation and compounding, and the identification of phrases, you will gain a solid grasp of the foundational material for the study of English linguistics, whilst developing useful analytical skills.

Discover the role of variation in language systems, and learn the techniques and concepts needed to study the way language varies. You will look at geographical, social and historical dialects, explore language myths, and cover topics such as measuring language variation, social patterns and functions of language variation, speaker variables, and the relationship of language variation to language change. At the end of this module, you will have gained a clear understanding of the role variation plays in language systems, and will be able to look critically at the social functions and values of dialects and vernacular language usage.

Gain a thorough overview of key concepts, methods, and theoretical approaches in research on language development throughout the lifespan. Investigate monolingual and bilingual child language acquisition, second language acquisition, language loss, and the attrition of the first language in second language learners, by looking at a broad range of studies, including ongoing studies from the Centre for Language Development throughout the Lifespan (LaDeLi), at the University of Essex.

This module provides you with a practical hands-on introduction to the way in which linguistics is used to solve real world problems. It illustrates how knowledge about how language works – that is, linguistics – is applied in a range of different aspects of our daily lives. It provides an introduction to the use of linguistics in a range of contexts, industries and everyday scenarios.

What is contemporary writing? And how is it characterised? Don’t just study known “traditional” genres of literature, what about the emerging new genres of writing that are challenging readers? Analyse contemporary English writing, published within the last ten years, looking at themes, forms, issues and language.

How do we analyse moving images? What innovations have transformed the cinema experience? What moments and movements have been key to film history? Study the development of international cinema, looking at all aspects of the form, including analysis of theoretical issues, film language, and a variety of important directors and genres.

Some of the most emotional and powerful literature of the 20th century was written by combatants and non-combatants during the First World War. Looking at writings in English and translation, as well as subsequent literary representations of the conflict, we will examine the unseen side of conflict. In this module you will investigate the lost voices of war, the writings of women and civilians as well as soldiers; you will explore the formation of poetic canons of the First World War; and you will critically analyse images of homecoming, shellshock and memories of war in drama, poetry and narrative. This module includes material on such topics as war, trauma, and bereavement.

Screen adaptations of Shakespeare form a significant part of our cultural experience of his plays. Global Shakespeare on Film takes a comparative approach and unites our departmental disciplines of literature, film, drama and creative writing to examine how interpretations of Shakespeare have developed across time and cultural boundaries. We will study several adaptations of Shakespeare's plays from around the world, focusing on films in languages other than English. Through a close study of the relationship between the plays and the films, we will investigate not only what Shakespeare offers to filmmakers, but how these directors, actors, writers, and designers enhance and evolve our understanding of Shakespeare.

What is US literature? What makes it different from other writing in the English language, particularly work from the UK? Study classic texts that have established US literature as a distinct tradition in itself and gain an understanding of the issues surrounding this.

This module is an introduction to some of the most influential European writers from the Enlightenment period up to the present day. You study significant works of literature that sparked particular movements or represent crucial literary innovation. The works selected are novels, novellas, short stories and plays, and we examine these texts within their historical and political contexts. This module will help you to build understanding of the development of genres, forms, styles, content and ideas.

How do you read a text closely? What is involved in close reading? With emphasis on you to active do the close reading, learn how this approach can contribute to your appreciation of meaning and significance in a diverse range of texts.

How do you get started as a writer? How do you practise your writing? And how can you make improvements? Using exercises and texts, focus on your basic skills and essay writing. Cover topics like characterisation, dialogue, point of view, plotting, suspense, and metaphor and imagery.

This interdisciplinary module serves several functions. Firstly, you will develop an understanding of your degree in the context of the wider world and specifically the graduate jobs market. You will come to understand the employability and career-development opportunities that are available to you during and after your time at Essex, and you will begin the life-long process of continuous professional development with a firm grounding in the practical skills and reflective practice involved. The module is divided into two parts: career-development learning; and Speaker Weeks, when a member of staff will interview guest speakers about their careers in fields that are allied to the arts and humanities. These will cover a range of career areas that may be of interest to humanities graduates in general: from media, arts, journalism, education, publishing, to entrepreneurship in related areas. These weeks are intended to be inspiring but also full of practical tips and ideas, with an emphasis on showing how careers develop over time, and what pathways students can explore to get to where they want to be; as well as what kinds of extra-curricular activities students can engage in now to open more doors professionally before and after graduation. In the career-development learning part of the module, you will cover topics such as the Graduate Labour market, the Humanities graduate, self-reflection and personal development, and how to research and apply effectively for jobs. Skills such as CV writing and interview technique will be covered. Two-hour interactive lecture/seminars will introduce students to careers resources and ideas, but will also include discussion and group work.

In this module you will learn the fundamentals of probability and statistics, including axioms and combinatorial analysis, distributions, and independence conditions. You will learn how to apply the addition rule of probability and construct diagrams to visually represent data sets. The course also covers the use of descriptive statistics to analyse data and provides hands-on experience with the R software package.

Matrices and complex numbers are two fundamental concepts which arise throughout mathematics. In this module you will be introduced to these objects and learn fundamental techniques for working with them in a variety of contexts.

Want to develop your mathematical skills by solving a variety of problems? Keen to write elegant and fluent mathematical arguments? In this module you will encounter a range of problem-solving techniques for situations across mathematics, including calculus, algebra, combinatorics, geometry and mechanics.

How can we use psychoanalytic theory to understand film, literature and television? What is culture and can it contribute to our understanding of psychoanalysis itself? Examine work by Freud and Jung, as well as more contemporary perspectives, through the lens popular culture.

In this module you will explore childhood from a local and a global perspective. You will discover a broad range of topics related to children and childhood, including psychology, sociology, history, media, law and education.

What do you know about depth psychology? How do psychoanalysis and analytical psychology provide new understanding of society, culture and politics? Build your knowledge about depth psychology - psychological thinking that introduces the concept of a deep unconscious. Understand Freud’s theories and their significance in social and cultural analysis.

What do you know about depth psychology? How do psychoanalysis and analytical psychology provide new understanding of society, culture and politics? Build your knowledge about depth psychology - psychological thinking that introduces the concept of a deep unconscious. Understand Jung’s theories and their significance in social and cultural analysis.

Discover how the discipline of psychology informs and shapes five psychological professions: clinical psychology; educational psychology; forensic psychology; occupational psychology; and sports and exercise psychology. In a mixture of lectures and classes, you will evaluate how psychological theories and knowledge gained from research are used in each of these aspects of human behaviour, and how they can be used to solve some of the problems encountered in different areas of life.

We all know that it’s good to know things. Knowledge, as the saying goes, is power, because without it we cannot hope to accomplish our most important goals. But what about the concept of knowledge itself? What good does it do? What practical work does it accomplish for us? Are there epistemic virtues, ie traits that reliably lead us to knowledge? Can we flourish without such virtues? And are those virtues sufficient to ensure that we possess reliable knowledge? Or is it possible for our social and political world to be so divorced from that truth that our individual traits cannot help us? What would the ideal knowledge community look like? What makes knowledge communities dysfunctional? This module will explore these questions and more. By the end of it, you will better understand how individual, social, and political factors interact in the human pursuit of knowledge.

Begin your study of philosophy by exploring questions about selfhood and identity. What role does self-responsibility play in effective knowing? What is it to be a self? How does that differ from having an identity or identities? To what extent are our identities determined by others? Are they up to us? How can the study of philosophy help us with these questions?

Ask life’s big questions: What, if anything, is the meaning of our lives? How can we become wise? Can we make sense of human suffering? How should we think about our own deaths? You take up these questions, first, by examining a series of ancient narratives, including The Myth of Sisyphus and Eden and the Fall; and then through the study of key works of modern thinkers including Nietzsche, Freud, Sartre, and Marx.

Sharpen your philosophical skills through learning how to construct and deconstruct arguments. Learn how to identify arguments in philosophical texts, how to assess arguments for logical validity and soundness, and how to formulate your own arguments.

Sharpen your philosophical skills through learning how to construct and deconstruct arguments. Learn how to identify arguments in philosophical texts, how to assess arguments for logical validity and soundness, and how to formulate your own arguments.

City space matters to criminology: it is the physical and symbolic locus where crime and disorder take place, where social conflicts manifest and aggravate, where social control and resistance to it are exercised, and where broader harms and suffering are produced. This module examines local responses to the governance of crime, seeking to understand conceptions of urban ‘disorder’ by attending closely to how communities experience rapidly changing and expanding city environments. The course contrasts public experiences of crime and crime control in the context of highly securitised, enclaved, and surveilled urban spaces in London, Karachi, Maputo and other unequal global cities. Drawing on theories and methodologies from criminology, sociology, and urban studies, the course asks you to consider the possible futures of public and private urban landscapes in the context of rapid urban development.

What are different forms of crime? What is the role of criminal justice? And how effective are penal sanctions? We provide a critical introduction to the problem of, and responses to, crime. You examine the history of criminological ideas, Britain’s criminal justice system, and current debates on crime and control.

Does the media make people violent? Objectify women? Tell you what to do? Study the modern media as a social terrain, order of communication and domain of ideas, using examples from cinema, photography, newspapers and TV. Examine popular debates and consider practical methodologies for undertaking media research in the future.

How can sociology help you understand the world in which you live? What are some of the major features and trends in present-day societies? Using sociological tools, you analyse key features of different societies, such as stratification, poverty, racism, consumption, multinational corporations, religion, and the gender division of labour in low-income countries.

Who were the key sociologists studying the United States? And how have issues like democracy, inequality, gender roles, poverty, gangs and guns become sources of enchantment and disenchantment in the US? Studying one sociologist per week, we explore important and exciting interpretations of American society.