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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

What legal issues are involved with widening the EU? How is EU law supreme? What damages are there for non-implementation of a directive? Study EU constitutional and substantive law. Understand the role of EU institutions and build knowledge of EU law for gender equality, free movement of workers and competition.

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.

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.

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.