Humanities workshops

Perfect for introducing students to the world of hospitality and events, this taster session provides a snapshot of the financial side of the sector. 

Hotels and events are businesses like any other, and make large profits, often for small independent owners. Throughout the session, students will be shown how to improve a business, raise its results and enjoy the extra profits.

An excellent introduction for groups of students interested in managing and owning a hotel, restaurant or event venue.

The aim of this session is to give students insights into the amazing and diverse jobs and career options available in the Hospitality Industry as well as getting them to recognise that the industry has both a moral and commercial responsibility to consider and respond to the environmental and sustainability issues which affect all modern businesses.

Based on real work experiences, this multiple choice scenario activity challenges students to think like senior management and ensure their business is considerate of the environment, customer needs and budget requirements. 

Book a member of our team to deliver this session for your students, or we can provide the necessary resources for you to deliver the session, including a facilitator pack. 

Dive into the world of Events Management with this taster session, as students organise an album launch for a global rock band.

While developing their planning skills, students will look at the details and considerations necessary to organise a large-scale, big-budget, high-profile event. 

From taking the client brief to finding venues in a foreign country, to organising the launch event, press interviews and a celebrity post-launch party, this session will help students to explore whether they have the skills necessary for a fast-paced, multi-skilled role within Events Management. 

Essex Law School and Human Rights Centre are world-renowned for our human rights expertise. Come and explore some of the emerging trends and important developments in the contemporary human rights field.

Are law and lawyers still relevant in the digital age? How can we harness the law to tackle the risks posed by new technologies, while ensuring the use of technological developments to improve our lives? Why not find out by arranging a session with leading experts from Essex Law School and Human Rights Centre working on Artificial Intelligence and the relationship between law and technology.

Curious about how the law works in real life? Our experts in clinical legal and human rights education can introduce you to their cutting-edge work, ranging from the provision of practical legal advice to the use of technology to gather evidence of human rights violations

This workshop will look closely at Act 3, Scene 4 of Macbeth, when Banquo’s ghost disrupts the Macbeths’ banquet. We will consider various stage and screen adaptations of this scene, analysing how directors and actors have emphasised either Macbeth’s interiority and psychology, or the horrific spectacle of the scene through their representations of the ghost. Students will also be invited to undertake a creative activity in which they devise their own approach to this scene. 

This is a lecture on the role of film festivals in the industry as well as on the processes involved in organising a film festival. The lecture uses as case study the festival organised and delivered by students from the University of Essex in the academic year, 2022-23. This lecture will allow students to develop an understanding of the importance of film festivals within the film industry and learn about key roles and processes involved in the production of a film festival. 

Interactive workshop (2-3 hours) for 15-20 students

Every film starts with the conception of an idea. Filmmakers often seek for extravagant stories and characters that have nothing to do with their own lives and experiences, having the expectation that those will be interesting to audiences. However, those are difficult to relate to and understand, therefore failing to have significant impact to viewers. Instead, filmmakers searching for creative ideas may look closer to and observe their everyday life where they can identify details – often unnoticed – that can spark engaging fictional and non-fictional stories. Such approach to filmmaking, allows audiences and filmmakers to reflect on all aspects of their lives, realise the impact of small decisions in someone’s life, and increase their empathy to others. This interactive filmmaking session will illustrate the fundamentals of this approach as well as of the filmmaking process in general.

During the session students will be given a brief to produce a film in groups using their smartphones. They will be asked to choose an object they carry everyday with them at school (e.g. pencil, eraser, cup, bag, book etc) and develop a story/film about that object. Each group will be given a specific genre/mood to work on (e.g. comedy, action, drama, etc.) All students will have to work within certain restrictions and limitations – e.g. no dialogue, 1 minute running time.

This interactive session will allow students to understand the main stages of film production; learn about basic concepts and techniques in scriptwriting, cinematography, production design, editing; and recognise the importance of observation of daily life in filmmaking.

Content Structure Breakdown: Main stages of film production; The conception of an idea; Students are given the brief to start working on their films. In between the different stages of the development of their films, there is discussion on filmmaking techniques (e.g. cinematography, production design, editing, etc) and how those support the expression of story and themes.

This session aims to increase students’ awareness of racial segregation and its historic significance.

We will highlight an important case study of Apartheid in South Africa from 1948-1994 and encourage students to recognise the importance of activism and struggle for human rights during the second part of the 20th century.

We will also discuss how the study of history can be thematic, as well as chronological, and will identify the relevant entry requirements for studying history at the University of Essex.

This taster session offers an ideal introduction to the place of 'Britishness' in historical study, as well as a wider introduction to studying history at an undergraduate level.

Students will explore the theoretical approach to history known as 'identity', applying this to a context of British decolonisation between 1945 and 1970. They will encounter the idea that decolonisation affected people's sense of 'Britishness' and thus encouraged change in the social and political world. Trump, Brexit and the rise of nationalism have all captured an identity with the past.

This session is also designed to teach students about history at a university level, showing students how professional historians construct and use history.

The years between 1890 and 1920 saw huge changes in the United States. Social reform altered the face of the country, with impacts lasting to this very day.

This taster session introduces students to the key events which shaped that social reform, including changes to labour and education across the country.

Students will identify links between these reforms and the rights-based movements in the ensuing decades, discussing the contributions that grassroots campaigners have made throughout this period of history.

Triage is the process for allocating scarce life-saving medical resources in circumstances where demand swamps supply. What ethical principles should we use in navigating triage situations, and what can we learn from the history of triage? Should the success of a triage programme be measured strictly in terms of its success in saving as many lives as possible, or are there constraints on the means adopted in pursuing that end?

The session will look at the way triage was approached in the NHS during the early days of the COVID pandemic, but we will also take a longer view, considering the different approaches to triage that were taken by the 19th British Navy and by Napoleon's army. 

In the Book of Genesis, Adam is offered the forbidden fruit by Eve and he decides to eat it. God punishes both Adam and Eve and all subsequent generations of human beings. The session will use the paintings of Adam and Eve by Lucas Cranach the Elder in order to think through the philosophical, theological and ethical issues. What would you do if you were Adam or Eve? Would you eat the apple? Why or why not? What if you were appointed God to serve as Adam's defence attorney at a trial? How would you defend Adam or Eve in a criminal proceeding? And what does all this tell us about the God of Genesis, about the nature of authority - or about ourselves?

According to the Greek myth, Sisyphus was eternally condemned to push a rock to the top of a mountain - only to have it fall back down. Sisyphus' crimes involved betraying the gods, clinging to life, and cheating death. In the 20th Century, Albert Camus argued that we should see Sisyphus as a sort of role-model, and 'absurd hero'. What did he mean? And how are we to assess his account of the continuing significance of this ancient myth? 

This talk will introduce the myth of Sisyphus and the question of its philosophical significance.

Why do humans desire to be admired by others? How is this desire for recognition implicated in the rise of vices and evils that disfigure modern societies? In this taster session we look at the fascinating answers to these questions that Jean-Jacques Rousseau outlines in his "Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Human Beings" (1755) - a book that is rightly considered to be one of the first and foremost examples of modern social criticism.

The ethics of enhancement deals with ethical questions associated with out ever increasing capacity to biotechnologically improve human functioning: be it physical, mental, or emotional. In this session we want to explore the question, what, if anything, is morally problematic, about enhancing future persons or oneself. 

At least since Aristotle, logic has been built on a principle known as The Law of Non-Contradiction. According to that so-called Law, a proposition (such as 'God exists' or '2+2=4') is either true or not true. It cannot be both. But is the Law of Non-Contradiction really a law at all? The thesis that there are some true contradictions is known in philosophy as dialethism and has in recent years been vigorously defended. But what would it be like to recognise true contradictions, and how would our practices of reasoning and debate have to adapt?