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CHOOSE A SUBJECT
2022/23
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BA History and Philosophy

  • UCAS code
    VV15
  • Typical offer
    BBB
  • Year of entry
    2023/24
  • Course duration
    Full Time:  3 Years
  • Year of entry
    2023/24
  • Course duration
    Full Time:  3 Years

Analyse beliefs and concepts and consider how past societies worked with our BA History and Philosophy. Studying history and philosophy allows you to question your assumptions and trace the origins of modern societies and cultures.

Discover a thousand years of history whilst experiencing all the specialist areas on offer at the University of Reading. The History Department's expertise covers a wide range of regions, from Europe and Africa to America, South Asia and the Middle East. Module choices cover diverse periods and topics, from the Crusades to Cold War Berlin and from Medieval Magic to the Rwanda Crisis. 

In your first year, your core modules will explore people, politics and revolution, finding out how people struggled for power in past societies; and the culture and concepts those societies developed. We will teach you the skills you need to study and research history through an individual project of your choice.

Studying philosophy will equip you with the ability to think logically, to evaluate arguments critically, and to challenge your own ideas and those of other people. You will be taught by leading experts whose research strengths lie especially in moral philosophy and the philosophy of the mind and language. Your first year will introduce you to the general skills required for all philosophy and you will also have the chance to explore non-western philosophies such as Indian philosophy.

In both subjects, you will be taught in small interactive seminar groups, encouraging discussion and debate with teaching staff and fellow students. We place a great deal of importance on employability skills and offer a range of modules to help students gain relevant work experience as well as explore career options. In 2022, we achieved a 94% satisfaction score for BA History (National Student Survey 2022). In the same survey, we achieved a 95% satisfaction score for BA Philosophy. 

You will be encouraged to undertake work placements and there is the opportunity to study abroad for a term in your second year. The University also offers all students the chance to learn a modern language alongside their core subjects.

Placement

Placements are a prominent feature of our degree courses and highly encouraged. Placements are a good way to show you how you can use the skills acquired through studying history in the real world. In History we ensure that placements are incorporated into your core learning. In the second year, we offer opportunities for short group placements in museums and heritage and media organisations, and encourage students to reflect on what they have learned from previous employment or voluntary work experience. For third years, two optional modules offer placements of 10 working days in local archives and secondary schools.

Through our links with the Careers Centre, you can source potential employers and help with CVs and letters of application. Staff in the department also have close links with the university’s Institute of Education, Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) and Special Collections (archives), and with external organisations such as the Berkshire Record Office.

Study abroad

You also have the option to study abroad for a term in the second year. Some of the universities we have links with include University of Ottawa, Canada; University of Maastricht, Netherlands; University of Georgia, USA; and Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.

For more information, please visit the Department of History website.

Overview

Analyse beliefs and concepts and consider how past societies worked with our BA History and Philosophy. Studying history and philosophy allows you to question your assumptions and trace the origins of modern societies and cultures.

Discover a thousand years of history whilst experiencing all the specialist areas on offer at the University of Reading. The History Department's expertise covers a wide range of regions, from Europe and Africa to America, South Asia and the Middle East. Module choices cover diverse periods and topics, from the Crusades to Cold War Berlin and from Medieval Magic to the Rwanda Crisis. 

In your first year, your core modules will explore people, politics and revolution, finding out how people struggled for power in past societies; and the culture and concepts those societies developed. We will teach you the skills you need to study and research history through an individual project of your choice.

Studying philosophy will equip you with the ability to think logically, to evaluate arguments critically, and to challenge your own ideas and those of other people. You will be taught by leading experts whose research strengths lie especially in moral philosophy and the philosophy of the mind and language. Your first year will introduce you to the general skills required for all philosophy and you will also have the chance to explore non-western philosophies such as Indian philosophy.

In both subjects, you will be taught in small interactive seminar groups, encouraging discussion and debate with teaching staff and fellow students. We place a great deal of importance on employability skills and offer a range of modules to help students gain relevant work experience as well as explore career options. In 2022, we achieved a 94% satisfaction score for BA History (National Student Survey 2022). In the same survey, we achieved a 95% satisfaction score for BA Philosophy. 

You will be encouraged to undertake work placements and there is the opportunity to study abroad for a term in your second year. The University also offers all students the chance to learn a modern language alongside their core subjects.

Placement

Placements are a prominent feature of our degree courses and highly encouraged. Placements are a good way to show you how you can use the skills acquired through studying history in the real world. In History we ensure that placements are incorporated into your core learning. In the second year, we offer opportunities for short group placements in museums and heritage and media organisations, and encourage students to reflect on what they have learned from previous employment or voluntary work experience. For third years, two optional modules offer placements of 10 working days in local archives and secondary schools.

Through our links with the Careers Centre, you can source potential employers and help with CVs and letters of application. Staff in the department also have close links with the university’s Institute of Education, Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) and Special Collections (archives), and with external organisations such as the Berkshire Record Office.

Study abroad

You also have the option to study abroad for a term in the second year. Some of the universities we have links with include University of Ottawa, Canada; University of Maastricht, Netherlands; University of Georgia, USA; and Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.

For more information, please visit the Department of History website.

Entry requirements A Level BBB

Select Reading as your firm choice on UCAS and we'll guarantee you a place even if you don't quite meet your offer. For details, see our firm choice scheme.

Typical offer

BBB, including grade B in A level History, Ancient History, or Classical Civilisation.

International Baccalaureate

30 points overall including 5 in History at higher level

Extended Project Qualification

In recognition of the excellent preparation that the Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) provides to students for University study, we can now include achievement in the EPQ as part of a formal offer.

BTEC Extended Diploma

DDM (Modules taken must be comparable to subject specific requirement)

English language requirements

IELTS 7.0, with no component below 6.0

For information on other English language qualifications, please visit our international student pages.

Alternative entry requirements for International and EU students

For country specific entry requirements look at entry requirements by country.

International Foundation Programme

If you are an international or EU student and do not meet the requirements for direct entry to your chosen degree you can join the University of Reading’s International Foundation Programme. Successful completion of this 1 year programme guarantees you a place on your chosen undergraduate degree. English language requirements start as low as IELTS 4.5 depending on progression degree and start date.

  • Learn more about our International Foundation programme

Pre-sessional English language programme

If you need to improve your English language score you can take a pre-sessional English course prior to entry onto your degree.

  • Find out the English language requirements for our courses and our pre-sessional English programme

Structure

  • Year 1
  • Year 2
  • Year 3

Compulsory modules include:

X

Module details


Title:

Journeys through History 1:Power and People

Code:

HS1JH1

Convenor:

DR Daniel Renshaw

Summary:

This module offers an introduction to the political and social history of Europe and the world in the last millennium. The module is compulsory for all Part 1 History students on both single subject and joint honours programmes.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Journeys through History 2: Culture and Concepts'

Code:

HS1JH2

Convenor:

PROF Anne Lawrence

Summary:

This module offers an introduction to the cultural history of Europe and the world in the last millennium, and to important concepts used by historians. The module is compulsory for all Part 1 History students on both single subject and joint honours programmes.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 50%, Set exercise 50%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Research Skills and Opportunities in History

Code:

HS1RSO

Convenor:

DR Ruth Salter

Summary:

This module provides you with the opportunity to develop and hone your skills as a historian, making sure you feel prepared for your academic journey with us in History, and helping to support progress in employability. The module is compulsory for all Part 1 History students on both single subject and joint honours programmes.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 25%, Set exercise 25%, Project 50%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Reason and Argument

Code:

PP1RA

Convenor:

DR Jumbly Grindrod

Summary:

This module enhances students’ ability to understand and construct complex arguments through the study of logic and the psychology of human reasoning. Reading: A module guide will be available. Recommended: Jamie Carlin Watson and Robert Arp, Critical Thinking: An Introduction to Reasoning Well, 2nd edition, Bloomsbury, 2015.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 90%, Class test 10%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

Code Module Convenor
HS1JH1 Journeys through History 1:Power and People DR Daniel Renshaw
HS1JH2 Journeys through History 2: Culture and Concepts' PROF Anne Lawrence
HS1RSO Research Skills and Opportunities in History DR Ruth Salter
PP1RA Reason and Argument DR Jumbly Grindrod

Optional modules include:

X

Module details


Title:

Elementary Logic

Code:

PP1EL

Convenor:

DR Severin Schroeder

Summary:

Arguments are the foundation of most philosophy. This module will teach you to explore in rigorous, mathematical terms why some arguments provide absolute support for their conclusions, and others do not. This module will thus provide essential formal ‘heavy machinery’ for reading and writing original philosophical papers in later parts of the degree course.Reading: Required readings will be posted online. Recommended:The open-source, online textbook ‘forall x’:http://www.fecundity.com/logic/Wilfrid Hodges, ‘Logic’, Penguin 2001

Assessment Method:

Set exercise 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Global Justice

Code:

PP1GJ

Convenor:

DR Shalini Sinha

Summary:

Global traditions of philosophy  from the Buddha and Confucius to Simone Weil, Frantz Fanon, Martin Luther King Jr., and African and Native American thinkers advocate ideas of justice and freedom that extend far beyond contemporary conceptions. This course shows how these thinkers question our  ideas of justice, and  transform how we approach injustice and freedom in the  context of race and colonialism, nature and  indigenous communities, identity  and sexuality, family and polity, through radically different conceptions of freedom and violence,  love, equality and harmony.

Some of the claims we will examine include: Justice is freedom from suffering!  Revolutionary violence is cathartic and emancipatory! Political justice  requires mental training! Nature is alive and has rights! Gender and sexual freedom are gained by  dissolving bodily boundaries!  Truth lies in pleasure! Justice is  love! Social justice comes with harmonising differences! 

Assessment Method:

Assignment 90%, Class test 10%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

The Meaning of Life

Code:

PP1ML

Convenor:

DR George Mason

Summary:

What is the meaning of life? This is perhaps the most important philosophical question we can ask. What is the answer? Indeed, what is the question really asking? In this module, we seek the answers. Along the way, we will consider a series of fascinating questions which promise to enlighten our understanding of ourselves and our place in the world. What makes life worth living? Is there any reason to fear death? Could life in artificial reality be better or more fulfilling than life in the real world?

Reading:

A list of required readings will be posted online. All or nearly all core readings are available electronically.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 90%, Class test 10%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Mental Machines

Code:

PP1MM

Convenor:

DR Nat Hansen

Summary:

This module investigates the possibility, the promise, and the perils of thinking machines. How close are we to creating artificial intelligence (AI), and what fundamental obstacles does the project of AI still face? How far does the mind extend into the world? For example, could a neural implant or even a smartphone form part of your mind? Are we ourselves thinking machines, in the form of intelligent, naturally occurring computer programs? We will investigate these questions by reading the works of contemporary philosophers such as David Chalmers, Andy Clark, Hubert Dreyfus and John Searle, as well as scientists such as Susan Greenfield.

Reading:

Required readings will be posted online.

Recommended:

Tim Crane, The Mechanical Mind, Routledge 2003.
Hubert Dreyfus, What Computers Still Can't Do, MIT Press 1992.
John Searle, 'Minds, brains, and programs’. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3: 417-457, 1980.
David J. Chalmers, 'The Singularity: A Philosophical Analysis', Journal of Consciousness Studies 17:7-65, 2010.
Andy Clark and David Chalmers, 'The Extended Mind’, Analysis 58(1): 7-19, 1998.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

The Right and the Good

Code:

PP1RG

Convenor:

PROF Philip Stratton-Lake

Summary:

In this module we will go through the arguments and positions of W. D. Ross’s The Right and the Good. This will involve a close reading of Ross’s seminal book to get clear on what Ross’s view was, and how defensible it is. This will cover areas such as first order normative theory, moral epistemology, and moral realism. We will assess his methodology, the historical context of the book, and its philosophical reception. 

Reading:

The Right and the Good. By W. D. Ross.

Required readings will be posted online.

Recommended:
Thomas Hurka, British Ethical Theorists From Sidgwick to Ewing

Robert Audi, Moral Knowledge and Ethical Character.
Robert Audi, The Good in the Right
Brad Hoooker, “Ross-Style Pluralism Versus Rule-Consequentialism”. Mind, Vol. 105, No. 420 (Oct., 1996), pp. 531-552

Philip Stratton-Lake, ‘Introduction’ to Ethical Intuitionism: Re-Evaluations.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Radical Philosophy

Code:

PP1RP

Convenor:

PROF Maximilian De Gaynesford

Summary:

From Plato and Marx to contemporaries like Judith Butler, Slavoj Zizek, and Catharine MacKinnon, there is a long tradition of radicalism in philosophy. This course is about how radical philosophy can usefully question our deepest assumptions and challenge our deepest beliefs. Poets should be outlawed from our society! We can secure knowledge by doubting everything! Capitalism will be destroyed by the very forces it creates! Gender is a social performance! Pornography silences women! Torture is permissible in extreme circumstances, e.g. post 9/11! These are some of the claims this course investigates philosophically.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 90%, Class test 10%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Writing the Philosophical Essay

Code:

PP1WRI

Convenor:

DR Luke Elson

Summary:

This module will provide students with the skills necessary to craft clear, well-structured, and persuasive academic writing that effectively communicates complex ideas. Reading:Required readings will be posted online. Recommended: Harry Frankfurt, “On Bullshit” (available online)

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Introduction to Marketing

Code:

AP1EM1

Convenor:

MR Nick Walker

Summary:

Gain fundamental knowledge of the key concepts of marketing and relate these critically to contemporary practice. Examine traditional approaches to marketing such as strategic marketing, segmentation, targeting and positioning, as well as the marketing mix, and discuss issues arising within marketing theory and practice, which bring into question some of the foundational principles of the discipline. Through lectures, readings, and the analysis of case studies, address the latest thinking within the marketing discipline.

Assessment Method:

Class test 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Introduction to Management

Code:

AP1SB1

Convenor:

PROF Julian Park

Summary:

This module provides a contemporary and comprehensive introduction to management science and its relevance to businesses. Interactive in-class activities and the use of online apps will help you learn techniques for inspiring teamwork in an organisation context, discover the importance of strategic management design for achieving an organisation's goals, and understand the roles of the manager and the responsibilities this carries. You will also have a range of opportunities to gain hands-on practising decision making through case studies. Furthermore, develop your leadership skills to motivate and guide a team towards the achievement of an organisation’s objectives.  

Assessment Method:

Class test 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Early Empires: Mesopotamia, Egypt & Rome

Code:

AR1EMP

Convenor:

PROF Roger Matthews

Summary:

This module introduces the archaeology and historical context of the world’s early empires, dating from 2500 BC to AD 395. We focus on the great empires of ancient Mesopotamia (Akkad, Babylonia and Assyria), Egypt, the Persian Achaemenid Empire and the Roman Empire. We will review other imperial entities of the world, including examples from China and the Far East, and the Americas. We will examine special themes relevant to the topic of empires, including ideology, imperial cult, trade, urbanisation, warfare, agriculture and the everyday lives of imperial subjects. You will study the rise and fall of some of the greatest, and the most fearsome, socio-political entities to have existed on our planet.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 70%, Practical 10%, Report 20%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Early Empires: Mesopotamia, Egypt & Rome [10 credits]

Code:

AR1EMP10

Convenor:

PROF Roger Matthews

Summary:

This module introduces the archaeology and historical context of the world’s early empires, dating from 2500 BC to AD 395. We focus on the great empires of ancient Mesopotamia (Akkad, Babylonia and Assyria), Egypt, the Persian Achaemenid Empire and the Roman Empire. We will review other imperial entities of the world, including examples from China and the Far East, and the Americas. We will examine special themes relevant to the topic of empires, including ideology, imperial cult, trade, urbanisation, warfare, agriculture and the everyday lives of imperial subjects. You will study the rise and fall of some of the greatest, and the most fearsome, socio-political entities to have existed on our planet.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Forensic Anthropology and the Archaeology of Death

Code:

AR1FOR

Convenor:

DR Ceri Falys

Summary:

This module investigates the archaeological methods employed in the scientific study of the dead, both from modern crime scenes and within older archaeological contexts. You will have the opportunity to analyse skeletal remains, and carry out fieldwork in the form of a cemetery survey, learning how to analyse and interpret these results. Through a series of case studies, you will explore the role of forensic archaeologists and anthropologists (working within the context of the ethics, law and politics) behind the examination of human remains.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 50%, Report 50%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Forensic Anthropology and the Archaeology of Death [10 credit]

Code:

AR1FOR10

Convenor:

DR Ceri Falys

Summary:

This module investigates the archaeological methods employed in the scientific study of the dead, both from modern crime scenes and within older archaeological contexts. Through a series of case studies, you will explore the role of forensic archaeologists and anthropologists (working within the context of the ethics, law and politics) behind the examination of human remains.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Revolutions in Human Behaviour: 4 Million Years BC to the Present

Code:

AR1REV

Convenor:

PROF Steve Mithen

Summary:

This module investigates the development of human society from a long-term and global perspective. It traces the human journey from our earliest ancestors of c. 4 million years ago to the present day. The module considers the key revolutions and transitions that have affected human thought, behaviour and society, focussing on the evidence from material culture. Key themes include: human evolution, the development of complex societies, the inventions of metallurgy and writing, the industrial and agricultural revolutions, and globalisation. The module is taught by  a combination of online lectures, face-to-face seminars and lectures, practical classes and a field trip.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Revolutions in Human Behaviour: 4 Million Years BC to the Present [10 credits]

Code:

AR1REV10

Convenor:

PROF Steve Mithen

Summary:

This module investigates the development of human society from a long-term and global perspective. It traces the human journey from our earliest ancestors of c. 6 million years ago to the present day. The module considers the key revolutions and transitions that have affected human thought, behaviour and society, focussing on the evidence from material culture. Key themes include: human evolution, the development of complex societies, the inventions of metallurgy and writing, the industrial and agricultural revolutions, and globalisation. The module is taught by a combination of online lectures and face-to-face seminars and lectures.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Contemporary world cultures: an introduction to social anthropology

Code:

AR1SOC

Convenor:

DR Alanna Cant

Summary:

This module provides a general introduction to social anthropology, the study of human societies and cultures. It will introduce you to major themes in the discipline of anthropology through focused study on topics that may include: kinship and marriage, gender and sexuality, the roles of religion, ritual and witchcraft in modern life, the concepts of ethnicity and race, and contemporary hunting and gathering societies. The module will also consider how anthropology can help us understand key issues in today’s world, such as ethnicity, race and decolonisation, and the role that work and consumption play in forming identities. Teaching is focused on real-world case studies from different cultures and regions around the globe, including the research expertise of the lecturer(s). 

Assessment Method:

Assignment 70%, Set exercise 30%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Contemporary world cultures: an introduction to social anthropology [10 credits]

Code:

AR1SOC10

Convenor:

DR Alanna Cant

Summary:

This module provides a general introduction to social anthropology, the study of human societies and cultures. It will introduce you to major themes in the discipline of anthropology through focused study on topics that may include: kinship and marriage, gender and sexuality, the roles of religion, ritual and witchcraft in modern life, the concepts of ethnicity and race, and contemporary hunting and gathering societies. The module will also consider how anthropology can help us understand key issues in today’s world, such as ethnicity, race and decolonisation, and the role that work and consumption play in forming identities. Teaching is focused on real-world case studies from different cultures and regions around the globe, including the research expertise of the lecturer(s). 

Assessment Method:

Set exercise 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Greek History: war, society, and change in the Archaic Age

Code:

CL1GH

Convenor:

PROF Amy Smith

Summary:

This module will introduce students to a period of Greek history too often neglected in first-year study, one which established the foundations of the Classical World and saw the emergence of political and social forms still influential today. Starting in the eighth century BC and ending with the Persian invasions of Greece in the early fifth, the module tracks the upheavals, innovations and conflicts of the age, across Greece and beyond.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 40%, Class test 60%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

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Module details


Title:

Ancient Song

Code:

CL1SO

Convenor:

PROF Ian Rutherford

Summary:

This module introduces students to the lyric poetry of ancient Greece and Rome, studying authors from both civilisations and considering a range of thematic approaches to the surviving corpus of poetry. It is intended to be suitable for beginners and for those who have studied some ancient literature before; there is no language requirement, but there will be an opportunity for students who do have relevant skills to employ them in their coursework and exams.

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

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Module details


Title:

Texts, Readers, and Writers

Code:

CL1TR

Convenor:

PROF Eleanor Dickey

Summary:

This module explores the history of texts, reading, and writing in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds. We shall look at literature, papyri, inscriptions, letters, Linear B, etc. Attention will also be given to the invention of the alphabet and to ancient writing materials and technologies. No knowledge of Latin, ancient Greek, or the ancient world more generally is required.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 40%, Oral 50%, Set exercise 10%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

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Module details


Title:

The Economics of Climate Change

Code:

EC110

Convenor:

DR Stefania Lovo

Summary:

The module will offer an economic perspective on the causes and consequences of climate change. It will provide an introduction to key theoretical concepts, such as externalities and public goods, and to the policy tools available to devise adequate responses to climate change, such as command and control measures, taxation and subsidies. The module will also introduce national and international policy approaches in dealing with climate change and provide an overview of their implications for economic development.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 60%, Class test 40%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

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Module details


Title:

Modernisms & Mythologies

Code:

FA1MM

Convenor:

DR Jenny Chamarette

Summary:

This module will provide a broad, introductory survey of key developments in the history, theory and criticism of art during the modern period. Its starting point will be theories of the development of modernity and its social, political and economic components, and the ways in which modern art functions in and on its historical contexts. It will continue to look at the retrospective modernist critical and theoretical accounts of modern art's development.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Approaches to Film

Code:

FT1ATF

Convenor:

DR Adam O'Brien

Summary:

How do films tell stories, make meanings, and contribute to our culture? What questions can, and should, we ask of a film?

This module includes a mix of cinema screenings, seminars and lectures, exploring a range of fiction and non-fiction films. Class discussions and assignments will challenge you to explore the meanings and cultural significance of moving images, across the 20th and 21st centuries.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Analysing Theatre and Performance

Code:

FT1ATP

Convenor:

DR Matt McFrederick

Summary:

How do theatrical stories allow us to examine and reimagine our impression of the world today?  What practical qualities do theatre makers return to - or reinvent - in creating meaning in performance?

In this introduction to theatre and performance, you will share your interpretations and expand the ways you see and think about theatre in relation to the world today. You will learn how to be a confident spectator and reader of theatre through a range of diverse and topical performances in local or in London-based venues - previous trips have included the National Theatre, RSC Live, Peking Opera, the West End and smaller, innovative fringe venues.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 70%, Oral 30%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

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Module details


Title:

Comedy on Stage and Screen

Code:

FT1CSS

Convenor:

DR Simone Knox

Summary:

This module gives you the opportunity to study comedy on stage and screen, encompassing film, television, theatre and stand-up comedy. You will engage with the relevant critical vocabulary and contextual knowledge to explore how humour is created, consumed and debated, across a range of genres and practices. Case studies may include classic and contemporary film comedies (e.g. screwball comedy, black comedy); musical comedies (e.g. The Book of Mormon); stand-up comedy (e.g. Ali Wong, Hannah Gadsby); sitcoms (e.g. Friends); or the work of specific creative practitioners (e.g. Joe Orton). 

Assessment Method:

Assignment 60%, Set exercise 40%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

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Module details


Title:

Intercultural Competence and Communication

Code:

IL1GICC

Convenor:

MS Joan McCormack

Summary:

In this module students develop skills and understanding needed for working in the multi-cultural global workplace. In the Autumn term it will consider intercultural competence and communication from a range of disciplinary perspectives, including psychology, education, inclusivity, business, language and discourse. In the Spring term students will apply their knowledge to define and explain a defined a real-world issue.

The module will be delivered at the University of Reading Whiteknights campus

Assessment Method:

Oral 10%, Portfolio 30%, Project 60%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

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Module details


Title:

English Language and Society

Code:

LS1ELS

Convenor:

DR Christiana Themistocleous

Summary:

The course aims to provide a broad introduction to English Language and Society, and a basis for further in-depth study of the field in parts two and three of the degree in English Language and Linguistics.

Assessment Method:

Exam 60%, Assignment 40%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

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Module details


Title:

Greats of European Cinema

Code:

ML1GEC

Convenor:

PROF Julia Waters

Summary:

The aim of this module is to provide students with an understanding of the ways in which European Cinema – and the various national cinemas that comprise it – reflects the changing political, social and cultural climate of the twentieth century. The course is designed to introduce students to key features of film analysis and to develop their ability to apply these to the films studied.

Assessment Method:

Exam 55%, Set exercise 45%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

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Module details


Title:

Introduction to Linguistics

Code:

ML1IL

Convenor:

MR Federico Faloppa

Summary:

This module aims to familiarise students with principles in general linguistics, and to give students an overall picture of what a language is, how it works, and what its main structures are, with a particular focus on French, German, Italian and Spanish. It will also provide useful meta-linguistic competence which can be applied to the study of any other language.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 40%, Oral 20%, Set exercise 40%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

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Module details


Title:

The Science of Climate Change

Code:

MT1CC

Convenor:

PROF Nigel Arnell

Summary:

This module provides an introduction to the science of climate change, aimed at students who do not necessarily have a scientific background.

Assessment Method:

Exam 70%, Assignment 30%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

British Society

Code:

PO1BRI

Convenor:

DR Dawn Clarke

Summary:

The module draws on theories and approaches from Politics, Sociology, Psychology, History and Philosophy to consider some of the main contours of contemporary British Society. The module will explore a number of images of Britain including: Britain as a Welfare State, Multicultural Britain and Britain as a Class Society. It will also explore crime and deviance in Britain, the role of the mass media and the increasing power of the food industry. 

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Inequality

Code:

PO1INE

Convenor:

DR Jonathan Golub

Summary:

Inequality is everywhere around us: different individuals earn different salaries, people of different genders and backgrounds have access to different economic opportunities, and those at the top of the income distribution have radically distinct life chances than those at the bottom. What explains rising inequality, is it fair and what are the consequences? Should anything be done to reduce inequality, and if so, what? This course aims to answer these questions by providing students with the analytical tools and knowledge to understand and explain the evolution of earnings, racial and gender inequality over time and its variation across developed countries. It also considers the economic, normative and political implications of different forms of inequality, in particular gender and racial inequality. Is inequality at the top of the income distribution (i.e. the 1% v. the rest of us) the inevitable outcome of a well-functioning market system or does it suggest problems in the way democracy works? Does inequality undermine democracy for instance by affecting political participation or increasing the appeal of non-liberal populist parties? Take the course and you will find out more about these fascinating questions and more!

Assessment Method:

Assignment 40%, Oral 10%, Project 50%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

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Module details


Title:

Introduction to Political Ideas

Code:

PO1IPI

Convenor:

DR Andrew Reid

Summary:

An introduction to political theory, covering central topics like the state and its authority, democracy, rights and liberty, equality and social justice, and war and intervention, as well as some of the basic methods for understanding them all. 

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

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Module details


Title:

War and Warfare

Code:

PO1WAR

Convenor:

DR Vladimir Rauta

Summary:

This is an introductory module for students seeking foundational knowledge of war in international relations. The emphasis will be on concepts and types of war, their causes, and how they relate to real world issues in international relations and international security. By thinking through and examining a subset of wars and types of warfare the ultimate objective is to have students embrace a range of theoretical arguments about both historical and contemporary examples, to apply these insights to current debates about war in international relations and to prepare students for future scholarly research and security/strategy-focused analysis. The module draws on the department’s international longstanding reputation and robust intellectual tradition in the study of war, strategy and the uses of military force, and embeds in its teaching the department’s links with the British security and defence establishment, evidenced by the links with the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst.

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

What the font? Making and using typefaces

Code:

TY1WTF

Convenor:

DR Rob Banham

Summary:

You are surrounded by fonts. Social media, text messages, email, branding, advertising, websites, books, magazines … Human (and machine) communication relies extensively on fonts, but what do you really know about them? How and why are new fonts created? And is it ever OK to use comic sans?! This module will introduce you to the world of typeface design, exploring the history, theory, and practice of making and using fonts and giving you the opportunity to design a typeface of your own. No background in design is required.

Assessment Method:

Set exercise 50%, Project 50%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

Code Module Convenor
PP1EL Elementary Logic DR Severin Schroeder
PP1GJ Global Justice DR Shalini Sinha
PP1ML The Meaning of Life DR George Mason
PP1MM Mental Machines DR Nat Hansen
PP1RG The Right and the Good PROF Philip Stratton-Lake
PP1RP Radical Philosophy PROF Maximilian De Gaynesford
PP1WRI Writing the Philosophical Essay DR Luke Elson
AP1EM1 Introduction to Marketing MR Nick Walker
AP1SB1 Introduction to Management PROF Julian Park
AR1EMP Early Empires: Mesopotamia, Egypt & Rome PROF Roger Matthews
AR1EMP10 Early Empires: Mesopotamia, Egypt & Rome [10 credits] PROF Roger Matthews
AR1FOR Forensic Anthropology and the Archaeology of Death DR Ceri Falys
AR1FOR10 Forensic Anthropology and the Archaeology of Death [10 credit] DR Ceri Falys
AR1REV Revolutions in Human Behaviour: 4 Million Years BC to the Present PROF Steve Mithen
AR1REV10 Revolutions in Human Behaviour: 4 Million Years BC to the Present [10 credits] PROF Steve Mithen
AR1SOC Contemporary world cultures: an introduction to social anthropology DR Alanna Cant
AR1SOC10 Contemporary world cultures: an introduction to social anthropology [10 credits] DR Alanna Cant
CL1GH Greek History: war, society, and change in the Archaic Age PROF Amy Smith
CL1SO Ancient Song PROF Ian Rutherford
CL1TR Texts, Readers, and Writers PROF Eleanor Dickey
EC110 The Economics of Climate Change DR Stefania Lovo
FA1MM Modernisms & Mythologies DR Jenny Chamarette
FT1ATF Approaches to Film DR Adam O'Brien
FT1ATP Analysing Theatre and Performance DR Matt McFrederick
FT1CSS Comedy on Stage and Screen DR Simone Knox
IL1GICC Intercultural Competence and Communication MS Joan McCormack
LS1ELS English Language and Society DR Christiana Themistocleous
ML1GEC Greats of European Cinema PROF Julia Waters
ML1IL Introduction to Linguistics MR Federico Faloppa
MT1CC The Science of Climate Change PROF Nigel Arnell
PO1BRI British Society DR Dawn Clarke
PO1INE Inequality DR Jonathan Golub
PO1IPI Introduction to Political Ideas DR Andrew Reid
PO1WAR War and Warfare DR Vladimir Rauta
TY1WTF What the font? Making and using typefaces DR Rob Banham

These are the modules that we currently offer. They may change for your year of study as we regularly review our module offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

Optional modules include:

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Module details


Title:

Going Public: Presenting the Past, Planning the Future

Code:

HS2GPP

Convenor:

PROF Kate Williams

Summary:

This module provides students with an opportunity to explore public interpretations of the past beyond academia, to work collaboratively with external partners on a group project which involves researching and communicating about history for public audiences, and to develop key areas of employability. This module is compulsory for all Single Subject History students, and optional for Joint Honours History students.

Assessment Method:

Oral 40%, Portfolio 40%, Report 20%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Historical Approaches and My Dissertation

Code:

HS2HAD

Convenor:

MISS Liz Barnes

Summary:

This module introduces students to a wide range of primary sources and to the methods and approaches used by historians to analyse those sources, to prepare you to plan, research, and write your final-year dissertation.

This module is compulsory for all Single Subject History students and History with Study Abroad students. It is available as an optional module for students taking a joint degree in History, and strongly recommended for Joint History students wishing to complete their Part 3 Dissertation in History. Joint History students opting to complete their Part 3 Dissertation in History without taking this module will be required to complete (as a formative assessment) the dissertation proposal which forms one element of the summative assessment on this module.

Assessment Method:

Portfolio 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Intellectuals and Society in Twentieth Century Italy

Code:

HS2INT

Convenor:

PROF Daniela La Penna

Summary:

The aim of the module is to provide a clear historical overview of the main conflicts between the intellectual class and the state in twentieth-century Italy, focussing specifically on the Fascist period and the Republican years. Through carefully selected case studies, the students will learn about the always dynamic and sometimes openly conflictual relationship between some key Italian intellectuals and institutions such as the State, the Universities and the media. At the end of the module, the students will be able to give cogent, structured, and informed answers to the following questions: what is an intellectual? Who may become a public intellectual and how does one acquire that status? What are intellectuals' responsibilities towards society?

Assessment Method:

Assignment 80%, Oral 20%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

The Colonial Experience: Africa, 1879 to 1980

Code:

HS2O10

Convenor:

DR Heike Schmidt

Summary:

This module explores the impact of colonialism in Africa, considering this impact in broad terms but with a particular focus on the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and reflects on how historians can understand the colonial past without reproducing a Eurocentric point of view.

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Belief and Unbelief in Europe: Religion, Science and the Supernatural c.1400-1800

Code:

HS2O12

Convenor:

PROF Joël Félix

Summary:

This module will explore the ways in which beliefs about God and attitudes towards nature, science and the supernatural changed between c. 1400 and 1800, and how institutions responded to change. We will examine the interactions between religion, science and magic, and explore the relationship between religious orthodoxies, superstition, and atheism across this period.

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Rebel Girls: The Influence of Radical Women 1792-1919

Code:

HS2O14

Convenor:

DR Jacqui Turner

Summary:

This module considers changing perceptions of women in Britain from the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth century, and examines the influence of those women who challenged social stereotypes and the Victorian double standard.

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

‘The brightest jewel in the British crown’: The Making of Modern South Asia, 1757-1947

Code:

HS2O16

Convenor:

DR Rohan Deb Roy

Summary:

This module introduces students to the history of modern South Asia. Students learn how British colonial rule and anti-colonial Indian nationalism shaped modern South Asia.  

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Europe in the Twentieth Century

Code:

HS2O19

Convenor:

DR Daniel Renshaw

Summary:

This module surveys European history over the course of the twentieth century, a period of dramatic conflicts and social, political, and cultural changes which transformed Europe itself, and European relationships to the wider world.

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Utopia: the Quest for a Perfect World

Code:

HS2O21

Convenor:

DR Jeremy Burchardt

Summary:

This module explores one of humanity’s most cherished and long-standing dreams: the quest for a perfect world. After an initial survey of the roots of the utopian tradition, we focus primarily on modern visions and versions of utopia in the period c.1800-c.2000.

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

People, power and revolution: political culture in seventeenth-century England

Code:

HS2O3

Convenor:

DR Rachel Foxley

Summary:

The political narrative of seventeenth-century England is eventful: one Stuart monarch, Charles I, was tried and executed by his own subjects in 1649 following two civil wars; another, James II, was ousted and replaced in the 'Glorious Revolution' of 1688-9. In the middle of the century England came under republican government and experienced the rise to power of Oliver Cromwell as Lord Protector. In this module we will ask who ruled England in the seventeenth century, why two revolutions occurred, and how different politics was by the end of the century compared to the situation when James I came to the throne in 1603.

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

The American Civil War

Code:

HS2O53

Convenor:

MISS Liz Barnes

Summary:

In 1861, long-standing divisions over the place of slavery in American life erupted into war. The ensuing conflict between the national government and Southern rebels, to date the United States’ bloodiest war, resulted in significant constitutional changes that expanded the nation’s commitment to liberty and equality. In this module, we will examine the outbreak of hostilities, the course of the war, and the route to peace, examining the ways the conflict reshaped American life. We will also explore the memory of the conflict, considering ongoing debates about Confederate memorialisation across the United States.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 70%, Oral 30%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

American Century: United States history since 1898

Code:

HS2O55

Convenor:

DR Mara Oliva

Summary:

The module will investigate the impact that US foreign policy had on the development of a modern American state and society since the Spanish-American war of 1898.

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Medieval Medicine

Code:

HS2O56

Convenor:

DR Ruth Salter

Summary:

This module considers a variety of aspects of medieval medicine, taking a longue durée approach, from classical medical theories through to plague in the fourteenth century. Among the topics to be explored are: classical and religious concepts; the early Middle Ages; transmission of medical knowledge and the medical schools; hospitals and charity; diagnosis and prognosis; women’s health; miraculous cures; leprosy; and the global Black Death. Students will engage with a wide range of written sources as well as material/visual resources. This module aims to challenge negative preconceptions regarding the nature of medieval medicine, and highlights the continuous interest in new ideas and the acquisition of knowledge throughout the Middle Ages.

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Encountering the Atlantic World, 1450-1850

Code:

HS2O57

Convenor:

DR Richard Blakemore

Summary:

This module introduces students to the ‘Atlantic world’, the idea that from the late fourteenth to the late eighteenth century new connections were established around and across this ocean, connections which drove profound and often turbulent changes to cultures, economies, and political structures, and which have left an important and sometimes unsettling legacy for the modern world.

Assessment Method:

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Kingship and Crisis in England, c.1154–1330

Code:

HS2O7

Convenor:

DR Elizabeth Matthew

Summary:

This module investigates continuity and change in English politics from the late twelfth to the early fourteenth century. In this era, government was royal government: the prime mover in politics was the king. But kings had concerns outside England. Succession could be problematic. What happened when a king was absent or too young to rule in person? What constrained kings’ freedom of action? What part did queens and subjects play in shaping politics?

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Society, Thought and Art in Modern Europe

Code:

HS2STA

Convenor:

DR Veronica Heath

Summary:

This module aims to provide students with a systematic historical and cross-national understanding of the key ideas, institutions and symbols that have come to constitute and represent modernity in Europe and, at the same time, new conceptions of Europe. This module examines the birth of modern men and women in Europe in the late eighteenth century and the broad intellectual, cultural, economic, political and social conditions which have been shaping and re-shaping them since. The module further shows a) the contributions of different European nations to a common European reaction to and re-evaluation of tradition and modernity; and b) the diffusion of modernity (Westernisation) from Europe to Asia and Africa and its role in the creation of a global world. Finally, it shows how art has played a leading role in the transformations of modernity; not only recording it but also constituting one of its central components.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 80%, Class test 20%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Unity, Nationalism and Regionalism in Europe

Code:

HS2UNR

Convenor:

DR Athena Leoussi

Summary:

The aim of this module is to study how two ideas became two of the most important  forces which shaped modern Europe from the 18th century to the present day. These were the idea of the nation and the idea of the European community. With this aim in mind, the module is divided into two thematic sections:

The first section explores the origins of the idea of the nation as it emerged as a revolutionary idea in Enlightenment Europe, remoulding states and peoples across Europe and the rest of the world. The section gives historical depth to current debates on nations and nationalism exploring the development of ideas about the nation, national identity, nationalism and the nation-state, through the study of classic and foundational texts such as Ernest Renan’s famous lecture at the Sorbonne of 1882, ‘What is a nation?’, Woodrow Wilson’s ‘Fourteen Points’ of 1918, and close examination of a variety of nationalist movements in Europe, from the French Revolution of 1789, through the making of the first German nation-state, to the national revolutions of 1989 in communist Eastern Europe,  and the challenges to established nation-states by the nationalisms of the European regions which have persisted into the 21st century (e.g., Catalan, Flemish, Scottish). 

The relationship between majority, ruling nations and ethnic and national minorities is also examined as an important factor in nation-building. Does the nation-state exclude minorities?  

The second section engages with public debates about European integration and the nature of European identity as these interact with the member states of the EU and with processes of globalisation.  

Assessment Method:

Assignment 70%, Oral 10%, Set exercise 20%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Ethical Argument 1: Philosophy and How to Live

Code:

PP2EA1

Convenor:

DR Luke Elson

Summary:

This module introduces students to longstanding methods, issues and arguments in moral philosophy.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 90%, Oral 10%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Ethical Argument 2: Philosophy and How to Live

Code:

PP2EA2

Convenor:

DR Luke Elson

Summary:

This module introduces students to longstanding methods, issues and arguments in moral philosophy.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

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Module details


Title:

Global Philosophy 1

Code:

PP2GP1

Convenor:

DR Shalini Sinha

Summary:

This module introduces some key thinkers and issues in global philosophy, the philosophy of gender and race, the ethics of resistance and the epistemology of terrorism. Some of the claims we will examine include: Gender is an illusion, male and female ‘sex’ attributes are social constructions!  Race categories are racist, they should be abolished! Persons are ‘processes’; self and identity are conceptual fictions!  Self-immolation is an ethical form of political protest! Gandhi and Islamist suicide bombing share an ethics of sacrificial dying! Debt is founded on violence! We should undertake dying with full awareness, by meditative fasting!

We will engage in philosophical conversations with (i) contemporary feminist and race theorists such as Judith Butler, Sally Haslanger and Naomi Zack on performativist,  constructionist and essentialist approaches to gender and race; (ii) Buddhist philosophers on the metaphysics of self and identity; (iii) Buddhist, Gandhian and Islamic ethics of sacrificial dying and political resistance; (iv) interdisciplinary perspectives on the nature and origins of debt and money; (v) Jaina conceptions of meditative dying, suicide and euthanasia; (vi) the epistemology of terrorism and Islamic approaches to non-violence.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 90%, Oral 10%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

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Module details


Title:

Global Philosophy 2

Code:

PP2GP2

Convenor:

DR Shalini Sinha

Summary:

This module introduces some key thinkers and issues in global  philosophy, the philosophy of gender and race, the ethics of resistance and the epistemology of terrorism. Some of the claims we will examine include: Gender is an illusion, male and female ‘sex’ attributes are social constructions!  Race categories are racist, they should be abolished! Persons are ‘processes’; self and identity are conceptual fictions! Self-immolation is an ethical form of political protest! Gandhi and Islamist suicide bombing share an ethics of sacrificial dying! Debt is founded on violence! We should undertake dying with full awareness, by meditative fasting!

We will engage in philosophical conversations with (i) contemporary feminist and race theorists such as Judith Butler, Sally Haslanger and Naomi Zack on performativist,  constructionist and essentialist approaches to gender and race; (ii) Buddhist philosophers on the metaphysics of self and identity; (iii) Buddhist, Gandhian and Islamic perspectives on sacrificial dying and the ethics of political resistance; (iv) interdisciplinary perspectives on the nature and origins of debt and money; (v) Jaina conceptions of meditative dying, suicide and euthanasia; (vi) the epistemology of terrorism and Islamic approaches to non-violence. 

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Hume, Kant, and Wittgenstein 1

Code:

PP2HKW1

Convenor:

DR Severin Schroeder

Summary:

This module introduces students to the ideas of three great philosophers: David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, focussing especially on their respective conceptions of philosophy.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 90%, Oral 10%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Hume, Kant, and Wittgenstein 2

Code:

PP2HKW2

Convenor:

DR Severin Schroeder

Summary:

This module introduces students to the ideas of three great philosophers: David Hume, Immanuel Kant, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, focussing especially on their respective conceptions of philosophy.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Ignorance, Doubt, and Relativism 1

Code:

PP2IDR1

Convenor:

DR Jumbly Grindrod

Summary:

This module introduces students to a core area of philosophy – epistemology (the theory of knowledge), makes them familiar with key stances on the extent and nature of human knowledge (modal theories, reliabilist theories, virtue theories etc.), and requires them to evaluate such stances and find their place on the epistemological map. They will also be introduced to the social aspect of epistemology, by considering what role knowledge plays within a society, how we gain knowledge from others, and how we may be harmed specifically as knowers.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 90%, Oral 10%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

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Module details


Title:

Ignorance, Doubt, and Relativism 2

Code:

PP2IDR2

Convenor:

MR Petter Sandstad

Summary:

This module introduces students to a core area of philosophy – epistemology (the theory of knowledge), makes them familiar with key stances on the extent and nature of human knowledge (modal theories, reliabilist theories, virtue theories etc.), and requires them to evaluate such stances and find their place on the epistemological map. They will also be introduced to the social aspect of epistemology, by considering what role knowledge plays within a society, how we gain knowledge from others, and how we may be harmed specifically as knowers.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Meaning and the Mind 1

Code:

PP2MM1

Convenor:

DR Jumbly Grindrod

Summary:

This module introduces students to core philosophical issues about meaning and the mind, and to central connections between these issues. How could there be minds in a physical world? Are states of consciousness physical states? How do our thoughts and words come to represent the world around us? These questions are intimately related. The capacity to represent the world is a central, problematic feature of the mind. Moreover, to assess what minds are, we must pay careful attention to what our words for mental states mean, and to how they come to mean what they do. We will investigate these questions by reading and discussing recent work in the philosophy of mind and language, by authors such as David Chalmers, Hilary Putnam and John Searle, as well as classic texts by authors such as Gottlob Frege and Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 90%, Oral 10%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Meaning and the Mind 2

Code:

PP2MM2

Convenor:

MR Petter Sandstad

Summary:

This module introduces students to core philosophical issues about meaning and the mind, and to central connections between these issues. How could there be minds in a physical world? Are states of consciousness physical states? How do our thoughts and words come to represent the world around us? These questions are intimately related. The capacity to represent the world is a central, problematic feature of the mind. Moreover, to assess what minds are, we must pay careful attention to what our words for mental states mean, and to how they come to mean what they do. We will investigate these questions by reading and discussing recent work in the philosophy of mind and language, by authors such as David Chalmers, Hilary Putnam and John Searle, as well as classic texts by authors such as Gottlob Frege and Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Oppression, Inequality, and the Enemies of Democracy 1

Code:

PP2OID1

Convenor:

DR Charlotte Newey

Summary:

In this wide-ranging module, with an emphasis on contemporary political philosophy, we will explore some of the most important concerns for society. We will ask questions such as: Do existing accounts of justice need to be amended to acknowledge, explicitly, the concerns arising from race, gender, and disability? How should political philosophy respond to intersecting oppressions? What aspects of modern life threaten democracy? What is the best method by which to develop theories of justice? Is justice a local or global concern? How should we balance loyalty to our own state with concerns for global justice?

Assessment Method:

Assignment 90%, Oral 10%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

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Module details


Title:

Oppression, Inequality, and the Enemies of Democracy 2

Code:

PP2OID2

Convenor:

DR Charlotte Newey

Summary:

In this module you develop the skills and build upon the content learned in PP2OID1, Oppression, Inequality and the Enemies of Democracy. This course will build upon key philosophical arguments concerning the meaning and value of freedom, equality and democracy.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Medieval Europe: power, religion and death

Code:

AR2M8

Convenor:

DR Gabor Thomas

Summary:

This single-term module gives students an overview of how archaeology has changed our understanding of European society over the course of the ‘Long Middle Ages’ (5th-16th centuries AD). It comprises 10 weekly sessions involving a combination of teacher-led content with student-led discussions, is assessed by an essay and site interpretation panel and has a field trip to Winchester - one of the richest medieval urban landscapes in southern England.  It will also include a formative assessment in the form of group poster presentations designed to support students in developing essay topics.  

Assessment Method:

Assignment 60%, Set exercise 40%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

Code Module Convenor
HS2GPP Going Public: Presenting the Past, Planning the Future PROF Kate Williams
HS2HAD Historical Approaches and My Dissertation MISS Liz Barnes
HS2INT Intellectuals and Society in Twentieth Century Italy PROF Daniela La Penna
HS2O10 The Colonial Experience: Africa, 1879 to 1980 DR Heike Schmidt
HS2O12 Belief and Unbelief in Europe: Religion, Science and the Supernatural c.1400-1800 PROF Joël Félix
HS2O14 Rebel Girls: The Influence of Radical Women 1792-1919 DR Jacqui Turner
HS2O16 ‘The brightest jewel in the British crown’: The Making of Modern South Asia, 1757-1947 DR Rohan Deb Roy
HS2O19 Europe in the Twentieth Century DR Daniel Renshaw
HS2O21 Utopia: the Quest for a Perfect World DR Jeremy Burchardt
HS2O3 People, power and revolution: political culture in seventeenth-century England DR Rachel Foxley
HS2O53 The American Civil War MISS Liz Barnes
HS2O55 American Century: United States history since 1898 DR Mara Oliva
HS2O56 Medieval Medicine DR Ruth Salter
HS2O57 Encountering the Atlantic World, 1450-1850 DR Richard Blakemore
HS2O7 Kingship and Crisis in England, c.1154–1330 DR Elizabeth Matthew
HS2STA Society, Thought and Art in Modern Europe DR Veronica Heath
HS2UNR Unity, Nationalism and Regionalism in Europe DR Athena Leoussi
PP2EA1 Ethical Argument 1: Philosophy and How to Live DR Luke Elson
PP2EA2 Ethical Argument 2: Philosophy and How to Live DR Luke Elson
PP2GP1 Global Philosophy 1 DR Shalini Sinha
PP2GP2 Global Philosophy 2 DR Shalini Sinha
PP2HKW1 Hume, Kant, and Wittgenstein 1 DR Severin Schroeder
PP2HKW2 Hume, Kant, and Wittgenstein 2 DR Severin Schroeder
PP2IDR1 Ignorance, Doubt, and Relativism 1 DR Jumbly Grindrod
PP2IDR2 Ignorance, Doubt, and Relativism 2 MR Petter Sandstad
PP2MM1 Meaning and the Mind 1 DR Jumbly Grindrod
PP2MM2 Meaning and the Mind 2 MR Petter Sandstad
PP2OID1 Oppression, Inequality, and the Enemies of Democracy 1 DR Charlotte Newey
PP2OID2 Oppression, Inequality, and the Enemies of Democracy 2 DR Charlotte Newey
AR2M8 Medieval Europe: power, religion and death DR Gabor Thomas

These are the modules that we currently offer. They may change for your year of study as we regularly review our module offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

Optional modules include:

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Module details


Title:

Crisis, Change, Opportunity: Italy from 1968 to the Present

Code:

HS3CCO

Convenor:

PROF Daniela La Penna

Summary:

The module focuses on defining episodes of Italian history from 1968 to the present day, and it will shed light on how each of the selected themes and events have contributed to change the physiognomy of contemporary Italian society. 

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Discovering Archives and Collections

Code:

HS3DAC

Convenor:

DR Jacqui Turner

Summary:

This module will enable students to test and develop their interest in careers in the archives sector through 10-day placements based internally, at the university’s Special Collections, or externally, at the Berkshire Record Office or another participating repository. These 10-day placements will give students the opportunity to gain and reflect on the type of practical work experience required for successful applications for postgraduate training in archives and records management. The placements will also develop skills in research, oral and written communication, professionalism and adaptability in the workplace, and attention to detail, readily transferable to, and highly valued in, other areas of postgraduate employment. Offered as an alternative to a Topic module, Discovering Archives and Collections will increase choice and enhance personal career-development opportunities within the Part 3 History degree programme.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 30%, Practical 10%, Oral 20%, Report 40%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

History Education

Code:

HS3HED

Convenor:

DR Elizabeth Matthew

Summary:

This module enables students to test and develop their interest in careers in teaching by applying their skills and communicating their knowledge in local schools. Two-week placements in secondary-school history departments, with pre-placement training and post-placement assessments at the university, give students the opportunity to gain, and reflect on, the practical work experience required for successful applications for postgraduate teacher-training.

Assessment Method:

Practical 10%, Oral 20%, Portfolio 35%, Report 35%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Dissertation in History

Code:

HS3HLD

Convenor:

DR Heike Schmidt

Summary:

This module leads to the completion of a dissertation of 10,000 words, excluding title page, contents page, references, tables, illustrations and their captions, appendices, and bibliography. It allows for an extended in-depth examination of a historical topic, based on guided independent research.

Assessment Method:

Oral 10%, Dissertation 90%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Anarchy in the UK: Punk, Politics and Youth Culture in Britain, 1976-84

Code:

HS3SAU

Convenor:

PROF Matthew Worley

Summary:

This module examines the relationship between youth cultures and politics in Britain between the period 1976 and 1984. These were turbulent times, during which the steady improvements in living standards that helped facilitate the emergence of recognisable youth cultures in the years following World War Two gave way to economic downturn and political instability. Punk, it seemed, was the soundtrack to social, political and cultural change.

Assessment Method:

Exam 40%, Assignment 60%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Cold War Berlin: Politics and Culture in a Divided City, 1945-89

Code:

HS3SCW

Convenor:

PROF Patrick Major

Summary:

This Special Subject uses recently declassified documents made available since the end of the Cold War to explore the politics of liberation in 1945, the Berlin Blockade of 1948-49, the 17 June 1953 insurrection in East Germany, as well as the mass exodus of the 1950s which ultimately led to the building of the Berlin Wall in August 1961 as well as its fall in 1989. Besides superpower politics and intelligence operations - Berlin was after all 'spy city' - the module will cover everyday life in extraordinary circumstances, including the problem of mass rapes, the black market, reconstruction and denazification. Popular opinion from below will be furnished through situation reports collected by the western military governments and the East German party and Stasi. We also touch on the student movement in West Berlin in the sixties, and the birth of terrorism in the seventies. The module will, moreover, consider the cultural representation of division through propaganda films and literature, including the spy thrillers of Ian Fleming, John le Carré and Philip Kerr, who described Cold War Berlin as ‘perhaps the most atmospheric city on earth’.

Assessment Method:

Exam 40%, Assignment 60%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Eugenics from 1865 to the Present Day

Code:

HS3SEU

Convenor:

PROF David Stack

Summary:

This module explores the history of eugenics from 1865 through to the present day. Eugenics is one of the most important, but least well understood, movements of the modern era. At its heart lay a desire to evaluate humans by dividing them into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ stock, but the specific forms this took varied over time and by nation. The module will explore these differences and provide a comparative perspective on the history of eugenics.

Assessment Method:

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Heretics and Popes: Heresy and Persecution in the Medieval World

Code:

HS3SHP

Convenor:

PROF Rebecca Rist

Summary:

This module will focus on the growth of heresy during the Middle Ages (eleventh to fifteenth centuries), the persecution of heretics by the Church and secular authorities, the status of heretics as a minority group, and the concept of the ‘Other’. Different types of heresy will be explored: theological, political, popular, those stemming from grass-roots disaffection and those from intellectual and philosophical traditions. Seminars will examine the origins of the concept of heresy, different types of heretics, the papacy’s response to heresy, the growth of Church legislation and jurisdiction against heretics, and the establishment of the Inquisition. Students will be able to access a range of sources in translation including the writings of heretics themselves, contemporary chronicles, papal letters, sermons, theological treatises, conciliar legislation and canon law. The course will also examine the construction of heresy and orthodoxy, Max Weber’s famous distinction between Sect and Church, and recent trends in the historiography of heresy, including Emmanuel le Roy Ladurie’s Montaillou and Robert Moore’s The Formation of a Persecuting Society and its critics.   

The seminars will explore: Heresy and orthodoxy in medieval society; the concept of heresy; heresy and ‘the Other’; the construction of heresy; political heresy; popular heresy; intellectual heresy; women and heresy; Cathars; Waldensians; Lollards; Hussites; the persecution of heretics; the Albigensian Crusade; the Inquisition; heretics and other minority groups; the historiography of heresy.  

Assessment Method:

Exam 40%, Assignment 60%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Sexual Politics: Gender, Sex, and Feminism in Britain after 1918

Code:

HS3T100

Convenor:

DR Natalie Thomlinson

Summary:

Sexual Politics examines histories of gender, sex and sexuality, and feminism, in Britain since 1918, when the vote was first won for women (albeit only over the age of 30). A mixture of social, cultural and political history, it challenges students to ask why our understandings of these concepts have changed so much over the last 100 years.

Assessment Method:

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Pirates of the Caribbean: Empire, Slavery, and Society, 1550-1750

Code:

HS3T101

Convenor:

DR Richard Blakemore

Summary:

In this course we will examine the question of piracy in terms of its popular connotations, legal definition, social dimensions, and its importance for the growth of early modern empires, with specific reference to the Caribbean from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth century.

Assessment Method:

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Melancholy Medicine: Healing the Body and Mind in Early Modern England, 1570-1730

Code:

HS3T102

Convenor:

MS Amie Bolissian McRae

Summary:

Melancholy might lead to madness, and fear could cause the plague in early modern understandings of health and medicine in England. This module explores these sorts of beliefs about emotions, health, and the body, and the physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, and lay healers who provided medical treatment. By examining a wide range of primary sources, such as handwritten diaries, medicinal recipe books, and surgeon’s casebooks, key questions will be asked about who treated diseases, how they thought bodies worked, and what patients felt about being sick - during a period which treated sadness with sneezing powder, and fear with leeches. Particular attention will be paid to how bodily health and emotional temperament was thought to differ according to gender, age, race, and disability.

Assessment Method:

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Medieval Magic and the Origins of the Witch-Craze

Code:

HS3T25

Convenor:

PROF Anne Lawrence

Summary:

The period from c.1100 to c.1500 saw important and influential changes in the conception and practices of magic; and yet, despite modern perceptions, this period did not experience a witch craze.  For much of the period, magical practice was dominated by learned men, most of whom were clerics.  This module looks in detail at the forms of magic which they attempted, and traces the gradual changes in attitudes towards magic.  We also look at historical debates about the causes of the early-modern witch craze, and study the evidence provided by late-medieval documents on questions such as the role of the Inquisition.

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

The Romantic Revolution: Culture, Environment and Society in England, c.1790-c.1900

Code:

HS3T88

Convenor:

DR Jeremy Burchardt

Summary:

The Romantic Revolution was the third of the great revolutions that shaped the modern world, alongside the French and Industrial Revolutions.  It transformed culture in a way that was comparable to the effect of the French Revolution on politics and the Industrial Revolution on the economy.  While less easy to define than the other two revolutions, the Romantic Revolution had, in the view of scholars such as Isaiah Berlin and Tim Blanning, still greater consequences for the way we think and perhaps even feel about the world.  This module looks at Romanticism in England from its origins in the eighteenth century through to its nineteenth-century apogee. 

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Africa from European Settlement to Nelson Mandela

Code:

HS3T89

Convenor:

DR Heike Schmidt

Summary:

Part 3 Options involve the study of specific periods, subjects or types of history.

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Poor Law to Hostile Environment: Repatriation, Deportation and Exclusion from Britain 1800-2016

Code:

HS3T90

Convenor:

DR Daniel Renshaw

Summary:

This module will examine the fraught and often controversial language and policy based around concepts of repatriation and expulsion of migrant and minority groups in modern Britain. Beginning in the early nineteenth century and concluding in the twenty-first century, it will consider concepts of the ‘self’ and the ‘other’, what constitutes ‘foreignness’ and ‘home’, attitudes towards migration, and the relationship between voluntary and forced forms of repatriation.

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Politics and Popular Culture: Post-Arab Spring Egypt

Code:

HS3T91

Convenor:

DR Dina Rezk

Summary:

This module examines the relationship between politics and popular culture through an examination of post-Arab Spring Egypt as a case study. As well as providing a historical overview of events in Egypt since 2011, we explore various forms of Egyptian popular culture to understand how ordinary people voiced and thereby gave shape to key revolutionary themes including resistance, repression and struggles over the meaning of the revolution.

Assessment Method:

Exam 50%, Assignment 50%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Policing the United States

Code:

HS3T92

Convenor:

MISS Liz Barnes

Summary:

This module traces the evolution of policing in the United States, from the use of watchmen and militias in colonial North America to the militarised forces we see today. We will examine the role that policing plays in society, particularly in crafting ideas of ‘otherness’ and maintaining established hierarchies of class, race, and gender. We will think about the place that police forces occupy in the American imagination and in American culture, and use what we have learned about the past to reflect on recent calls to defund or abolish the police.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Aesthetics

Code:

PP3AEST

Convenor:

DR Severin Schroeder

Summary:

The module will be concerned with conceptual questions concerning aesthetic judgements and the nature of art, beginning with an investigation of the concept of beauty and Kant’s account of it.  We shall then consider different answers to the question ‘What is art?’ Finally, we shall discuss philosophical problems which arise in specific art forms, such as the expression of emotions in music, the question whether fiction can be a valuable source of knowledge, the paradox of tragedy. 

 

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Business Ethics and Social Responsibility

Code:

PP3BESR

Convenor:

DR Charlotte Newey

Summary:

This module will introduce students to a variety of ethical challenges and considerations for professionals and corporate enterprises alike. We consider issues such as: the importance of ethics in the business environment, the grounds of professional ethics, moral reasoning in a business environment, whether doing well is compatible with doing good, and how to allocate social responsibility.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Chinese Philosophy

Code:

PP3CP

Convenor:

PROF John Preston

Summary:

This module introduces students to the following major figures in the Confucian tradition from early Chinese philosophy: Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi. (Works by Mozi and Han Feizi will also figure). We will look at central texts from each of these thinkers in detail, and consider relations not only between their ideas but also between their ideas and those of notable philosophers from the Western philosophical tradition.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Dissertation in Philosophy

Code:

PP3DIS

Convenor:

DR Jumbly Grindrod

Summary:

In this module you will pursue an in-depth philosophical project of your own devising. While predominately working independently you will receive one-on-one supervision with an academic working in the same field of study, and you will be encouraged to collaborate with other students on the module. 

Assessment Method:

Oral 25%, Dissertation 65%, Set exercise 10%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Fairness

Code:

PP3FAI

Convenor:

DR Charlotte Newey

Summary:

This module addresses the concept of fairness and its relation to other moral concepts and considerations.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Happy, Good and Meaningful Lives

Code:

PP3HGML

Convenor:

PROF Philip Stratton-Lake

Summary:

Happiness and well-being are not only important from the agent’s point of view, but are essential to many moral debates. In this module we will analyse the key notions of happiness, a good life, and a meaningful life to gain a better understanding of each. We will also consider various views on what things make for a happy life, a good life, and a meaningful life. The module will look at both historical and current views on these issues.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Philosophy of Law

Code:

PP3LA

Convenor:

DR George Mason

Summary:

This module will introduce students to basic issues in the philosophy of law, including the nature of crime and punishment.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Philosophy of Language: Animals, Babies, Colours, and Language Death

Code:

PP3LANG

Convenor:

DR Nat Hansen

Summary:

Philosophy of language concerns the nature of meaning, language, and communication. It seeks answers to the following questions: Are human beings the only animals who communicate with language? What kinds of mental capacities do babies need to acquire language? How do languages develop and change over time? What is the significance of the fact that languages have different color terms?  What happens when a language dies? Is preventing language death valuable? Can languages go into decline? In particular, is English getting worse over time? How does the development of writing affect the way we use language? What makes some uses of language “correct” and other uses “incorrect”? What is the significance of the fact that some languages don’t have a word for the color “blue”?  Why do we so easily draw conclusions about people who have certain kinds of accents? Why is it so hard to program computers to have natural-sounding human conversations?

Addressing these questions will require an examination of foundational texts in philosophy, linguistics, psychology and anthropology from the 19th, 20th centuries, as well as cutting-edge research informed by developments in the cognitive sciences.

Assessment Method:

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Christian, Islamic and Jewish Mediaeval Philosophy

Code:

PP3MEDI

Convenor:

DR Luke Elson

Summary:

This module introduces students to mediaeval philosophy (roughly, the period from 500 to 1500 AD), including thinkers from at least two of the named religious traditions. We will focus on several representative topics (such as moral obligation, or God’s existence, the problem of universals, or the motion of projectiles) and look at what some major thinkers of the period had to say about it. Careful, repeated reading of difficult texts is a crucial part of this module.

Assessment Method:

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

The Morality of Abortion

Code:

PP3MOA

Convenor:

PROF Philip Stratton-Lake

Summary:

In this module we will look at both sides of the debate about the morality of abortion. We will consider different approaches to the issue, eg., rights based, value based, reasons based, feminist arguments, etc, read the main literature for each approach, and assess the various arguments. Authors to be considered will typically include Thomson, Singer, Dworkin, Tooley, and Marquis.

Assessing these various argument will take us into various more general issues, such as what makes it wrong to kill adult humans, the conditions of having rights, as well as issues outside of moral philosophy that are relevant to this debate, such as the nature of personhood, personal identity, the identity conditions of organisms, philosophy of mind, philosophy of biology, and metaphysics.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Philosophy of Religion

Code:

PP3REL

Convenor:

DR George Mason

Summary:

This module will introduce students to basic issues in the philosophy of religion.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Reason, Value & Knowledge

Code:

PP3RVK

Convenor:

PROF Philip Stratton-Lake

Summary:

To familiarise students with important concepts and debates in contemporary moral theory.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

The Scandal of Film

Code:

PP3SCF

Convenor:

PROF Maximilian De Gaynesford

Summary:

Films play a central role in our cultural life. But many aspects remain unclear and call for philosophical investigation. For example, we often attribute enormous powers to films. They teach us about reality! They reveal the human condition! They make us better people! They make us worse people! They include some of the greatest art yet produced! They do philosophy—better and more seriously than philosophers do! But are any of these claims actually true? Is it even possible, for example, that a film might be a work of art? It would be a scandal to go on believing these claims and not investigate them. So this course will.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Speech Attacks: bullshit, lies, propaganda

Code:

PP3SPA

Convenor:

DR Nat Hansen

Summary:

This module focuses on the way language can be used aggressively, to deceive, manipulate, and oppress. The theoretical foundation of the approach to language taken in this module is speech act theory, which investigates the various ways that we use language to perform actions ranging from betting, promising, and telling, to insulting, bullshitting, and silencing.  We will begin by discussing the foundations of speech act theory and examine a variety of ways that it has been applied to philosophical problems in feminist theory and political and social theory. We will also discuss lies and bullshit, and what (if anything) is wrong with these uses of language. And we will discuss the nature of propaganda and “fake news” and how to resist its effects. 

Exploring the questions raised in this module will take us into debates in philosophy of language, epistemology, feminist theory, and political philosophy. We will look at real-world examples in which language is used aggressively and use the tools provided by speech act theory to help us understand how those uses function, and how they can be opposed. We will read work by some (if not all) of the following authors: J.L. Austin, Harry Frankfurt, Sally Haslanger, Rae Langton, Ishani Maitra, Geoff Nunberg, Martha Nussbaum, George Orwell, Jason Stanley, and Lynne Tirrell.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 90%, Oral 10%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Society and State in Ancient Greece

Code:

PP3SSG

Convenor:

DR George Mason

Summary:

A module devoted to the study of classic works in Ancient Greek political philosophy, including some or all of Aristotle’s Politics and Rhetoric and Plato’s Republic and Gorgias. We look at the philosophers’ conceptions of politics, society, and government, and examine their relevance to modern concerns and issues.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of Mind and Action

Code:

PP3WMA

Convenor:

DR Severin Schroeder

Summary:

This module introduces students to Ludwig Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mind and action, mainly based on the relevant discussions in his Philosophical Investigations. 

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

World Views in Western Philosophy

Code:

PP3WWP

Convenor:

PROF John Preston

Summary:

What is a world view? What counts a world view, and why? Can world views be evaluated (as true or false, adequate or inadequate), or do we just have to accept that some other people have a different world view, and leave it at that? Are world views the kind of thing that people are consciously aware of, or not? Might they somehow be more subterranean than that? Could there be someone who has no world view?

This module covers the idea of a world view, some of the history of that concept, its critical evaluation, and certain uses of the concept in Western philosophy. We look at: the history of the concept in German philosophers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; how scientists came to make use of the concept from the mid-nineteenth century, and then some ways in which the concept of a world view and closely related concepts were used or critiqued by certain philosophers in the 20th century (including Ludwig Wittgenstein, Oswald Spengler, G.E.Moore, Michael Polanyi, Thomas Kuhn, and Donald Davidson).

Within the works of these philosophers, we look at: the remarks Wittgenstein made about world views from the time of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) to his one of his last works, On Certainty (1949-51); G.E.Moore’s attempt to defend what he called ‘the common sense view of the world’, and Wittgenstein’s critique of that attempt; Michael Polanyi’s use of the idea of an ‘interpretation of nature’; Thomas Kuhn’s use of the term ‘paradigm’, and Donald Davidson’s critique of ‘the very idea of a conceptual scheme’.

(Note that Part 3 modules in the Department of Philosophy are driven by student interest: the University will not allow us to run any that do not enrol enough students (the minimum number is 12)).

Assessment Method:

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

The Anthropology of Heritage and Cultural Property

Code:

AR3HCP

Convenor:

DR Alanna Cant

Summary:

This module focuses on the concepts, institutions, politics, and legal claims of heritage and cultural property in the contemporary world. You will learn about the historical development of these concepts and the national and global institutions, such as English Heritage and UNESCO, through which they are promoted. You will develop a critical understanding of the political, economic, social and environmental effects of these processes. You will also develop your understanding of how heritage has become an important global industry premised on economies of tourism and heritage site conservation. By looking at different cases of heritage and cultural property, you will investigate such questions as: What is the relationship between heritage, identity and the nation-state? What happens when culture becomes a resource? Can the concept of cultural property afford the protections that indigenous and minority groups seek? What are the consequences of natural and human made threats to heritage sites? Course materials will primarily be academic texts and documentary films about specific cases from all over the world. The module will be delivered through a series of lectures, seminar sessions (small groups and general discussions), and documentary films. It will also include presentations by guest speakers who work in the heritage industries.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 100%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

X

Module details


Title:

The Archaeology of Crusading

Code:

AR3M7

Convenor:

DR Aleks Pluskowski

Summary:

This module reviews the archaeological approaches to the crusading movement and the related processes of colonisation, religious conversion and inter-cultural exchange at the fringes of medieval Christian Europe - covering the years AD1095-1492. It is taught through lectures and seminars, and is examined through an assessed essay, seminar performance and a focused report.

Assessment Method:

Assignment 60%, Oral 10%, Report 30%

Disclaimer:

The modules described on this page are what we currently offer. Modules may change for your year of study as we regularly review our offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

Code Module Convenor
HS3CCO Crisis, Change, Opportunity: Italy from 1968 to the Present PROF Daniela La Penna
HS3DAC Discovering Archives and Collections DR Jacqui Turner
HS3HED History Education DR Elizabeth Matthew
HS3HLD Dissertation in History DR Heike Schmidt
HS3SAU Anarchy in the UK: Punk, Politics and Youth Culture in Britain, 1976-84 PROF Matthew Worley
HS3SCW Cold War Berlin: Politics and Culture in a Divided City, 1945-89 PROF Patrick Major
HS3SEU Eugenics from 1865 to the Present Day PROF David Stack
HS3SHP Heretics and Popes: Heresy and Persecution in the Medieval World PROF Rebecca Rist
HS3T100 Sexual Politics: Gender, Sex, and Feminism in Britain after 1918 DR Natalie Thomlinson
HS3T101 Pirates of the Caribbean: Empire, Slavery, and Society, 1550-1750 DR Richard Blakemore
HS3T102 Melancholy Medicine: Healing the Body and Mind in Early Modern England, 1570-1730 MS Amie Bolissian McRae
HS3T25 Medieval Magic and the Origins of the Witch-Craze PROF Anne Lawrence
HS3T88 The Romantic Revolution: Culture, Environment and Society in England, c.1790-c.1900 DR Jeremy Burchardt
HS3T89 Africa from European Settlement to Nelson Mandela DR Heike Schmidt
HS3T90 Poor Law to Hostile Environment: Repatriation, Deportation and Exclusion from Britain 1800-2016 DR Daniel Renshaw
HS3T91 Politics and Popular Culture: Post-Arab Spring Egypt DR Dina Rezk
HS3T92 Policing the United States MISS Liz Barnes
PP3AEST Aesthetics DR Severin Schroeder
PP3BESR Business Ethics and Social Responsibility DR Charlotte Newey
PP3CP Chinese Philosophy PROF John Preston
PP3DIS Dissertation in Philosophy DR Jumbly Grindrod
PP3FAI Fairness DR Charlotte Newey
PP3HGML Happy, Good and Meaningful Lives PROF Philip Stratton-Lake
PP3LA Philosophy of Law DR George Mason
PP3LANG Philosophy of Language: Animals, Babies, Colours, and Language Death DR Nat Hansen
PP3MEDI Christian, Islamic and Jewish Mediaeval Philosophy DR Luke Elson
PP3MOA The Morality of Abortion PROF Philip Stratton-Lake
PP3REL Philosophy of Religion DR George Mason
PP3RVK Reason, Value & Knowledge PROF Philip Stratton-Lake
PP3SCF The Scandal of Film PROF Maximilian De Gaynesford
PP3SPA Speech Attacks: bullshit, lies, propaganda DR Nat Hansen
PP3SSG Society and State in Ancient Greece DR George Mason
PP3WMA Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of Mind and Action DR Severin Schroeder
PP3WWP World Views in Western Philosophy PROF John Preston
AR3HCP The Anthropology of Heritage and Cultural Property DR Alanna Cant
AR3M7 The Archaeology of Crusading DR Aleks Pluskowski

These are the modules that we currently offer. They may change for your year of study as we regularly review our module offerings to ensure they’re informed by the latest research and teaching methods.

Fees

New UK/Republic of Ireland students: £9,250*

New international students: £20,300

*UK/Republic of Ireland fee changes

UK/Republic of Ireland undergraduate tuition fees are regulated by the UK government. These fees are subject to parliamentary approval and any decision on raising the tuition fees cap for new UK students would require the formal approval of both Houses of Parliament before it becomes law.

EU student fees

With effect from 1 August 2021, new EU students will pay international tuition fees. For exceptions, please read the UK government’s guidance for EU students.

Additional costs

Some courses will require additional payments for field trips and extra resources. You will also need to budget for your accommodation and living costs. See our information on living costs for more details.

Financial support for your studies

You may be eligible for a scholarship or bursary to help pay for your study. Students from the UK may also be eligible for a student loan to help cover these costs. See our fees and funding information for more information on what's available.

Flexible courses (price per 10 credit module)

UK/Republic of Ireland students: £750

International students: £1275

Careers

Throughout your degree you will complete career and skills related modules, encouraging you to think about what career you would like and what skills you will need. If you would like a career in teaching, or in archives or records management, try our optional third-year modules, History education and Discovering Archives and Collections. We have had a high success rate from students who have completed History Education, with many of our graduates gaining places for Initial Teacher Training, but both these modules develop a wide range of interpersonal, organisational, presentational and research skills readily transferable to other areas of employment.

Our graduates are valued by employers for their research, analytical, teamwork and communication skills. 92% of graduates from History are in work or further study 15 months after the end of their course [1]. Previous graduates have found employment in the civil service, journalism, consultancy, finance, local and central government, and recent employers have included The British Museum, Cambridge University Press, The Football Association, House of Commons, MI5, Ministry of Defence, Morgan Stanley, Yellow Media Works, local authorities and other universities.

[1] Based on our analysis of HESA data © HESA 2022, Graduate Outcomes Survey 2019/20; includes first degree History responders.

Contextual offers


We make contextual offers for all our courses.

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