CLAS40330 Latin for Research – The aim of this module is to promote self-motivated study of Latin as a preliminary to, and as providing an essential tool for, research in the general field of Classics. Students will gain sufficient knowledge of Latin to enable them to read original sources in the language with the requisite aids (dictionaries, grammars, commentaries) to hand.
Formatives may include: Weekly language exercises (3x classes per week in terms 1&2)
Summatives: 2 x Written Examinations
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CLAS40430 Ancient Greek for Research – The aim of this module is to promote self-motivated study of Ancient Greek as a preliminary to, and as providing an essential tool for, research in the general field of Classics. Students will gain sufficient knowledge of ancient Greek to enable them to begin to read original sources in the language with the requisite aids (dictionaries, grammars, commentaries) to hand.
CLAS41130 Religious Life in the Roman Near East - This module explores to what degree the religious cultures of the various places and regions within the Roman Levant were different from each other, and whether a common Near Eastern religion can be recognized. By the end of this module, students should have acquired a close familiarity with the wide range of relevant source materials, and be able to understand and appreciate the particularities of the various patterns of worship in the Roman Near East.
Formatives may include: Short Essays
Summatives: Long Essay
CLAS42230 The Classical Tradition: Art, Literature, Thought - This module seeks to provide an overview of the sub-discipline of the Classical Tradition, i.e. the reception of Greco-Roman antiquity in later centuries. It will also address the ideological implications of the Classical Tradition, such as the relation between high culture and low and the interplay between the Classical Tradition and the histories of scholarship and education.
Formatives may include: Short Essay
CLAS43530 Aristotle’s Systems - This module approaches Aristotle's philosophy from a holistic perspective. It seeks to present and compare various systems found in Aristotle's writings, according to the division of knowledge outlined by Aristotle himself. By the end of the module, students will have a general view of Aristotelian philosophy and will be in a position to develop their own unique responses to the classic question of whether Aristotle's thought holds together as a whole, or whether the complex of systems presented by Aristotle is less coherent than some scholars have previously thought.
Formatives may include: Short Essay and a presentation
CLAS44330 Baroque Modes - This module examines modes of heterodoxy and excess in classical literature and the arts and the way in which they have been received in the post-classical world, heavily influencing the modern concept of the Baroque. Students will examine what characterizes ‘Baroque’ style, as opposed to other kinds of visual and literary presentation, and the impact that this has had upon modern art-historical narratives. They will consider what characterizes Baroque style and how perceptions of ancient art and literature have influenced modern ideas about it.
CLAS44430 Edessa: The Athens of the East - This module explores the history of the city of Edessa and the emergence of its unique civilisation, art, and literature in the context of the Roman Near East. A region with a rich archaeological record that includes inscriptions, mosaics, and papyri in both Greek and Edessa's own vernacular language, a dialect of Aramaic later known as Syriac. This module will provide students with the academic tools necessary to access Syriac epigraphic, documentary, archaeological, and literary sources for their own research in fields such as Roman history, literature, philosophy, science, religion and magic.
Formatives may include: Class debates and a presentation, short essay based on presentation
*CLAS44530 Epigraphy in the Ancient World - In this module, students will explore a variety of research questions by studying a wide selection of ancient inscriptions. In doing so, students will develop their understanding of the ancient ‘epigraphic habit’, as well as exploring the ways in which this epigraphic evidence can illuminate various aspects of political, religious or cultural activity in the Greek and Roman worlds. This module will equip students with the skills needed to ask questions based on inscribed evidence and will also introduce them to the practical techniques of the epigrapher.
Summatives: Short Essay and presentation
*This module has changed title and content
CLAS45230: Linear B: Mycenaean Greek and Homer’s World - This module aims to introduce students to the study of Linear B, the earliest written form of the Greek language, while also focusing on the socio-political structure of Mycenaean Greece to the extent that this can be reconstructed through the tablets and surviving material culture. Classes will begin with the introduction of the script and a first contact with historical linguistics before moving on to the actual reading of tablets and their association with the Mycenaean society and its Homeric echoes.
CLAS4XXXX The Unity of Virtues in Philosophy - By drawing on writings from a wide range of both classical and medieval scholars, this module seeks to compare ancient and medieval arguments with arguments offered by contemporary philosophical debates on the unity of the virtues. By the end of the module, students will be familiar with several approaches in ancient and medieval philosophy as well as with the ethical and epistemological systems offered by the authors discussed. Students will be able to assess complex philosophical arguments, to think critically about them, and to develop their own responses to these arguments.
CLAS4XXX World of Nero - This module will give postgraduate students the opportunity to explore the key literary works of the period, as well as the key philosophical explorations of Seneca the Younger. In addition to the cultural and intellectual material, this module also offers students the opportunity to explore the political climate of the Neronian period and the historiographical reaction to the emperor. This incorporates an investigation into more recent scholarly approaches to Nero and his world, including the question of whether we can uncover the ‘real’ Nero.
CLAS4XXX Crisis and Recovery: The Roman Empire During the 3rd Century CE - This module will provide students with the academic tools necessary to access and critically evaluate Latin and Greek epigraphic, documentary, archaeological, legal, and literary sources for their own research. Students will also develop an awareness of the different challenges the Roman Empire faced during the third century CE and the ways in which it adapted and transformed as a result of this turbulent time.
ENGL41730: Romantic Forms of Grief - Building upon analytic and persuasive skills acquired at undergraduate level, this module will introduce students to the cultural, religious, social, and historical forces that have shaped Romantic poetry about grief. Students are expected to read in detail specified works that centre on loss, memory, death, or mourning by Romantic poets (which may include Blake, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Smith, Byron, Hemans, Shelley, Clare, and Keats). Students will explore the poetic achievement of the poets studied, in part through comparison and connection between the works of them and their poetic treatment of grief.
Formatives include: In seminar presentations
Summatives include: Essays
ENGL44230: Short Fiction Today - This module examines a range of postmodern and contemporary short fictional forms in English, including the short story, short story cycle, novella, microfiction and digital short story. It addresses works by British, Irish, North American, African and Indian writers, examining the ways in which short fiction has proven itself remarkably adaptable to the changing demands of literary production and study in their global context. By encouraging a balance of detailed critical analysis, focused research, and more adventurous theoretical speculation, the module aims to provide a means for revisiting the relation of literary and the contemporary formation of subjectivity in a global context. The prescribed stories will vary from year to year and will draw on a selection of writers.
ENGL44430: Romanticism and the Forms of Romance – In this module students will develop advanced knowledge of the forms taken by a single literary genre in the Romantic Period in Britain (c. 1790-1830), in an aesthetic context, informed by practices in other art forms of the period - especially architecture and design - and by wider aesthetic and cultural debate. Students will read a selection of poems and novels by (among others) Ann Radcliffe, Charlotte Smith, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Walter Scott, John Keats, and Felicia Hemans. Some seminars will focus on ‘romances in stone’, with special reference to Strawberry Hill and Abbotsford, and on ‘romance’ interiors and remodellings, with special reference to Durham and the north-east (including Durham and Alnwick Castles).
ENGL44930: Reading Medieval Literature – This module will introduce students to key genres and texts from across the Middle Ages, in particular the 12th-15th centuries. Students will explore modern critical approaches to ‘the medieval period’ using a range of perspectives and methodologies. Medieval content will be taken from a variety of genres, including epic, chronicle, romance, hagiography, autobiography, and lyric. Texts amd authors studies amy include but are not limited to: Abelard, William of Malmesbury, the Alexandreis, Chaucer, the Paston letters, the Roman de la Rose, and Piers Plowman. Critical perspectives will be introduced using key authors/texts from the 20th and 21st centuries such as Eric Auerbach, C. S. Lewis, Paul Strohm, and Carolyn Dinshaw.
ENGL45330: Illness and Narrative Practice (online)- This module will examine contemporary narrative practices of illness from a critical medical humanities perspective. Key sets of texts will be introduced and drawn into dialogue, focussing on the following areas: literary illness narratives, foundational theoretical accounts of the production and reception of narratives of illness, and examples of narrative approaches to illness by researchers and practitioners working across the medical humanities. The module is designed with interdisciplinary risk-taking in mind: students will be encouraged to think critically about what constitutes a narrative of illness in intersubjective, ethical and instrumental as well as literary critical and theoretical terms.
Formatives include: Short essay proposal
Summatives include: Presentation and Essay
ENGL45930: Neurodiversity and the Humanities (online) - In this module, students will engage with a diverse range of literary, historical, and cultural texts that decentre the neurotypical experience in favour of an alternative that diverges from the norm within a given socio-political context. The module starts by interrogating the diagnostic basis of several conditions labelled as neurodivergent, bringing cognitive and developmental psychology into conversation with writings from neurodivergent advocates and activists. The module then moves on a weekly basis through various critical reconfigurations of neurodivergence and engagements with different media. The module makes use of a variety of media – including zines, comics, dance, theatre, stand-up comedy, and literary texts –to interrogate the accessibility of differing forms of presentation.
Formatives include: Weekly learning log
Summatives include: Student devised assignment (including planning), annotated Bibliography, selection of learning logs.
ENGL46130: Qualitative approaches to Digital Humanities (30 credits) - In this module students will consider a range of digital technologies and their application to humanities research and cultural heritage organisations. Topics can include: the history and development of Digital Humanities; the analysis and anatomy of digital projects; digital musicology; game cultures; textual resources and digital editions; spatial Digital Humanities and crowd-based methods; user studies and interface design; digital techniques in museums and cultural heritage (including field trips to the Oriental Museum and special collections); Digital Humanities beyond the English speaking world- international Digital Humanities and non-roman scripts; Sustaining and preserving digital materials. Students will investigate how digital resources are designed, used and preserved.
Summatives include: Individual Project, critical evaluation of a digital resource
ENGL46230: Writing the Body in the Long Twentieth Century – This module will introduce a broad range of literary and filmic representations of the body, affect, and the senses, from the late nineteenth-century to the contemporary, i.e. the ‘long’ twentieth century, with a particular focus on the ‘high’ modernist years of the 1920s-30s. There is an emphasis on bodily movement and process, considering breathing, dancing, working, fighting, laughing, and more. Students will trace the complex ways in which understandings of the body are framed and transformed by the new styles and modes of representation developed across our period of study. Students will also explore practical exercises, to reflect on the experiences of the reading/viewing body, and encourage attuned engagement with embodied writing.
Formatives include: Film screenings and in seminar presentations
Summatives include: Essay(s)
ENGL46330: Early Modern Science Fiction - The module surveys the earliest science fiction in the English language: an extraordinary corpus of works published between the 1620s and 1680s, which opened new prospects for the literary imagination and created a new literary genre. In this brief but remarkably productive period, English authors first explored topics which are now familiar to us from modern works in the genre, but which were entirely unprecedented in their day. Including topics such as: techno-scientific utopia, space travel, science fictionalised biblical narrative and even satire of sci-fi enthusiasm. Authors covered include (among others): Francis Bacon, John Wilkins, Francis Godwin, Margaret Cavendish, John Milton, and Aphra Behn, along with their ancient and medieval precursors.
ENGL46530: The Uses of Literature: Power to Pleasure - This module explores the Renaissance conception of literature as a means of intervening in the world and transforming the minds and lives of individual readers, connecting this tradition to the aesthetic, formal, and rhetorical features of specific works.It also investigates how Renaissance ideas about the uses of literature continue to inform debates about the uses (or conversely, uselessness) of the humanities today. The module is themed around Power, Health, Self-Help, and Pleasure. Students will explore how idea about the purposes and uses of literature were shaped by a range of (often unacknowledged) ideological, institutional, political, and economic interests and pressures.
Formatives include:
ENGL53630: Narrative Transformations: Medieval Romance to Renaissance Epic - This module will introduce students to varied forms and practices of fiction from Antiquity to the Renaissance. Students will explore the processes whereby some of the great story-matters of the Western Tradition have been transformed over the centuries. Studying this module will provide a basis for possible future research in Medieval or Renaissance literature. Content will be drawn from a range of Classical, Medieval and Renaissance writers normally including Homer, Virgil, Ovid, Chrétien de Troyes, Marie de France, Chaucer, the Gawain-poet, Gower, Malory, Spenser and Shakespeare.
ENGL53830: Literary Masculinity at the Fin-de-Siècle - In this module students will examine the different ways in which masculinity might be 'performed' in literature from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth. They will investigate the nature of the construction of such categories as 'masculine' and 'effeminate'. The module will consider a range of texts from decadent poetry to adventure stories, alongside such historical and cultural themes as Empire, violence, pathology, homosexuality and sport. It is not necessarily intended to reach a consensus on the 'essential nature' of Late Victorian and Edwardian masculinity, but rather to plot the movements and strategies of this textual aspect of gender within the works and historical period examined.
ENGL4XXXX: Subaltern Futurism: Ecology, Agriculture and World Literature – In this module students will explore the literary and theoretical stakes of the global struggle for a post-capitalist food system. They will investigate the cultural logic of contemporary global peasant movements and postcolonial and indigenous food sovereignty movements, focussing in particular on their utopian imaginaries. Students are invited to consider the limits of dominant conceptions of modernity, culture and the future by engaging with literatures and theories of plural temporality, agroecology, eco-feminism, and anti-capitalist resistance.
ENGL 45130: Creative Nonfiction - This module will provide students with both a historical and critical knowledge of, and a practical training in, creative nonfiction. It will cover the three key forms of the genre—memoir, biography, and the essay—as well as variants and hybrids thereof. Students will read a selection of published creative nonfiction (mostly from the late 20th and 21st centuries), with a view toward writerly craft and technique. Many seminars will include a workshop component, in which students read and critique (in writing and / or in person) each other’s work. The workshop format is designed to give students an understanding of how their work is read and received; they may then incorporate such feedback into their edits.
Formatives include: Draft portfolio/essay
Summatives include: Portfolio/Essay
HIST42430: Power and Society in The Late Middle Ages - This module focuses on political power and explores the interaction of power, authority, institutions and structures of rule with ideas, assumptions, and discourses within a range of political and constitutional settings. One of the principal themes of the module is the way in which power was communicated, legitimised, negotiated, contested and challenged. It will examine the interaction between power and society; structures of authority; channels of power; the lineaments of political community and the vocabularies and modes of political discourse.
Formatives include: Short oral discussion assignments
HIST42530: Palaeography: Scribes, Script and History From Antiquity to The Renaissance – In this module students will develop specialist knowledge of the evolution of hand-writing, particularly book scripts, from the first to the sixteenth century AD, both in Latin and, to some extent, the vernaculars, as well as gaining experience in reading and transcribing them. The major script types practised during this long period of European history will be examined in chronological order; the forms of writing will be studied in relation to their contexts and functions, and practice will be given in learning how to read them.
Formatives include: Practice in reading and analysis (discussed and evaluated orally)
HIST42630: Courts and Power in Early-Modern Europe – In this module students will gain an advanced understanding of aspects of the relationship between power and politics in early modern Britain and Europe (c. 1500-1700). This module is taught comparatively and with an emphasis on Britain and Continental Europe. The range of topics studied will usually include: Monarchical government; Nobilities; Empire; Political culture and the Public Sphere; Elite culture and patronage; International diplomacy.
HIST42730: Negotiating Life in The Early Modern England - This module will support students in developing an independent command of primary material in the economic, social and local history of early modern England, with an appreciation of the nature and form of sources and the ability to deploy different methods and techniques to interrogate them. There is a focus on the validity of local and regional histories of economic and social life, and the relationship between locality, region and nation. Students will explore the relationship between archival, printed and material sources such as houses and landscapes.
HIST45130: Intellectuals and Public Opinion in Global History – This module will introduce students to classic theories of public opinion and mass culture as both sources of academic inspiration and as primary sources, and to consider how to relate these theories to more recent secondary scholarship on the history of public opinion. Students will focus on the different ways in which political thinkers, social scientists, and government officials have conceptualized, quantified, debated, and institutionalized public opinion in the twentieth century.
Formatives include: Oral presentation and primary source analysis
HIST45730: A Safe Democracy? Constitutionalism, Extremism, and Political Violence in Modern England, C. 1890-1939 – This module is designed to help students develop an independent command of primary material in the history of modern British politics and political culture. Students will focus on Britain in the early twentieth century. Outwardly, an industrialized, urbanized society, with a long-established tradition of parliamentary government. Britain seemed the very model of the modern, civilian, and constitutional state. However, elements of jingoism, nationalism and paranoia; coupled with new challenges to the establishment such as the suffragette movement and paramilitary violence in Ireland make this a turbulent and highly interesting point in history.
HIST46330: The Nature of History: Approaches to Environmental History - The objective of this module is to provide a thorough introduction to environmental history from a global perspective. It will examine the development of environmental history and explore some key debates within the field. As a team-taught course, individual seminars will be taught be a variety of regional specialists working on a wide range of historical periods and topics. They will each introduce key themes in environmental history that build upon their own research.
HIST46730: The City in History - This module explores the development of cities through history by looking at several key themes in urban history and a range of examples across time and space. European nineteenth- and twentieth-century urbanisation is critically re-examined in the broader comparative framework of earlier periods, other areas of the globe, and factors causing decline. To what extent colonial histories as well as processes of and approaches to decolonisation can be applied to cities is also explored.
HIST47330: Emotional Architectures: Building Power and Emotion in the Late Antique World c.250–750 - Emotional architectures can be understood as buildings or material and elemental constructions that elicit specific emotional responses in those who see or enter them. In its most basic form, the historical study of emotional architectures involves the reconstruction, analysis, and contextualization of the structure, decoration, and atmosphere of a particular building or monument within the wider socio-political environment in which it was constructed, developed, and used. This module will explore this topic through a series of case studies on emotional architectures in the late antique world c. 250-750. Students will develop an understanding of the various historical and interdisciplinary approaches required to detect the existence of emotional architectures in the past. They will also use these to think about the practice of writing history.
Formatives include: Short Project Proposal
Summatives include: Independent Project
ARTS40230: Reimagining Health Research: Methodologies in the Critical Medical Humanities
This module will introduce students to a variety of research methodologies utilised in critical medical humanities research. Students will gain foundational familiarity with critical methodologies, qualitative methodologies and quantitative methods that can support interdisciplinary medical humanities research. Students will gain practice in the evaluation of different kinds of evidence and assessing the strengths and limitations of methodological approaches within the varied contexts of health research. Working collaboratively, students will have the opportunity to apply this knowledge in the design of original research projects.
Formative assessment may include: Short essays and reflection tasks
Summative assessment may include: Group presentations, Progressive paper, Group project proposal and recorded presentation, written peer review.
ARTS40330: Concepts and Frameworks in the Critical Medical Humanities
This module will give students a comprehensive introduction to the critical medical humanities. By identifying the factors that gave rise to its development and distinction from ‘first-wave’ medical humanities, students will develop an understanding of the field’s key conceptual frameworks and values. This includes a commitment to working across disciplines and sectors and with communities with lived experience.
The module will bring different disciplinary perspectives to bear on key concepts within the field such as embodiment, data, evidence, symptom, inequalities, measurement, narrative, voice and identity. Particular attention will be given to the sites, spaces and places in which health is constituted and contested.
Formative assessment may include: A Student Devised Assessment Project Proposal
Summative assessment may include: A Student Devised Assessment, Essay, Annotated Bibliography
The environmental humanities is a discipline that has emerged in the last two decades which brings to bear the methods and insights of humanities disciplines on the environmental crisis. This module introduces students to a range of disciplinary approaches to the environmental crisis, displaying the ways in which the arts and humanities can complement and to some extent challenge responses that are governed exclusively by scientific and technological norms. Precise themes to be covered will vary from year to year but may include issues relating to the Anthropocene, the energy humanities, gender, race, class and the environment, and queer ecology; as well as topics in the blue humanities, food studies, world-ecology, and disaster studies.
Formative assessment may include: Essay plans for presentation and the essay.
Summative assessment may include: Group presentation, Essay, short piece aimed at a public audience.
MELA45630: Visual Modernities – In this module students will explore how cultures around the globe have used visual mediums to imagine themselves as ‘modern’, and how avant-garde and modernist ways of seeing help construct social realities in modernity. The module studies particular forms of representation in a variety of colonial, postcolonial, and decolonial cultural contexts, including Latin America and the Caribbean, North Africa, the Mediterranean and the Levant, Southeastern Europe, and the Jewish diaspora.
Formatives include: Individual Presentations, student-led group discussion
MELA46130: Selected Topics of World Literature – This module will focus on literatures from around the world, organized around topics that recur in different literatures as they speak to the experience of living in the pre-modern and/or modern world. Texts will be read in translation, but students will be encouraged to engage with texts in their original language if they are able to do so. Topics may include (but are not limited to) the following: "Literature of the City"; "Gothic and Monstrous Narratives"; "Literature and the Sacred"; "Revolution and Aesthetics"; "Environments"; "Justice and Rights"; "Transnational Imaginaries;" "Gender, Sexuality and Literature;" "Literature and the Visual."
Formatives include: Presentations, student-led group discussion
MELA46230: Science, Technology and the Remaking of Nature - This module will analyse how the arts have engaged with technological invention and scientific discovery, taking inspiration from their promise while also criticising their amenability to ideological exploitation. A combination of topics taken from across the globe and over the course of history will enable students to explore debates about the relationship between nature, culture and technology. An indicative range of topics and periods for consideration will include scientific revolutions; the Enlightenment and colonial science; evolution and the rise of industrial capitalism; the porous borders between science, technology and fiction; the Anthropocene, citizen science and technological life.
Formatives include: Student-led group discussion
MELA45230: Critical Curatorship - This module involves a series of workshops with academics and practitioners, and an extended work placement. The workshops will offer critical engagement with key theoretical texts in the field of museum studies and critical curatorship, drawing on work by Hooper-Greenhill, Obrist, MacDonald, Weibel and others. Students will foster an understanding of the museum and gallery environment and of how to interrogate and handle a range of museum objects. The placement element of the module will provide valuable work experience in a museum or gallery.
Formatives include: Informal placement feedback, short podcast style presentation
Summatives include: Reflective Report
MELA4XXXX: World Drama: Themes and Trends – This module approaches world drama through a focus on specific playwrights and theatre movements that are structured around specific themes such as bodies and subjects, borders and migration, land and ecology, translation, justice and rights, colonial and postcolonial histories, illness and disability, science and technology.
The module offers a chronologically and generically diverse range of dramatic texts from the modern and pre-modern period which will be read in translation but with the option of engaging with the texts in their original language.
Formatives include: Presentations, student-led discussions
MELA47415: Researching Translation Processes and Products (including subtitling) - This module examines various theories of translation and issues in translation, considering questions related to social aspects of translation, gender and sexuality, cognition and process, world literature in translation, and translation history, among others. All theoretical points will be considered against practical translation cases. The mode of instruction is interactive, and relies on the critical analysis of the key features of translation theories and testing them against actual translation activity. Emphasis will be placed on academic research skills, such as primary planning, conducting a research project, standards of referencing, and identifying case studies.
Formatives include: In class group presentations
MELA4XXXX: Translation Practica (including advanced Computer-Assisted Translation Tools) - The aim of this module is to introduce students to modern translation practices which are used in the present-day translation industry and as part of intercultural projects. It will feature practices in a variety of interlingual, intralingual and intersemiotic types of transfer, such as gist translation, translation-compilation, localisation, transcreation, pre- and post-editing for machine translation, editing, precis writing, plain language, terminology management, and cultural consultation. Students will gain skills of various operations with source texts going beyond full-text interlingual translation.
Formatives include: In class presentations, student led group discussions, prepared assignments
MUSI42330: Audiovisual Media Creation for Research - This module will discuss and demonstrate advanced techniques of capturing and editing audio and video and teach how to produce high quality digital audio and video. In addition to developing technical skills, students will explore structure and narrative in video production and develop understanding of the use of digital audio and video for documentation, analysis and creative work in a research context. Students will acquire theoretical background, comprising elements of visual anthropology and visual arts, and will be expected to reflect critically on their work.
Formatives include: Short audio and video recordings, project proposal, short edited audiovisual project
Summatives include: Independent audiovisual project, commentary and technical appendix
PHIL40330: Science, Race and the Enlightenment - This module will allow students to become familiar with arguments relating to why a historical perspective is important for understanding Enlightenment notions of science and race. Students will explore the general relationship between science, race and the Enlightenment before using case studies to examine how Enlightenment notions of science and race were critiqued or modified by authors of African or Indian descent during the long nineteenth century.
Formatives may include: Short Essay(s)
Summatives may include: Essay(s)
PHIL40430: Philosophical Issues in Science and Medicine - This module will provide an overview of the central philosophical issues in science and medicine and the relationships between them. This includes but is not limited to the demarcation between science and non-science; causation; the role of experiment in science; natural kinds and scientific realism. Students will also explore the moral and conceptual issues raised by the beginning and end of human life including criteria for human life, personhood and identity.
PHIL40730: Current Issues in Metaphysics – This module will address a range of topics within metaphysics that have been the focus of recent attention. Each will be based around a specific text. Topics may include (among others): causation, emergence, essentialism, metametaphysics, metaphysical realism/antirealism, modality, space, substance and time.
Students will gain the knowledge and skills required to pursue self-directed research on a specific topic under the direction of a member of staff.
PHIL40830: Current Issues in Ethics - This module will address a range of topics within metaphysics that have been the focus of recent attention. Topics may include (among others): consequentialism and deontology, rationality, the idea of virtue, ethics and emotion: love, ethics and emotion: death, the idea of evil (with reference to the Holocaust).
PHIL41030: Phenomenology And the Sciences of Mind – This module will provide an overview of recent work in phenomenology. Topics may include (among others): experience and embodiment, enactive perception, emotion and feeling, interpersonal interaction and social context, psychopathology, naturalism, ethics and the philosophy of action.
PHIL41130: Current Issues in Aesthetics and Theory of Art – This module will provide students with an overview of recent work in philosophical aesthetics in its relation to artistic criticism and art history, discussing what is meant by the terms 'aesthetics' and 'theory of art'. Questions and debates central to the field of philosophical aesthetics will be addressed, including but not limited to the following topics: art and nature, Kantian aesthetics, criticism and taste, adorno and modernism, art and emotion.
PHIL41330: Ethics, Medicine and History – This module will cover central ethical issues in medicine and medical science, past and present. Students will examine foundational texts of medical ethics and their historical context, such as John Gregory's Lectures on the Duties and Qualifications of a Physician, Thomas Percival's Medical Ethics, the Code of Ethics of the American Medical Association, and the present ethical guidance provided by the British Medical Association. This will frame discussion around other areas of medical concern such as animal and human experimentation, confidentiality and consent, as well as the ethical issues surrounding stem cell research and cloning technologies.
PHIL41430: Current Issues in Mind and Action – This module will address inter-related topics in philosophy of mind and action including but not limited to: perception, individuating the senses, mental causation, action/agent causation, emotion, personal identity and self-consciousness.
PHIL41730: Philosophy Of the Social Sciences - This module concerns the nature of social scientific theory and its applications. Topics may include some or all of the following: measurement, causation and causal explanation, laws in social science, social mechanisms, facts and values, the role of social science in a democratic society, evidence-based social policy, complex systems, social preferences and game theory.
PHIL42130: Current Issues in Environmental Philosophy - This module seeks to address some of the pertinent philosophical questions raised by environmental issues. This includes but is not limited to the following topics: our moral duties to non-human sentient beings, biocentrism, the preservation of endangered species, moral duties to ecosystems, ecologism and political ideology, the idea of wilderness, phenomenology and environmental philosophy, naturalness, epistemic and moral issues surrounding anthropogenic climate change.
PHIL42530: Biomedical Ethics (online) - This module employs work and methods from philosophy, history, clinical bioethics, and law. The topics covered in the course may develop in response to events in both the world and the literature. As well as more familiar topics such as accounts of bioethics and legal-ethical issues, the treatment of animals, end and beginning of life, the course will include issues coming to prominence more recently such as race, non-western bioethical and medical traditions, issues relating to artificial intelligence in medicine, and environmental bioethics.
Formatives may include: Project proposals, Essay planning
Summatives may include: Essay(s) and Public Facing Project
PHIL42630: Knowledge, Power, and Health (online) - The topics covered in this module may develop in response to events in both the world and the literature, and will include well-developed literatures such as the essentials of philosophy of medicine, epidemiology and public health, the literature on social determinants of health, as well as issues coming to prominence more recently such as the epistemology and politics of expertise, race and medicine, the ethics, epidemiology and ontology of intercultural medical disagreement, and the decolonisation of public health.
THEO41630, Modern Catholic Theology: From Newman to Ratzinger - This module address3w the historical situation which gave rise to French post-war ressourcement theology. It introduces a number of the key theologians associated with it such as Maurice Blondel, Henri de Lubac, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Yves Congar, and Karl Rahner. Students will also be introduced to a number of key theological concerns addressed by these authors. Students will explore these issues, as they related to the political concerns of the day, as well as developing a theology that meets the challenges of our present age.
Formatives may include: Essay(s)
THEO41930, Anglican Theology in Context - This module investigates the development of Anglican theology over almost 500 years, studying the formative theological, intellectual, cultural, social and political influences upon some key figures and currents in the Anglican theological tradition. The may include (amongst other subjects: Latimer and the English Reformers, Perkins and the Puritan Divines, Hooker and the Caroline Divines, the Cambridge and Oxford Platonists, the Latitudinarians, the Evangelicals, Newman and the Tractarians, Charles Gore and the Liberal Catholics, Charles Raven and the Liberals, and John Milbank and the Radical Orthodox.
Formatives may include: Essay(s), Seminar prep
THEO43230: Patristic Ecclesiology - This module will explore patristic ecclesiology at the time of the major doctrinal controversies of the early Church. The theologians of the early Church developed an understanding of the church as a mysterious bond between the spiritual and material worlds. This understanding of the church and the place of humanity in it had profound implications for the early Christians' conception of the fallen human state and its restoration. The focus will be on primary sources spanning the period from the subapostolic age to the eighth century.
THEO43430: Classic Texts in Christian Theology - The module will be devoted to a study of a range of major texts taken from the history of Christian theology. It is conceived on the ‘great books’ model, in which students are introduced to a series of classic texts by staff with appropriate expertise. Texts from each of the great periods of Christian theology will be explored; they will be chosen to ensure that students gain a critical understanding not only of the nature and history of Christian doctrine, but also the different genres in which Christian theology has been expressed, and the different modes in which it has been undertaken.
THEO43830: Ecclesiology and Ethnography – In this module epistemological issues that arise in work that combines theological and qualitative empirical methods will be explored. The theological dimension in research design, data analysis and methodology will be discussed. Students will be introduced to the prevailing methodological frameworks in Practical Theology and issues of normativity and judgment in theology will be explored in relation to qualitative methods.
THEO45930: Catholic Theology Preliminary Tour (Distance Learning) - This module explores the nature of theology in the Catholic tradition, as well as equipping students with skills necessary to engage in research-informed learning and conduct independent research at Masters level and beyond. Students will examine certain pivotal doctrines (e.g. Trinity, Christology, creation), key stages in the development of the theological tradition and contested issues in contemporary Catholic theology. Throughout, students are enabled to explore and analyse a range of theological styles, from patristic and scholastic to recent liberation and African theologies, and to examine issues about the nature of theological method and the place of authority in the Catholic tradition.
THEO46030: Conceiving Change in Contemporary Catholicism (Distance Learning) - In this module we will explore the ecclesial and theological dynamics of conceiving change in the Catholic Church through an in-depth examination of the concept of catholicity, approaches to understanding the development of tradition, and the potential for receptive Catholic learning in relation to key sites of stress within the Catholic ecclesial system. Texts for study and discussion are generally drawn from 20th -21st century Catholic teaching and theology, although key 19th century texts are also examined (e.g. Möhler and Newman).
Formatives may include: Recorded Presentation with supporting essay
THEO46130: Twentieth Century Catholic Theology (Distance Learning) - This online module will combine an exploration of the breadth and range of 20th century Catholic theology with a deep engagement with its two most challenging and influential thinkers, Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar. Students will be enabled to read deeply in Rahner and Balthasar and reflect on the different theological style and ecclesial orientations of their ouevres. Student will encounter a range of other important figures and theological movements and will have a chance both to explore these and to reflect on their relationships to the differing theological visions of Rahner and Balthasar.
THEO46230: Catholic Social Thought and Practice (Distance Learning) - The end of the 19th century marked the beginning of a significant new tradition of Catholic papal teaching: the social encyclical. This module attempts to map the emergence of key themes, trajectories of thought, principles and propositions within the broad CST field. It explores the encyclicals chronologically and thematically. It relates the development of theory to praxis and reads the tradition critically. In addition to the popes, students will encounter the work of Joseph Pieper, Simone Weil, Gustavo Gutierrez, Dorothy Day, Charles Taylor, Ivan Illich, Jacques Maritain, Emmanuel Mounier, John Courtney Murray amongst others.
THEO46330: The Theology of Thomas Aquinas: Selected Topics (Distance Learning) - This module will offer an in-depth exposition of key aspects of Aquinas’s theology, such as, for instance, how Aquinas conceives of Sacra Doctrina and its relation to philosophy; the divine attributes and the Trinitarian understanding of God; theory of analogy; creation; the human person as made in the image of God; the Christian life of virtue; salvation in Christ; the active and contemplative lives; sanctification. It will also consider the sources, influence and legacy of Aquinas’s theology.
Summatives may include: Oral Presentation, Essay(s)
THEO46430: Faith and Reason (Distance Learning) - This module examines the ways in which Christian tradition has conceived the relationship between ‘faith’ and ‘reason’ and concomitantly theology and philosophy. Diverse ways of framing the question of the relationship between reason and faith, philosophy and theology, will be presented chronologically through engagement with a series of primary texts taken from key thinkers in the Christian tradition. This module will typically include texts from antique, medieval, early modern and modern periods in Christian thought, and will be framed by contemporary approaches.
THEO46530: Trinity, Incarnation, and Creation: High Medieval Franciscan Theology (Distance Learning) - This module will offer an in-depth exposition of the key contributions to Christian doctrine made by the leading Franciscan thinkers of the 13th and 14th centuries. Through engagement with the relevant primary sources, it will familiarize students with the highly innovative theological and philosophical contributions made by the early Franciscan masters. The areas of doctrine studied will include areas such as: Trinitarian theology, the Incarnation, the doctrine of creation, human nature and cognition, the relationship between faith and reason, and the purpose and nature of theological enquiry.
THEO55130: Literature and Religion – This module explores the work of a range of influential writers from a theological and critical perspective. Novels, historical literary texts, poetry and song will be explored, examining the ways in which Christian thought has shaped Western literature. Students will develop mature literary judgement and critical ability to relate theological insight to literary texts.
THEO56730: Ritual, Symbolism and Belief in The Anthropology of Religion - This module involves an exploration of the long and ongoing conversations that have been central to the anthropological exploration of religion. Part of this takes the form of an exploratory conversation between theology and social anthropology on certain key issues of religious belief and practice. Students are also introduced to a wide range of practices and ontologies of being, drawn from both global and indigenous religious traditions. By entering into the practice of anthropology, students will both develop the necessary skills for doing anthropological research with religious communities and be better able to engage with debates that emerge from the practice of the anthropology of religion.
Summatives may include: Oral presentation and Essay(s)
THEO4xx30: Advanced Skills in Working with Ancient Greek Texts - This is a guided independent research project, wherein students produce their own translation and commentary on a portion of an ancient Greek text. The tutorials will offer guidance in planning the project and the opportunity to discuss it as it unfolds. There will be focused sessions to introduce students to more advanced aspects of translation, exegesis, and commentary writing. It is expected that students will normally participate in a Greek texts’ seminar alongside this module
Formatives may include: Draft translation and Essay(s)
Summatives may include: Translation and Explanatory (exegetical) Essay
THEO4xx30: Classical Franciscan Theology - This module will enable an in-depth study of key contributions to the Franciscan tradition and to Christian doctrine made by a range of significant
Franciscan thinkers. Through an in-depth engagement with the relevant primary sources, students will become familiar with innovative and distinctive contributions of important Franciscan theologians.
Formatives may include: Oral presentations
MELA41730 Specialised Translation Chinese <> English - This module aims to provide students with a solid grounding and training in translating from Chinese into English and from English into Chinese. It provides intensive practice in both directions of translation. Students will receive a dossier of texts for translation, with the classes being designed to provide translation practice over a range of text-types and genres. The texts will be drawn from a range of relevant subject areas. Through abundant examples, the module focuses on crucial aspects of translation and contrastive stylistics between Chinese and English.
Formatives include: In class oral feedback and discussion
Summatives include: Translation commentary, Translation text Target Language --> English, Translation text English --> Target Language, Timed translation
MELA45830 Specialised Translation Arabic <> English - This module aims to provide students with a solid grounding and training in translating from Arabic into English and from English into Arabic. It provides intensive practice in both directions of translation. Students will receive a dossier of texts for translation, with the classes being designed to provide translation practice over a range of text-types and genres. The texts will be drawn from a range of relevant subject areas. Through abundant examples, the module focuses on crucial aspects of translation and contrastive stylistics between Arabic and English.
MELA42130 Specialised Translation Russian <> English - This module aims to provide students with a solid grounding and training in translating from Russian into English and from English into Russian. It provides intensive practice in both directions of translation. Students will receive a dossier of texts for translation, with the classes being designed to provide translation practice over a range of text-types and genres. The texts will be drawn from a range of relevant subject areas. Through abundant examples, the module focuses on crucial aspects of translation and contrastive stylistics between Russian and English.
MELA41930 Specialised Translation German <> English - This module aims to provide students with a solid grounding and training in translating from German into English and from English into German. It provides intensive practice in both directions of translation. Students will receive a dossier of texts for translation, with the classes being designed to provide translation practice over a range of text-types and genres. The texts will be drawn from a range of relevant subject areas. Through abundant examples, the module focuses on crucial aspects of translation and contrastive stylistics between German and English.
MELA42030 Specialised Translation Italian <> English - This module aims to provide students with a solid grounding and training in translating from Italian into English and from English into Italian. It provides intensive practice in both directions of translation. Students will receive a dossier of texts for translation, with the classes being designed to provide translation practice over a range of text-types and genres. The texts will be drawn from a range of relevant subject areas. Through abundant examples, the module focuses on crucial aspects of translation and contrastive stylistics between Italian and English.
MELA43930 Specialised Translation Japanese <> English - This module aims to provide students with a solid grounding and training in translating from Japanese into English and from English into Japanese. It provides intensive practice in both directions of translation. Students will receive a dossier of texts for translation, with the classes being designed to provide translation practice over a range of text-types and genres. The texts will be drawn from a range of relevant subject areas. Through abundant examples, the module focuses on crucial aspects of translation and contrastive stylistics between Japanese and English.
MELA42230 Specialised Translation Spanish <> English - This module aims to provide students with a solid grounding and training in translating from Spanish into English and from English into Spanish. It provides intensive practice in both directions of translation. Students will receive a dossier of texts for translation, with the classes being designed to provide translation practice over a range of text-types and genres. The texts will be drawn from a range of relevant subject areas. Through abundant examples, the module focuses on crucial aspects of translation and contrastive stylistics between Spanish and English.
MELA41830 Specialised Translation French <> English - This module aims to provide students with a solid grounding and training in translating from French into English and from English into French. It provides intensive practice in both directions of translation. Students will receive a dossier of texts for translation, with the classes being designed to provide translation practice over a range of text-types and genres. The texts will be drawn from a range of relevant subject areas. Through abundant examples, the module focuses on crucial aspects of translation and contrastive stylistics between French and English.
Subtitling and Advanced CAT Tools: Module summary coming soon.
MELA4XXXX: Translation Practica - The aim of this module is to introduce students to modern translation practices which are used in the present-day translation industry and as part of intercultural projects. It will feature practices in a variety of interlingual, intralingual and intersemiotic types of transfer, such as gist translation, translation-compilation, localisation, transcreation, pre- and post-editing for machine translation, editing, precis writing, plain language, terminology management, and cultural consultation. Students will gain skills of various operations with source texts going beyond full-text interlingual translation.
MELA4XX30: Subtitling Theory and Practice - his module is designed to prepare students for work in the fast-growing Audio-Visual Translation (AVT) sector of the language industries. It develops students’ understanding of the semiotic features of subtitling, and of the linguistic and technical constraints and challenges of subtitling. It also provides hands-on training with audiovisual material taken from various sources (e.g., films, documentaries), aiming to enhance students’ technological competence and skills in using professional subtitling tools to do spotting and to produce accurate, relevant, and reader-friendly subtitles in a broad range of genres.
Formatives include: Oral feedback on coursework during seminars
Summatives include: Practical test – (subtitle spotting and translation), Reflective commentary on practical test
MELA4xx30: Translation Ethics and Intercultural Project Management with Work Placement - This module provides grounding in the international regulations that govern the translation profession. The module focuses on several essential issues which contemporary professional translators need to deal with. The integrated and focused plan of the course provides students with a coherent and accessible way to discern and manage the legal and ethical issues within the profession. This module also provides the opportunity to learn via a work placement, either in the UK or abroad, in agreement with the University regulations, acquiring skills from practitioners in a professional environment. As well as introducing project management methods and practices.
Formatives include: Student presentations, Feedback on report plans and placement experiences
Summatives include: Essay(s), Placement Report
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