| Module |
Credits |
Compulsory/optional |
|
Year Abroad
|
0 Credits |
Compulsory |
| A Study Abroad year is an optional additional year that increases the length of the Honours degree award to a four-year full-time degree. The additional year comprises an agreed programme of study in a partner institution abroad with whom the University of Hertfordshire has an institutional agreement. The programme of study will support, supplement and extend the more usual three-year programme. Success in the third year will be recognised in the title of the award, but does not carry additional credit towards the Honours programme. A student would normally confirm the intention to study abroad during the first ten weeks of study at Level 5. This will enable a place to be negotiated at a host institution and the Study Programme and learning contract to be arranged and agreed. |
|
The Humanities Placement Year
|
0 Credits |
Compulsory |
| The Placement Year provides you with the opportunity to set your academic studies in a broader context and to utilise the intellectual skills you have gained through your degree in the work place. You will also strengthen your time management, organisational and communication skills as well as develop employability skills.
You will gain experience of applying for jobs and of working within a commercial, business or professional environment prior to graduating thus increasing employability skills such as teamwork, communication skills and commercial awareness.
You will gain experience in a field that is often a destination for Humanities students such as PR, marketing, management and research. You will have developed valuable industry skills and experience as well as being able to apply many of the intellectual skills you have learnt through your degree to a real world situation. |
|
Placement with Study Abroad
|
0 Credits |
Compulsory |
| Students on this unique module will have the opportunity to undertake both a semester at a partner university and to undertake a semester of placement, thus both improving their cultural awareness and employability. Students who have been on the Placement Year and Study Abroad Year, both normally undertaken after level 5 and before entering the final year, have reported high levels of satisfaction with both and many have said the Placement or Study Abroad year was one of the highlights of their university career. The Placement Year is offered by only a handful of universities offering Humanities subjects, so this module is a fantastic opportunity for students to explore both aspects of Study Abroad and Placement both here and abroad. |
|
Contemporary Moral Philosophy P
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
| What should be the primary focus of ethics? Should we focus on actions or on the character of agents? Students will study different approaches to these questions embodied in contemporary discussions of Kantian Ethics, Consequentialism and Virtue Ethics. This discussion will raise issues such as, do we arrive at moral evaluations by applying principles to particular cases or are moral evaluations more a matter of, for example, a virtuous person's perception of a particular case? What is the relationship between the moral evaluations that we make and the reasons that we give for those evaluations? What are our moral theories based on: shared beliefs about rightness, our moral intuitions, our common sense intuitions about the virtues? |
|
Aristotle P
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
| Is there a method to philosophy? Are we rational animals? Do all living things have a purpose? What is the good life or is there more than one? Is ethics primarily concerned with virtue? These questions, which are still of relevance today, will be explored by an examination of Aristotle's central works. |
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Philosophy of Language
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
| Marks, sounds and gestures can all have meaning. But what is it for them to have meaning and how do they manage to have it? Is the meaning of my words to be analysed in terms of my intentions to communicate with another or the conventions I subscribe to when using words? In what way is meaning related to truth and my being warranted in asserting what I say? What other things can we do with words than state truths? How should we understand metaphorical uses of language? How do names and descriptions in particular manage to pick out objects in the world? Are some things I say true solely in virtue of the meanings of the words I use? Is there anything that fixes what it is that I do mean when I use words, or is meaning, to some extent, indeterminate? Can a study of language tell us anything about reality? |
|
Philosophy of Psychology
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
| 'Blindsighters' can judge with around 90% accuracy whether experimenters are showing them either a cross or a circle, and are able to discriminate colours, despite being completely blind due to a form of brain damage. The job of philosophers of psychology is to settle what this phenomenon, and related ones, means for the nature of the mind. Does it show that blindsighters 'see' colours etc., unconsciously? That would suggest mere perception is insufficient for consciousness, and we must then investigate what must be added to make a percept conscious. Or does blindsight simply demonstrate that there is a completely blind 'visual information system' in humans, operating alongside normal conscious vision? And would that mean conscious vision plays only a secondary role in daily life (is our behaviour somewhat more 'automatic' than we believe)? This module investigates key psychological phenomena and examines philosophical theories as to their significance for the human mind. |
|
Political Philosophy
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
| 'Politics' and 'policy' both come from polis, the Greek word for 'city', but which more broadly means something like 'the community to which one belongs, in which one has rights and to which one has obligations'. What makes a community? Can any group of people be one? What does it mean to belong to one? Can membership of a community be part of your identity in any deep sense? How can obligations and rights arise from membership of a community? Is such membership always voluntary? These questions arise with special force in connection with citizenship and the state, but they are implicit in any kind of community membership that entails rights, obligations and impinges on your sense of self. |
|
Bodies and Sexuality in the Early Modern Period A
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
| This course will explore popular and medical ideas about the body and sexuality in the early modern period. The body was fundamental to gender roles, social relationships and experiencing everyday life. Through a series of extended seminars you will examine a diverse range of primary source material and supporting historiography in order to evaluate the assumptions that underpinned early modern notions of normal and abnormal bodies. The course will then move on to consider the importance of sexuality and sexual behaviours to early modern life. Again the course will consider what was considered to be normal and abnormal behaviours and will think about how these activities were monitored and policed. The module will provide experience of researching and using a range of unusual source materials including medical treatises, portraits, jokes and erotic literature. |
|
Religion and Modern Thought
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
| Do we live in a 'secular' or 'post-secular' age? What are the prospects for religious and spiritual belief and practice today? Inspired by the work of Charles Taylor, this module traces the 'conditions of belief' from the sixteenth century to the present day.
It explores the significance of a shift from a 'God-saturated' world to one in which faith is, often even for the believer, one human possibility amongst others. In tracing the origins of the modern 'secular' worldview, you will explore such topics as: the Reformation and the rise of the 'Protestant ethic'; the Enlightenment critique of religion; scientific and historico-critical challenges to scriptural authority; and the impacts of liberalism, fundamentalism, feminism and religious diversity on religious belief and practice in the west. You will consider the 'secularisation hypothesis' and its critics, and the question of what the options might be for responsible religious belief and practice today. |
|
Kierkegaard, Philosophy and Religion
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
| What makes a human life worthwhile? What does it really mean to live 'aesthetically', 'ethically' or 'religiously'? What are the roles of faith, hope and love in all this? And how is genuine ethical or religious insight best communicated? The Danish thinker Kierkegaard explored these questions through a series of texts many of which were published under a variety of bizarre pseudonyms. This module investigates some of Kierkegaard's most important writings. After an introduction to the pseudonyms and the importance of 'indirect communication', it explores in detail aspects of what Kierkegaard called the aesthetic, ethical and religious ways of living. Each is presented as an attempt to address what makes a human life valuable, and the question of the roles of faith, hope and love are never far from our concerns. The module also considers Kierkegaard's influence upon later thought – both in philosophy and beyond. |
|
Italy and Fascism
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
| In this module you will get to study the history of Fascism in Italy using a variety of primary and secondary sources. All the text-based primary sources – including diary entries, speeches, and policy documents - will be available in English translation. Other sources will include Fascist films, songs and artistic images. The focus of the module will be on understanding Fascist experience in the context of Italy and topics covered will include the legacy of the Risorgimento, the experience of the First World War, the collapse of the Liberal State, the rise of Fascism, the relationship between Duce, Party and Government, the creation of the corporative state, Fascist Ideology economic, social and cultural policy under the regime, racial and colonial policy, public opinion under Fascism, anti-Fascism and resistance, and the enduring influence of Italy's Fascist heritage. |
|
Wittgenstein: Meaning and Forms of Life
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
| Ludwig Wittgenstein is one of the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century. Much of today's philosophical thinking has been inspired by or has developed in response to his work. His first published work - the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus - provides, for some, an inspiration for powerful anti-metaphysical programmes. For others, it offers refined tools for doing metaphysics in a new, more fertile way. He himself came to reject aspects of his early work. How his approach evolved can only be fully understood by considering his early programme in the light of his second great masterpiece, Philosophical Investigations. This module does just that by introducing important aspects of Wittgenstein's philosophy in their historical and ideological contexts. The module will explore a range of topics such as: the nature of language and thought and their relations to reality; meaning and use; understanding and intentionality; following a rule; the possibility of a private language; the nature of philosophy. |
|
Popular Protest, Riot and Reform in Britain, 1760-1848 B
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
| Britain experienced a period of tumultuous social and political upheaval in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This module will examine the development of social and political protest movements, and survey the causes and consequences of popular unrest in Britain, 1760-1848. You will engage with the secondary literature of the subject and with a wide range of primary sources, visual,written and digital. Topics may include the development of ideas of democratic rights through the influence of the American and French revolutions, radical political and social movements in Britain; Luddites and trade unions; Swing rioters and rural unrest; Chartism; anti-New Poor Law Riots. |
|
Everyday Lives: An Intimate History of Twentieth Century Women
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
| This module offers an intimate history of the everyday lives of women in America, Britain and Ireland. We will explore the lives, roles, experiences and perceptions of ordinary women during the twentieth century will be explored. Students will be introduced to an array of sources – including popular and visual culture, objects and digital sources, oral testimony and literature (fiction and memoir) – and to what they reveal about the manner in which women were perceived and represented; how women viewed themselves; and how women of different generations experienced, negotiated and reacted to social change. Fashion, consumerism, courtship, sexuality, and advertising are among the areas considered for what they reveal about women and the world around them. Such themes will be analysed within the context of continuity and change across the twentieth century and three geographical perspectives. The module will conclude by questioning the extent to which women's movements were representative of ordinary women. |
|
Final Year History Dissertation
|
30 Credits |
Optional |
| With the dissertation, students have the chance to select their own topic to research, subject to approval. Albeit under supervision, this module requires largely independent study and research based partly on primary sources, with students expected to address historical problems in depth by gathering, sifting, reading, analysing and reflecting critically upon historical sources and advanced secondary literature. Students present their research in a poster or presentation format, and submit a draft chapter followed by a dissertation of c.10,000 words. |
|
Witch-Bottles to Wishing-Wells: The Material Culture of Everyday Ritual
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
| If a picture can say a thousand words then what can a physical object tell us? This module will consider this question by engaging with the material culture (the physical objects and spaces that shape cultures) of everyday and calendar rituals, from 1650-present. Few people in Britain, both today and in the early modern period, would claim to regularly participate in rituals. However, ritual activities are in fact a large part of everyday domestic and private lives, ranging from the use of bottles in the 18th century to counteract bewitchment, to the blowing out of birthday candles today. Through a series of extended, interactive workshops we will examine a diverse range of objects. These will be analysed and interpreted as primary source material, in order to consider the prevalence of everyday rituals and the value of material culture.. Artefacts will vary but may include early modern protective charms; votives and offerings; ritual foods; and contemporary seasonal objects. |
|
Sinners, Scoundrels & Deviants: Non-Conformity in the Atlantic World A
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
| How do societies decide what constitutes 'deviant' behaviour, and who is responsible for making that distinction? This module challenges students to rethink societal definitions of 'deviant' behaviour. It will explore why certain groups and certain behaviours were deemed to be deviant at particular points in time. Focusing on the Atlantic World, the module charts changing perceptions of deviant and traditional behaviour amidst a period of immense social, cultural and political change. Drawing on a diverse range of primary source materials, we will explore how the church, state and community responded to differences in sexuality, lifestyle, religion and race, to create acceptable standards of behaviour. Possible 'deviant' behaviours to be explored include incest, alcohol misuse, bigamy, fist-fights, same-sex and inter-racial relationships. |
|
Nietzsche Then and Now
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
| Nietzsche famously claimed that 'God is dead'. But what does he mean by this? What ramifications would the 'death of God' have for morality and human flourishing? What would a 'Nietzschean' view of self and world look like? And what religious responses to Nietzsche's challenge are possible? With these questions in mind, this module investigates key aspects of Nietzsche's thought and his legacy. Typically, after an introduction to his styles of philosophizing, the 'hermeneutics of suspicion', and his 'moral perfectionism', we shall focus upon his influential critique of morality. We shall investigate his account of ressentiment, guilt and 'bad conscience', alongside central Nietzschean ideas such as the will to power, eternal recurrence and 'self-overcoming'. We'll also consider some ways in which his legacy has been carried through in later thinkers, and we will examine possible critical responses to his worldview. |
|
The Middle East in turmoil: The Arab-Israeli conflict since 1948
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
| The Arab-Israeli conflict stands as one of the most enduring and, some claim, most intractable political issues in the modern Middle East, if not the whole world. This module offers a detailed examination of this ongoing conflict from its beginnings in the First World War until the present day. It explores the growth of the Zionist movement, the emergence of Palestinian nationalism, the impact of the critical years of 1948 and 1967 that saw the birth and consolidation of the state of Israel and the continuing dispossession of the Palestinians, and the ongoing attempts of forging a political solution since that time. The module is broadly chronological in shape, but uses primary and secondary sources to explore a range of issues including Israeli state and society, European and American intervention in the Middle East, terrorism and war, religion, and efforts to bring peace. |
|
Philosophy of Race and Gender
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
| In the last half-century, critical debates about race and gender have raised questions about the central topics and assumptions of philosophy. For example, these debates have brought an emphasis on embodiment and social roles that challenge the relevance of the ideal types (ideal reasoner, ideal observer, etc.) of traditional epistemology. These ideas are now debated in mainstream epistemology and philosophy of mind. Other questions about ethics, social justice, objectivity, authority and power have also become urgent. Students on this module examine the contribution of race and gender theory to philosophy and critically consider the challenges that considerations of race and gender pose the theory and practice of philosophy. |
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Delivering British Justice? Law in the British Empire, 1760-1965
|
15 Credits |
Optional |
| What does justice look like in an unequal world? Is the law ever truly neutral or objective? Does law shape society and culture, or the other way around? In this module we will explore the multiple and contested ways in which law was created, resisted, and understood in the British Empire between 1760 and 1965. The perception both at the time, and one often still referred to in the 21st Century that the British Empire was fairer than other European colonial powers was an extremely important one for justification of the imperial project both at home and abroad. The ways in which law was imposed, negotiated and resisted in the empire was fundamental to this belief, often framed as delivering British justice to colonial subjects. Exploring a range of themes and case studies from across the globe, we will use law as a window into understanding politics and society. |
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