British Political History

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 1

This module provides an overview of the major developments in British political history since 1900, focusing mainly (but not exclusively) on the post-war period. You focus on the major challenges domestic and international which have confronted political elites and masses during the period. It provides a critical understanding of some of the major debates between and within the UK's major political parties, and introduces some of the academic arguments generated by them. Politicians, and indeed political scientists, often make use of particular versions of history in order to persuade people that what they are offering is either tried and trusted or, on the other hand, new and improved. Pundits are also fond of making casual allusions to political events of the past in order to illustrate or support their arguments about the present often based on little more than second-hand knowledge and outdated received wisdom. This module provides a firm foundation of knowledge on which to build the more advanced understanding promoted by more advanced modules. And, by subjecting to critical analysis what is often taken for granted, it encourages a degree of healthy scepticism towards any references to politics in the past made in both public and academic discourse.

Explanatory Concepts in Political Science

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 1

This module aims to provide you with firm understanding of some of the basic theories of the state including pluralism, elite theory, Marxism and public choice theory. You will apply these theories to British politics in order to gain a better understanding of particular political issues and interests, for example, the Constitutions, political parties, voting, interest groups and globalisation. This will enable you to engage in a dialogue that confronts established theories concerning the changing reality of British politics.

Foundations of Politics

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 1

This module provides an introduction to some of the central concepts and issues in political theory. It offers you an opportunity to think not just about the way politics is, but also about the way it ought to be. We will ask questions such as ‘why should we obey the state?’, ‘is democracy the best form of government?’ and ‘what makes a just society?’ By the end of the module you should have acquired a basic understanding of the central questions that political theorists spend their time thinking and writing about, and you should have begun to develop some of your own answers to these questions.

Introduction to American Studies

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 1

What is American studies? What makes what we do American studies as opposed to just plain historical or literary studies? This module examines the history and development of the discipline and explores key debates using an archive of seminal essays by leading figures that highlight the key problems and developments in the field.

Issues to be discussed may include:

• an American 'tradition'
• interdisciplinarity
• popular culture
• American ethnicity and race
• masculinity and gender
• media
• environment
• America as 'global village'.

Research Skills and Methods in Political Science

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 1

This module is designed to introduce you to some of the fundamental issues faced by scholars as they try to analyse the political world around them.  We begin by examining the discipline of political science, what 'studying politics', and introduce some of the key terms such as epistemology, behaviouralism, quantitative methods.

You will be introduced to the basics of quantitative methods and the advantages and disadvantages of using surveys, questionnaires and statistical packages to analyse real world political activity. 

The next set of lectures analyse a completely different mode of enquiry; those based on interpretist understandings of political affairs. There are, obviously, all sorts of ways of collecting evidence to support your case/answer a question, and some of the most popular involve doing interviews, focus groups, simple participation etc. We discuss some of the strengths and weaknesses of using these methods, analysing why they are chosen in the first place and how they link with more quantitative approaches. 

By the end of the module, you should have an enhanced understanding of what the political science discipline is, how political scholars conduct their research and how they reach the conclusions that they do. You should also be able to critically interpret many of the claims and counter-claims, often based on statistical indicators, that are a feature of contemporary political debate.

Most of the lectures will necessarily focus on presenting various, often rather abstract, concepts and procedures. However, the relevance of these in modern political analysis will be demonstrated by incorporating practical exercises in which the concepts and methods learnt will be applied in seminars and computer workshops.

The Look of America

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 1

This module takes as its premise the notion that ever since the explosion of mass media and mass society in the industrial age, the United States has taken an increasingly dominant place in the global visual imagination. This process reached its peak at the beginning of the twentieth century, and since then America has generated for the world innumerable iconic and hegemonic visual representations of its own cultural narratives.

The task of this module will be to explore and deconstruct some of these visual representations, along with the ideologies and narratives that sustain and refract them. You will begin with an introduction to visual theory, especially as it applies to the American context, and acquire the critical tools necessary for the module. You will then locate the period under scrutiny within a broader visual and cultural 'prehistory', illuminating the roots of the modern world and its visual scene.

After this, you will concentrate on the culture of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Taking a thematic approach, you will examine the issues that emerge over the module of the twentieth century, referring forwards and backwards in order to generate connections where appropriate. The intention here is to introduce you to aspects of visual culture and its criticism, as well as to defamiliarise and explore some of the more familiar American iconography surrounding us.

American Humour

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 1

Humour is probably among the most approachable of ways to introduce first year students to core issues in American Studies, and one of the most telling. Jewish humour, for example, which clearly informs, say, the films of the Marx Brothers, Heller's Catch-22,or the TV comedy of Seinfeld, can teach us much about the history and culture of immigration and assimilation so integral to American identity. Likewise, African-American comedians from the 70s to the 90s exemplify a particular, 'signifying' tradition, in Henry Louis Gates' phrase, as well as providing comment on the politics of the day. Or we might view the relationship between American economy and culture - a grand narrative of the twentieth century - as dramatised in the Fordist dystopias of Chaplin, the Southern Gothic of Flannery O'Connor and the acceleration from post-war boom in Thomas Pynchon to the vision of Wall Street excess in Ellis' American Psycho. In all these cases, humour provides both spectator or readerly pleasure and a form in which a more covert critique takes place, making it an invaluable mode for you to experience and consider key cultural and historical questions.

Incorporating literature, film, TV, live performance and visual art, the module will thus address the social, political and philosophical issues each topic raises and the context from which it has sprung, from the 19th century 'Connecticut wits' to more recent 'gross-out' comedy. By way of materials, an on-line module reader will be made available to YOU composed of a number of readable essays on the theory of humour as well as selected essays more directly relating to each specific topic and/or work. Interdisciplinary in nature, the module will hence encourage you to investigate how ideas about humour can work with other texts to become forms of critical thinking: Bergson's notion of comedic automatism, for example, read alongside accounts of the factory system can illuminate Keaton or Chaplin's cinematic commentary on the fate of the American industrial worker. Through such connections, you will be introduced to influential writers like Bergson and Freud in an accesible fashion and find ways to apply and adapt their ideas in the wider cultural field.

American Identities

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 1

American Literature to 1890: Part I

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 1

This module will introduce you to the major trends and texts of colonial America from the Iroquois Indians and Christopher Columbus through to Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine. These are not simply 'authors,' in the modern sense, writing 'great books' but diverse voices whose class, gender, race, nationality and religious persuasion influence the sense they make of America, and of themselves, in their writing. For example, some texts articulate ancient native traditions and myths without the benefit of a written tradition, while others are trying to come to terms in literary ways with experiences of migration to an unknown and wild place, captivity by the Indians, conflict, and slavery. Questions of national identity and the role that literature plays in constructing and communicating an 'American experience' are therefore central to the module.

We will look at the writing of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, beginning with Native American accounts of creation, the travel journals of Columbus, and an account of the conquest of the Aztec empire. American literature in this early period does not come in the usual forms of fiction, poetry, and drama that we are used to studying in European literature, nor is all of it written in English. We will be reading a variety of forms, such as Native American stories, accounts of conquest in South America and settlement in the English colonies, Puritan sermons, autobiography, political tracts, captivity narratives, poetry, and letterssome in translation, others in their original English. While these texts are not all recognisably what you might think of as 'literature,' they are the founding documents and genres of the Americas and their influence is felt in American culture to the present day.

American Literature to 1890: Part II

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 1

American Literature to 1890 II introduces you to the major trends and texts of a multi-ethnic America from Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper to Emily Dickinson and Henry James. These are not simply 'authors', in the modern sense, writing 'great books', but diverse voices constructed by class, gender, race, nationality and religious persuasion. Some texts articulate ancient native traditions and myths, others come to terms in writing with experiences of migration, captivity, conflict, and slavery. Central to the module are questions of national identity, and the role that literature plays in both constructing and communicating an 'American experience'.

Historical Controversy

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 1

This module introduces you to the study of history through the critical reading of a key historical text. In this way you will gain an understanding of the complexity of the historical record and an appreciation for a range of problems associated with the interpretation of evidence. You will also be encouraged to think about the discipline of history and the nature of historical enquiry. Through a study of how historians have formulated and deployed their arguments, you will begin to learn to deploy ideas and to shape your own historical arguments.

Modern America

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 1

The early years of the twenty-first century have witnessed the United States achieve unsurpassed global economic and cultural power. This module assesses the dramatic developments that have shaped the U.S. during the twentieth century, often described as the 'American century'. We will explore the transformations in American political and social life as the U.S. achieved economic supremacy, and extended this power on the world stage. As the nation increased its influence abroad, of course, it underwent a parallel series of turbulent changes at home. Hence we will also consider an America seen through the critical (and sometimes not-so-critical) lenses of writers, artists, commentators and filmmakers as they articulate the tensions and anxieties of modern U.S. life. The module addresses many social contradictions. The `Roaring Twenties, for example, was a period of consumerism and cultural experimentation that also gave rise to religious fundamentalism and Prohibition. Similarly, while the United States government in the 1950s was trying to `keep the world safe for democracy' in the face of communist expansion, it abused the constitutional liberties of its own citizens during the McCarthy witch-hunts. Although the country as a whole attained unprecedented levels of affluence in these years, poverty remained a persistent problem, and Americans continued to struggle with the repression of women, political dissidents and racial minorities. A crisis in American liberalism accompanied this proliferation of social and political protest, primarily due to American involvement in the Vietnam War. We will seek to understand how this war shaped protest politics, altered the relationship between Americans and the liberal state, and led to the Conservative resurgence in the 1980s. These events shattered the consensus belief in a modern America. We will evaluate what it then meant to live in a post-modern America, and how people adapted the conditions of post-modernity to cope with new and recurrent crises of difference, inequality, and insecurity. Through lectures that focus on the historical, literary and more broadly cultural aspects of the modern United States, you will learn to recognise the importance of cross- and interdisciplinary work as they pursue the dynamic relationship between cultural forms and social, political and economic realities.

Roots of America

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 1

This module provides a foundational survey of the history, literature, and culture of the United States (and the colonies which preceded it) to 1900. It begins with the Columbian encounter in 1492, when two worlds were brought into sharp conflict with each other and continues through English settlement and colonisation in the seventeenth century to growth, expansion and the articulation of a specific American identity by the middle of the eighteenth century. It assesses the creation of the American nation through war with Britain and through the imaginative construction of a new political relationship between people and government.

We will then proceeed to political and cultural formations in the nineteenth-century republic. You will focus on why the newly formed nation should ultimately falter on the issue of slavery and why the concept of the United States and the 'Union' became such contested terms. We will examine how contested visions of America's future and its 'manifest destiny' cohered and divided the citizenry, and ultimately ask, as Abraham Lincoln so aptly put it in 1855, 'can we, as a nation, continue together permanently--forever-half slave, and half free' Our attention subsequently turns to the mammoth transformations to American life unleashed by the Civil War and Reconstruction; events, historian James McPherson calls the 'Second American Revolution.' Among the many topics, we will examine the emergence of a modern activist central government committed, albeit temporarily, to constitutional protected civil rights; we will address how Americans, in both North and South, understood the meaning of Union and nation after the carnage of Civil War; and how industrialists, immigrants, and union activists attempted to shape and influence the rapid growth of American urban life in the final quarter of the nineteenth century. Finally, we will consider the plight of black Americans as the promises of emancipation gave way to racial segregation in the South and the rise of the urban ghetto in the North.

You will be required to approach these topics from both a historical and a literary perspective, paying particular attention to formative texts - the writings of John Smith, John Winthrop, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, James Fenimore Cooper, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, Henry James, Edith Wharton (among others) will be examined as a distinct American literary culture evolves in the nineteenth century. That culture--like all social values in the years preceding Civil War--would split in the North-South divide of the 1850s, but in the final lectures of the module, students will examine how literary works would ultimately bolster resurgent American nationalism in the decades following the War. You will also be encouraged to think about the imaginative formulation of American identity and American character through representations of such matters in film.

European Politics

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 2

The political map of contemporary Europe is changing fundamentally and rapidly, as the traditional boundaries between East and West and – between domestic and international governance – break down. This module provides a pan­-European introduction to the continent's politics,­ taking a comparative rather than country­-by-­country approach.

After setting the historical and socio­economic context, the module tackles not only institutions (the nation-­state, government and policy­making, legislatures, parties, pressure groups and the media) but also issues of ­participation, immigration, the supposed blurring of the left-­right divide, and Europe's role in the world.

Modern Political Thought

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 2

This module addresses some of the most important texts in the history of western political philosophy. It covers the work of seven major political thinkers and aims to provide you with knowledge of the broad contours of modern political thought from the 17th to the 20th century. You will develop your ability to analyse philosophical arguments and to situate the texts studied in the appropriate historical contexts. Throughout, the aim will be to encourage close textual reading whilst developing an awareness of the wider themes and concepts that inform modern political thought.

American Cinema B

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 2

An awareness of how Hollywood cinema was shaped, how it acquired its position of dominance, and the forms and aesthetic conventions that characterise it, is essential to an understanding of cinema more generally. Accordingly, this module will focus on the formation of Hollywood in the 1910s through to the post-World War 2 era, with particular emphasis placed on the development of the 'studio system' and Hollywood's 'golden age' of the 1920s to 1950. You will view a range of representative Hollywood films made during the period and analyse them in relation to the industry and its practices. You will also situate Hollywood cinema within the political and social life of the United States in the period.

American Cities: New Orleans

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 2

American Cities: New York

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

From New Amsterdam to 9/11 and beyond, New York has always been iconic. We experience the Big Apple through the sounds and sights that came before us: the movies, the music, the literature, the songs. But what goes on behind these images of ceaseless activity and glamour? Now the hub of global finace, New York was also a haven for immigrants, with Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty sitting right there in its harbour. Because of its diversity of population and ever-changing urban development, we will in this module be looking at the city from many perspectives, and find that to study its history and culture is to discover that the city that never sleeps never ceases to pose questions either.

American Literature Since 1890: Part I

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 2

This module will introduce significant and canonical texts by American writers produced since 1890 and throughout the first part of the twentieth century. By analysing the working of class, gender and race in these texts we will explore many of the social and cultural issues associated with the evolution of American modernity and American modernist aesthetics. We will observe the different ways in which writers tackle or avoid important economic and social questions of the period. We will examine how important socio-economic developments such as the rise of industrialisation and urbanisation, war, consumer culture, the question of women's rights and ideas of national identity shape the stylistic and thematic fabric of these works.

American Literature Since 1890: Part II

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

This module will introduce significant and canonical texts by American writers produced since 1945. By analysing the working of class, gender and race in these texts we will explore many of the social and cultural issues associated with the American modernity and American post-modernist aesthetics. We will observe the different ways in which writers tackle or avoid important economic and social questions of the period.

History Short Period: American History 1877-2000

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 2

This module probes the social, political and economic development of the United States since the end of Reconstruction. It is organised on a broadly chronological basis with primary stress on key topics such as the emergence of racial segregation in the South, the construction of a modern, industrial society, the emergence of the United States as a Great Power, progressive reform, the economic crisis of the 1930s, the American experience in World War II and the ensuing Cold War, the civil rights and New Left movements of the 1960s, and the concomitant rise of conservativism. Notable themes include the growth of federal power, the steady erosion of localism, the development of a corporate-dominated consumer society, the limitations of modern liberalism and the political influence of American religion. The module introduces you to landmark political change such as the failure of Populism and the changing Republican party constituency in the South as well as important legal rulings such as Brown v Board of Education and Roe v Wade. A close analysis of the New Deal, a transformational moment in twentieth-century US history, frames an extended assessment of the rise and fall of the so-called New Deal order. In addition the module familiarises you with critical historiographical debates over the role of American labour, the impact of war on American society and culture, and the growth of the imperial presidency. Although the focus is primarily on domestic events and structural trends, the United States' growing engagement with the wider world receives full attention.

Politics of Governance: Eastern Europe

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

The module begins by examining the kind of legacies that the communist period left in these countries before moving on to consider their institutional structures and party and electoral politics of the new post-communist democracies. You then considers some of the major issues raised by the process of post-communist democratisation. These include: how to deal with functionaries of the previous non-democratic regime, how to introduce radical economic reform, and how to accommodate the existence of the numerous ethnic minorities that most of these states encompass? The impact of attempts to integrate into Euro-Atlantic international structures (the EU and NATO) on Central and East European domestic politics is considered before a final session that attempts to evaluate the nature of the regimes that are emerging in the region.

Politics of Governance: France

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

Democracy in France has a troubled history, which continues to impact on contemporary politics in significant ways that have contributed to the representation of France as being in many ways 'exceptional'. This idea of 'the French Exception' will serve as a context for this module, which aims to give you a basic understanding of the institutions, policies and issues which dominate political life in France today. The module uses current affairs in France as its starting point in order to encourage engagement, and will use this to build up a grasp of the institutional framework in which political power operates. Important themes to be analysed will be: institutional and constitutional change, party dynamics, and policy reforms.

Politics of Governance: Germany

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

The overall intellectual aim of this module is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the structure and norms of governance in the Federal Republic of Germany. The module examines the structure of German governance post-1945, looking at the formal codified arrangements of German federalism and the relationship between the constitution, parties and the wider polity. Particular emphasis is placed on Germany's role within the broader international community and the effects that unification has had on the structures and practices of German governance. We will also look at two particular policy fields (foreign policy, asylum and immigration policy) in order to see how the structures of governance affect policy making and policy development in individual policy areas. Learning objectives are specified by week for each topic. You should use these to think about when reading the material and preparing for each seminar.

Politics of Governance: India

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

Politics of Governance: International Institutions and Issues

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

This module critically analyses the evolution of the international institutional order since World War II up to contemporary times. It examines the emergence and transformations of these bodies in the face of evolving and emerging issues and challenges. You will focus on institutions such as the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organisation, as well as non-state actors and then gauge and assess their response to the issues and challenges in their respective fields of competence (for example, the environment, global ethics, intervention, failing states, self-determination, the changing nature of war and global governance).

Politics of Governance: The European Union

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

This module treats the EU as a system of governance and examines it on that basis looking at the nature of executive, legislative and judicial politics as well as looking at the nature of interest representation and examining the nature of democracy in the EU and the impact of the EU on European states. It does so the basis of a variety of theoretical accounts derived from international relations and political science that have been applied to the EU

Politics of Governance: USA

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

This module examines four approaches to understanding contemporary US politics that emphasise the role of institutions, ideas, individuals and interests. These approaches are applied to the three main institutions of the Presidency, Congress and the Supreme Court and to the nature of political parties and voting in the US.

Pulp Culture: American Popular Literature

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

Popular literature is often overlooked in favour of what is considered more highbrow literary culture, yet an understanding of the cultural history of a nation necessitates an examination of what was popular as well as what became canonical.

This module enables an examination of a variety of mass-produced popular American literatures from the 18th and 19th centuries through to the 20th, from early magazines and comics, dime novels, Westerns and juvenile or sentimental literature, to 'hardboiled' crime fiction, self-help books and 'middlebrow' bestsellers of the 20th century. You will look at the relationship between 'high' and 'low' fiction, as well as examining how the mode of production affected the literature produced at the time. You will also explore both the writing styles that developed as well as the reception and cultural circulation of texts. Included in this will be a consideration of the way that issues of gender, class and race in America affected the discourses of the popular narratives that we will be looking at and how we can understand the society that they emerged from more fully as a result of looking at them.

Short Period: American History 1877-2000

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 2

The African American Experience

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 2

This module examines the rich history of African Americans in the United States, from 1863 to the present. One of your main objectives will be to contextualise and analyse the debates, disagreements, and downright fights that African Americans have had among themselves between emancipation and the beginnings of the modern Civil Rights Movement, thus establishing a deep historical understanding of the ongoing freedom struggle in the late 20th- and early 21st centuries.

You will critique arguments over the proper relationship of blacks to the US government, over racial and class identities, and over diverse tactics and strategies for the advancement of the race. In addition, the lectures will interrogate the connections between African American history and its broader, more diffuse, cultural mythology.  Full attention is given not only to well-known black leaders - such as Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey, and Martin Luther King - but also to less celebrated figures such as Fannie Lou Hamer and Ella Baker.

Time and Place: 1861: The Coming of the American Civil War

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

Transatlantic Rhetoric: Public Speech and Anglo-American Writing 1750-1900

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

American Mandatory Year Abroad - American Studies

120 credits
Undergraduate academic year, Year 3

America in the 21st Century

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 4

American Culture and Consumption

30 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 4

Death of Socialism

30 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 4

This module looks at the contemporary condition of socialism following the collapse of state socialism in Central and Eastern Europe and elsewhere, the erosion of the central principles of Western social democracy and the prevalence of free market and capitalist ideas at the start of the century. Is socialism a relevant, feasible or desirable idea in contemporary society? Or is it dead, merely a historical relic of the 20th century?

We will start by looking at the two predominant conceptions and experiences of socialism of the twentieth century - ­ Marxist and social democratic socialism. What are the main features of these models of socialism? You will then examine criticisms of socialism from liberals and libertarians ­ such as Hayek and Nozick ­ and from new social movements ­ such as the women's movement and the green movement. What critical points are raised by these perspectives and how telling are they? We will look at reasons for the collapse of state socialism in the late 1980s and at attempts in the West to rethink socialism during an era in which neo­liberalism was a predominant force. Do liberal and new social movements' criticisms and the collapse of state socialism suggest that socialism is dead? Do attempts to redefine socialism (as market socialism or radical democratic socialism) escape the criticisms of liberals and the new social movements and the problems experienced under old social democracy and state socialism? Or do they indicate that the era of socialism has well and truly passed?

In the final two topics we shall address this question a little more. We will examine the attempt of New Labour and current European social democrats to respond to the crisis of social democracy and will ask whether there is anything remaining of socialism in such attempts. And we shall examine theses such as that of Fukuyama: that the day of socialism has passed and that capitalism has won the battle.

Documentary America: Non-Fiction Writing

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 4

The study of American fiction often precludes an examination of some of the best writing and forms of self-representation that America has produced: political and photo-essays, social science publications, journalism, reportage, and documentary films. On this module you examine the development of iconic non-fictional literature and other forms of visual representation (such as film and photography) from the 19th and 20th centuries.

You will look at the style, content and circulation of non-fictional forms and examine their relationship within wider discourses of cultural, social and political representation in America. You will also consider the ways that these forms intersect with the development of modernist and postmodernist literature in the US more broadly. For this module you will have to read from a broad selection of materials that do not necessarily fit into conventional literary genres, and you will be watching a number of realist and neo-realist American documentaries. You will analyse why writers and artists have chosen to represent events in the way that they do and the wider cultural impact of those forms.

EU Politics and Policy

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 4

This module provides an opportunity to study the substance of the policies which the EU has developed and the process by which those policies are agreed. You draw upon the techniques and approaches which have been developed in the specialised discipline of policy analysis, allowing for an understanding of the way in which specific policy areas have emerged.

As well as using academic texts and analysis to inform your understanding of the EU policy process, the module will also familiarise you with a range of primary and other research resources. In particular you will learn about a variety of hard copy and on line materials produced by the European Institutions and bodies seeking to influence or understand the EU. You will also learn about data and media sources which will enable you to draw upon a wider range of material in studying, researching and discussing the issues covered by the module.

France: The Mitterrand Years

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 4

The module aims to engage you with politics and policies in France during the period of the double presidency of François Mitterrand, 1981-1995. It will begin by setting this period in its historical perspective, in order to highlight the significance of the victory of the first socialist president. We will then look at the early years of 'the socialist experiment', 1981-1984, and evaluate its achievements and failures, before moving on to look at the gradual 'Europeanisation' of the policy-making processes after 1984, when the discourse of socialism gives way to that of modernisation and the signing of the Single European Act, a watershed for France and for the Left in particular. We will then examine the first period of 'cohabitation' from 1986-1988, examining its political and institutional implications as well as its consequences, one of which was the re-election of Mitterrand in 1988. In the second presidency we will consider the impact of the collapse of communism on France and on Franco-German relations in particular, and the gradual realisation of 'the end of the French exception' culminating in the referendum debate on the Maastricht Treaty, which brought about certain realignmnents in the party system. Finally, we will consider the ways in which affairs of corruption and the politics of memory (Vichy France and the Algerian War) came to dominate the final years of the Mitterrand presidency, with repercussions for his legacy and the post-Mitterrandian era of French politics.

History Special Dissertation

30 credits
Autumn & spring teaching, Year 4

Ideas of Progress and Decline in Modern British Politics

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 4

Immigrant America

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 4

Immigration and the Liberal State

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 4

Independent Study/Internship Option

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 4

This option provides an opportunity for you to carry out your own research project - working independently but with the help of a project tutor. In order to be accepted onto this option you produce a project outline by the end of you second year which needs to be approved by the module convenor. This many be linked to a period as an intern in the place of work (eg, in a local authority or at Westminster).

Parties and Voters in the UK

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 4

This module focuses on the study of parties and voters in the UK, one of the core topics in British political science. Emphasis is given primarily to contemporary change rather than historical background. Topics and themes covered include: party system change in the UK; historical origins of the party system; electoral behaviour and party competition; party ideologies and programmatic development; intra-party conflict and cohesion; party organisational change; the party system and the political system.

Political Change: Eastern Europe in Transition

30 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 4

The module aims to provide an analysis of the process of political transition and change in contemporary Eastern Europe. It aims to identify and examine the specific characteristics of the transition to democracy by studying the East European states in a comparative context and using analytical frameworks normally employed for the study of established Western democracies and other countries that have undergone recent democratisation. You examine the main political features of the transition by looking comparatively at all the states of the former communist bloc except for those that were formerly in the Soviet Union.

Political Change: India

30 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 4

Political Change: Latin America

30 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 4

The purpose of the module is to engage you with Latin American politics through the analysis of its processes, institutions and major actors. We will assess the most important challenges for these young democracies: the role of the military, the reform of political institutions, threats from guerrillas and other organised armed groups, and the problem of debt and economic restructuring. The module will enable you to evaluate the impact of political culture, economic development, and the legacy of authoritarian regimes for the democratisation process of the region.The module starts by examining the legacy of colonialism, before moving on to look at (neo-)populism in Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Venezuela; it considers the impact of US foreign policy in the region, economic debt and restructuring, and the push for regional economic integration; it examines the experience of the military's role in politics, guerilla and civil war; it also looks at dictatorship, one-party dominance and transition to democracy; finally, it examines the mobilisation of indigenous populations and the recent 'turn to the left' in party politics.

Political Change: Political Parties and Party Systems

30 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 4

Political Change: The European Union as a Global Actor

30 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 4

The emergence, over the last five and a half decades, of the European Union as a global actor of real relevance forms the basis for this module. It will chart and critically analyse this process of change from a community of six member states consumed with internal economic priorities to a union of 27 member states (and growing) whose decisions frequently have a global reach and whose troops  have undertaken missions in south-east Europe, Central Africa and the Far East. What have been the key actors and factors behind this transformation? And where is this process of political change headed? The tutor will encourage and assist you in tackling these and other related questions in a critical manner. The module will cover the following distinct but related topics: foreign policy integration at EU level and its limits; the impact of new member states; the militarization of the Union; the EU and crisis management; the EU and conflict prevention; the impact of the USA and Russia on this process of change; and the soft power/hard power debate.

Political Corruption

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 4

The objective of this module is to shed some light on the dark side of politics by developing analytical and theoretical tools that will allow us to analyse corruption across both time and space. We begin by analysing exactly what we understand by ‘corrupt’ behaviour and how this appears to differ (often quite starkly) across national boundaries. Are humans naturally corrupt? If so, does this matter? Is corrupt behaviour absolute and universal or does it depend on location and context? Indeed, can corruption sometimes even be a good thing?

Armed with the analytical tools aimed at unpacking the complex phenomenon of political corruption, we examine specific examples of corruption across the developed world, ranging from systematic abuses of power by parties and politicians to small-scale, almost trivial, petty misdemeanours. This analysis then provides a foundation for examining what reforms might contribute to lessening instances of political corruption in the western world.

Populism and Politics

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 4

Populism is a widely used term in politics but rarely conceptualised in political science. This module explores the phenomenon of populism and its relationship to politics and particularly to representative politics and considers populism, its meaning, its causes and effects in a systematic and comparative way. Populism is understood in its widest possible sense in this module so that we explore populism of the right and of the left and we examine a wider range of disparate cases of populism from different parts of the world. The module has essentially two elements: the first is the examination of a range of different examples of populist movements, moments, personalities and parties (eg from Russia, North America, Latin America and Europe). The second element is to examine the conceptualisation of populism and to engage with the debates about whether to and how to define populism. The module will be empirically oriented allowing you to develop interests in a small number of cases with an eye to clarifying your positions on the wider conceptual debates regarding populism.

Recent American Writing

30 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 4

The period spanning the late twentieth century to the present has been a rich one for American writing and has seen the emergence of many types of experimentalism and indeed conservatism, at times subsumed under the rubric of the "postmodern." This module explores a range of texts from the mid-80s to the contemporary period to examine how writers have responded to the challenge of America's recent history - its various emergencies and crises, from the consequences of the Vietnam War, the end of Fordist economics, shifts in global migrancy, to the attacks of 9/11 and beyond. It asks whether the label "postmodern" - developed as a concept over the same period - is helpful to describe the ways in which writers have managed literature's traditional concerns with class, gender, ethnicity, capital, the family, the past. It also examines diasporic and "peripheral" literatures like those of the Caribbean as American-ness becomes an increasingly dominant and hegemonic shaper of cultural identity. America's relation to the wider "globalized" world is considered too. All these questions are addressed through close readings and appropriate theoretical commentaries.

Regulatory Politics

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 4

The role and influence of regulation is a major aspect of modern government and public policy. This can be seen in the regulation of public services (typically quality and effectiveness), the regulation of markets (typically questions of price, competition and consumer friendliness), the regulation of the constitution (ranging from public appointments to standards in public life), the regulation of professional services (standards and conduct among doctors, lawyers, etc), and the regulation of personal and ethical matters (such as fertility, genetics and medical research).

The module looks at regulatory politics in a critical, dynamic sense. Regulation is a fast changing field, with many new ideas and developments coming from disciplines such as management, business and psychology. It is also heavily affected by policy failures and disappointments faced by governments. And regulation is shaped by the practices, results and learning of front-line regulators themselves. You are encouraged to draw on all of these influences to develop a rounded understanding of the politics of regulation and regulatory reform.

Single Author Study

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 4

In addition to studying primary texts by your chosen author, you will be expected to use appropriate critical and theoretical material. There will be a series of individual and group sessions across the Spring term leading to the completion of a lengthy self-directed dissertation on the chosen author.

Special Author(s): Jean Rhys, Jamaica Kincaid and the Postcolonial Caribbean

30 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 4

This module introduces you to the literature of the Caribbean and its diaspora and to some key cultural debates in Caribbean, postcolonial and feminist literary discourses through reading the work of Jean Rhys and Jamaica Kincaid, two of the most prominent women writers from the Caribbean. The module addresses issues such as race and literary constructions of the nation; authenticity, orality and questions of voice; gender, sexuality and resistance; home and belonging; servants and madams; life writing; reception and literary reputations; questions of literary belonging and cultural identity; and writing and authorship after colonialism. The selection of texts includes: Jean Rhys's, Wide Sargasso Sea, Voyage in the Dark, Tigers Are Better Looking, and Smile Please and Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John, Autobiography of My Mother, My Brother, Mr Potter, and Talk Story.

Special Author: Herman Melville

30 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 4

Special Author: John Ashbery

30 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 4

Starting with American poet John Ashbery's first book 'Some Trees' and working our way through Ashbery's major experiments in form ('The Tennis Court Oath', collaborative books including 'The Vermont Notebook' and 'A Nest Of Ninnies', and his epic 'Flow Chart'), participants in this module will learn not just a great deal about Ashbery's poetry, but about the post-war American avant-garde more generally speaking. Our understanding of Ashbery's work will be informed by reading into his central role in Abstract Expressionism (as art critic for 'Art News', as collaborator with relevant artists, and as a writer who produced a number of important poetic ekphrases); his friendship and collaborations with Beat Generation figures; his exchanges with Pop Art and the Warhol scene; his engagement with experimental cinema practitioners; and, more recently, his emergence as an important voice in queer writing.

Along the way, module participants will delight in Ashbery's complex blend of dismodules that embrace the narrative, the "personal," the metaphysical, and even mystical. We will focus lovingly on individual lines and stanzas of Ashbery's poetry. We will make measured assessments of the poet's work as generally brilliant if at times problematic. We will refuse (for the most part) to adhere to any one of the 'party lines' we associate with Ashbery criticism, even as we learn from them. By the end of the module, we will understand the historical and literary contexts of Ashbery's work, as we will be motivated to return to his poetry anew, curious, and alert.

Special Subject: The American Civil War in Historical Memory

30 credits
Autumn & spring teaching, Year 4

The ongoing Sesquicentennial commemoration of the Civil War in the United States highlights the continuing capacity of that sanguinary conflict to generate controversy in the present. This module provides you with a detailed examination of the war's impact on generations of Americans since 1865. It focuses specifically on the construction of southern white, African American and official unionist memories of the Civil War. These three key strains of historical memory evolved in the late nineteenth century under the press of postbellum reconciliation between North and South and the concomitant growth of a segregated society. They took a variety forms, notably the potent and profoundly racist 'Lost Cause' memory of the Confederate cause which underpinned the Jim Crow South for more than half a century, a marginalised African-American 'counter-memory' which sought to keep alive remembrance of emancipation and black military service in the armed forces of the United States, and an official national memory which depicted the Civil War as a tragic brothers' war which nevertheless had the effect of unifying and strengthening the United States in preparation for its emergence on the world stage as a Great Power.

The module will focus on the impersonal social and economic forces at work in the construction of these distinctive and frequently intertwined memories as well as the inherently political activities of different groups involved in the memory-making process. These groups include southern white women who founded the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the veterans themselves who contributed significantly to sectional reconciliation, novelists, poets and historians of all kinds, filmmakers and dramatists, and politicians with a wide range of vested interests. The module will introduce you to a broad range of illustrative 'texts' in order to familiarise you with the diverse manifestations of Civil War memory -- not only writings by Ulysses S. Grant, Carl Sandburg, and Douglas Southall Freeman but also monuments such as the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, movies like Gone With the Wind and Glory, and commemorative events including the ill-fated centennial of the 1960s which was moulded by both the Cold War and the modern civil rights movement.

In many respects the module functions as a detailed case study in historical memory, a concept of growing interest to historians and one that has already generated a rich secondary literature. You will be encouraged to engage closely with this broader literature in order to make cross-national comparisons and to apply at least a modicum of theory to the primary and secondary texts at their disposal.

Special Subject: The Civil Rights Movement

30 credits
Autumn & spring teaching, Year 4

You will assess the triumphs and tragedies of the movement for racial equality in the United States during the decades that followed the Second World War. You will begin by looking at the broader societal forces that created the context for the movement, including the decline of the agricultural economy of the American South, the migration of millions of African Americans from rural to urban communities, and the impact of the Second World War. You will analyse the movement from the perspective not only of its leaders but also grassroots activists and evaluate the intellectual and institutional forces that shaped movement activism, especially the role of Christianity. In assessing the civil rights conflicts of the post-war decades, you will also study the ideology and tactics of white racists who opposed reform.

You will learn how the domestic struggle for civil rights was based in a broader global framework and assess how international events impacted on American race relations. One of the narrative threads woven throughout the module is the influence, both positive and negative, of the Cold War on the black freedom struggle. In the short term, the rise of domestic anti-communism had an adverse effect on civil rights protest since white supremacists used popular fears of political subversion to accuse movement activists of being 'un-American'. Nonetheless, in the longer term Cold War politics impelled positive change. You will also study the influence of other international forces such as the decolonisation of African and Asian nations and the emergence of the United Nations.

Through your study of the civil rights movement, you will address a number of issues that relate to your broader critical understanding of history. In addition to sharpening your ability to engage with historiographical debate, you will tackle such issues as political agency, the strengths and limitations of state power, and the commemoration of controversial events in collective historical memory. You will also be encouraged to hone your skills in the interpretation of a wide range of primary sources, including speeches, publicity material and newsreel footage. You will have access to the extensive electronic primary sources available through the university library, including the Chicago Defender and African American Newspapers Collection.

The United States in the World: in-depth Analysis

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 4

As the 21st century begins, the United States is still the world's only superpower: no other nation possesses comparable military and economic power or has interests that reach the entire globe. To understand the place and power of the US in the contemporary world, it is vital to understand how its geopolitical strategies function, militarily and economically. Yet because US power is also secured through cultural and discursive strategies, it is equally important to analyse how US cultural/discursive products and processes participate in the construction of the US in all the varied ways it imagines itself. The aim of this module is to analyse how US cultural/discursive strategies participate in imagining the US in the world, either by being embedded within traditional geopolitical strategies or by sitting alongside them. Rather than taking an historical approach, the module is organised around specific theoretical and cultural/discursive themes and practices. These include architectural theory and the building of embassies abroad, design theory and designing the nation through everyday objects, film theory and screening the nation through popular film, remediation theory and virtually remediating the nation, entertainmentality theory and exhibiting the nation in museums, performance/performativity theory and re-enacting the nation though historical re-enactments as well as song, and advertising theory and advertising the nation to US citizens. Along the way, significant foreign and domestic policy debates from Cold War politics to the War on Terror to the US domestic War on Illegal Immigration will be considered through political, cultural, and discursive theories (eg Said's notion of orientalism, Foucault's notion of governmentality, Butler's notion of performativity, and Ranciere's notion of the birth of the nation).