Paradox and Argument

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 1

This module aims to introduce you to logical concepts and strategies by way of considering some well known philosophical paradoxes and arguments, eg the paradox of the stone (or omnipotence), the argument for fatalism from God's omniscience, and arguments against the coherence of time travel. The notions of truth, functionality and validity will be introduced, along with strategies for establishing the validity of arguments using truth tables.

The Early Modern World

30 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 1

This module introduces you to the early modern period by exploring some of the central themes of early modern history, and the various ways in which they have been debated by historians. It also equips you with the writing and research skills essential for a successful university career.  Focusing on the period 1500 to 1700, you will examine the debates surrounding social polarisation, cultural differentiation, cultures of Protestantism, the context of the English civil war, issues of gender, and the meanings of monarchy and republicanism.

The Making of the Modern World

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 1

This module will introduce a period of momentous social, political and cultural change in British and European history by focusing on some of the key debates that have preoccupied its historians.

Historical controversies over events such as the British Union, the Industrial Revolution, the Enlightenment, and the French Revolution will be examined and used to introduce various historiographical approaches. You will consider central themes such as gender, popular culture, concepts of the state (from absolutism to democracy), sociostructural and demographic change, and empire and nationalism, which will give you a range of perspectives on the past and issues of continuity and change.

Early Modern Philosophy

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 1

The module introduces some assumptions, arguments and ideas from the following major philosophers of the 17th and 18th centuries that ground the empiricist and rationalist traditions: Descartes, Locke, Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume, and Spinoza. You will examine these assumptions, arguments and ideas in the context of contemporary discussions of the issues, in order to better understand both the concerns which lie at the heart of much contemporary philosophy and the history of those concerns.

Existentialism

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 1

Logic and Meaning

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 1

In this module you will be introduced to the basic ideas and methods of (modern) elementary formal logic. The emphasis will be on using logic as a tool to evaluate arguments. You will be introduced to logical concepts such as truth-functionality, logical form, subject/predicate, validity, and derivability. We will also consider related issues concerning meaning, such as the meaning of ordinary-language conditionals; the distinction between literal meaning and conversational implicatures, and the distinction between referring expressions and quantifiers.

Reading Philosophy

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 1

The aim of this module is to spend time reading a small number of philosophical texts (perhaps just one) very closely. Different tutors may choose different texts. You will learn to look at philosophical texts closely as philosophical texts. That is, you will be taught to develop the kind of attentiveness to detail which is important philosophically

Science and Reason

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 1

Science has a special status in our understanding of the world. Several of the earlier philosophers of the modern era were active and innovative scientists in their own right, and the model of scientific understanding has shaped the way philosophy has been done right up to the present day. Some have tried to develop a specifically scientific kind of philosophy; others have tried to separate the task of philosophy from that of science. This module will pursue questions about the relation between science and philosophy, looking in detail at particular texts (which may be drawn from any period) for which these issues are important

Society, State and Humanity

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 1

The module surveys a number of fundamental answers given by Western thinkers to the question 'what is society', exploring them in conjunction with answers to the questions 'what is the state?' and 'what is a human being?'. There will be a particular focus on the question of whether humans can be said to exist prior to society or only as constituted by it. Conceptions of society, state and humanity studied may include those of Plato, Aristotle, St. Paul, Hobbes, Smith, Rousseau, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Durkheim, Freud, and feminist and postmodern critiques of these.

Truth and Morality: The Meaning of Life

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 1

This module is concerned with central issues of morality – examining both the kinds of considerations which might be appealed to in moral arguments, and the status of moral arguments themselves. What should we bear in mind when deciding whether to eat meat, or whether to help someone, or whether to fight a war? In what sense are the decisions we make right? How can a moral argument be a good argument? Are some people wiser than others? Is there any truth in moral relativism? These and related issues will be tackled from a range of theoretical positions.

Global History 1500-2000: Trade, Science, Environment and Empire

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

Global history has emerged as an innovative and powerful approach to understanding the past and its implications for the present and future. Global history is a history of connections. It addresses the contexts and the structures through which societies and communities interacted with one another. The overarching theme of global history is the emergence of an ever more integrated global society, but the field looks to explain and understand particular circumtances as well as universal experiences.

The topics of global history transcend any particular national or local history. You study a theme for between two and three weeks, and lectures support the thematic concerns of the modules. The course looks at several topics in detail:

• communication and war
• race, slavery and anti-slavery
• colonial encounters and environments
• civil and human rights
• global order and disorder
• empire, science, trade and environment.

Alongside these themes the course addresses particular questions such as the emergence of the 'great divergence': the widening gap in the 19th century between living standards in the Atlantic basin and those in the rest of the world and the global expansion of European empires.

Ideas in History

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 2

This module begins with the revival of classical ideas about politics during the Renaissance and Reformation, goes on to consider the debate between ancients and moderns in the 17th and 18th centuries, and finally looks at the nature of modern political thought as it developed from the middle of the 19th century to the present. The aim of the module is to give you an ability to place modern ideas about politics in their historical context, through the study of central figures and themes whose writings continue to be cited in political argument.

The authors considered include: Machiavelli, Milton, Hobbes, Locke, Harrington, Mandeville, Montesquieu, Hume, Rousseau, Smith, Bentham, Hegel, Constant, Tocqueville, Marx, Weber, Lenin, Gramsci, Schmitt, Arendt, Chomsky, and Rawls.

The topics of the module include:

• virtue and security
• the origins of democracy
• absolutism and empire
• perpetual peace
• reason of state and amoral politics
• the debate about commerce, luxury and markets
• the size of the state and its form of government
• the nature of liberty and the means of maintaining it
• totalitarianism and slavery in politics
• modern democracy, philosophy and the modern state
• civil liberty, war and empire.

Kant

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 2

The work of the German Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant continues to have an extraordinary influence in philosophy. As well as its contributions to metaphysics, epistemology, the philosophy of mind, moral philosophy and aesthetics, it offers one of the most significant and intricate reflections on the nature of philosophy itself. The course provides an introduction to some of the central issues in Kant's theoretical and practical philosophy. Topics to be covered include: Kant's doctrine of the subjective nature of space and time; causation; the self and self-identity; freedom and moral agency; duty and the moral law; and the question as to the meaning and coherence of Kant's 'idealism'. There are a few books you might like to look at before the course: Allen Wood's Kant and Henry E. Allison's Kant's Transcendental Idealism and Kant's Theory of Freedom, and Sebastian Gardner's Routledge Philosophy Guidebook, Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason. Roger Scruton's Kant, in the Past Masters series (reissued as Kant: A Very Short Introduction) also provides a good starting point.

Aesthetics

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

Broadly speaking, aesthetics is concerned with two sorts of philosophical questions: questions about aesthetic experience and judgment, and questions about art. They are connected insofar as art is thought to be one of the primary sources of aesthetic experience. However, not every question in aesthetics is about art; and not all questions about art are about aesthetic experience. This module will tackle questions raised by aesthetics in this wide sense, and will approach them from an 'analytic' perspective.

Feminist Philosophy

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

Feminist philosophy covers a range of issues. At the applied end, it is concerned with issues of particular political relevance to women, such as discrimination and equality, and ethical issues surrounding reproduction. At the more abstract end, it is concerned with whether Western philosophical approaches and conclusions are themselves a product of patriarchy. You will explore such themes.

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.

History Short Period: Britain in the 20th Century

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 2

This module concentrates on British history since 1914. You will be introduced to the major themes in the social, cultural and, to a lesser extent, economic and political history of twentieth century Britain. You will critically examine the most important contributions and debates within the historiography of each topic. You will also be introduced to some of the historical sources available for this period. The module covers a number of topics chronologically including War, Work, Leisure, Youth Culture and Immigration.

The module will equip you with the knowledge and skills necessary for a historical understanding of Britain across the twentieth century.

 

History Short Period: Europe in the 20th Century

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 2

This module addresses the main political, economic and cultural issues that continue to shape the history of Europe since World War II. Cold War confrontation and division will inform much of the module structure, with particular attention to broad thematic topics such as: the politics of memory regarding the war and the Holocaust; economic and political integration in both Cold War orbits; the crusade for, and resistance against, Americanisation and Sovietisation across a divided Europe; the end of Empire; the crisis and collapse of European communism; and the prospects and perils confronting post-Cold War Europe.

 

History Short Period: South Asia Since 1880

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 2

This module examines the history of South Asia since 1880. It concentrates on the impact of colonialism on the Indian subcontinent and on the formation of the modern South Asian States of India and Pakistan. You will also learn about the culture of colonialism, the nature of the colonial state and the emergence of nationalism. Gandhi and his non-violent struggle for Indian independence emerges as one of the defining moments of Indian nationalism. The module comprises both lectures and seminars.

Perception and Reality

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 2

It is in perception that we are most obviously aware of the world, so our understanding of perception shapes both our conception of the way in which we can be aware of the world, and our conception of the world of which we can be aware. This module examines philosophical theories of perception, such as sense-datum theories and disjuctivism, as well as the different forms of idealism and realism which are associated with such theories.

Phenomenology

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

Over 50 years ago, Merleau-Ponty began his great work The Phenomenology of Perception with the words: "what is phenomenology?" It may seem strange that this question has still to be asked half a century after the first works of Husserl appeared. The aim of this module is to continue to ask that question about the nature of what has become one of the most important philosophical movements in the last hundred years, and it does so by examining some of the key texts of the philosophers most influenced by, and most critical of, the founder of that movement, Edmund Husserl (1859-1938). These philosophers include Heidegger (1889-1976), Sartre (1905-1980), Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961), Levinas (1906-1995), and Derrida (1930-2004), and they cannot be properly understood unless their relationship to Husserl's philosophy is examined.

Overall, phenomenology attempts to focus on "how" things appear to us rather than simply asking "what" these things are. Themes to be discussed include the nature of perception, the role of the sciences, the impact of emotions, the body and intersubjectivity.

A reader with photocopies of the most important texts for this module can be purchased in the first session.

Philosophy of Mind

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

This module will examine the nature of the mind, employing the procedures of analytic philosophy. We will be concerned with the nature of thought and of mental representation, addressing such questions as the following. How are mental properties and physical properties related? Are beliefs and desires the causes of actions? Could we have thoughts even if there were no world? What grounds the authority we appear to have over claims about the contents of our own minds? How are we to understand the nature of consciousness ?

Philosophy of Religion

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 2

The module aims to encourage engagement with different perspectives on the philosophy of religion drawing on analytic and continental sources. We start with a methodological discussion and an examination of different approaches to the question how philosophy can contribute to religious knowledge and understanding. Topics include the existence of God, providence and free will, and the morality of afterlife. One question that arises out of this discussion concerns the appropriateness of treating `God' as a peculiar kind of object. We consider this question in relation to phenomenological and existentialist approaches that focus on religious experience and also approaches that focus on the meaning of religious terms and the nature of belief. We conclude with a consideration of current debates about religion and science and the role of religion in everyday life.

Philosophy of Science

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

The philosophy of science explores, among other things: the nature of laws and scientific explanation; the distinctive character of science and of how science progresses; realism/anti-realism about the theoretical entities posited by scientific theories. This module will introduce you to these issues and the central arguments involved. You will also explore notions integral to science, such as time, natural kinds, counterfactual support and causation.

Plato

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 2

In this module we will look at some central themes in the works of Plato, concentrating especially on ethics and metaphysics. We will examine the attempts to define virtues in some supposedly early dialogues, and the central Socratic ethical claim that it is impossible to do wrong knowingly. These issues will be pursued into the central moral argument of the Republic. We will also look at the so-called 'theory of forms' as it appears in various dialogues, including (especially) the Republic and the criticisms of it which are made in the Parmenides. We will consider Plato's philosophy of art in connection with the theory of forms.

Short Period: The Middle East and North Africa since 1908

15 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 2

Time and Place 1851: Science, Empire and Exhibitionism

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

Time and Place1926: The General Strike

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

At one minute to midnight on 3 May 1926, the British Trades Union Congress called a general strike in support of coal miners, who were refusing to accept their employers' demands for a longer working day and reduced wages. What followed was one of the most dramatic episodes in the history of the British labour movement. Up to two million men, along with one million miners, downed their tools with more poised to follow before the general strike was called off on 12 May. The miners continued their fight for a further seven months before they finally returned to work. This was a defining moment in an era of economic, social and political strife. It had a huge impact on working-class identity for decades to come, and remains one of the most significant examples of industrial action Britain has ever seen.

During the module you will explore the experience of the General Strike in depth, looking at its causes and its consequences, and the impact it had on the lives of those involved. Using oral history, autobiography, contemporary writings and social surveys, this will lead to a broader examination of working-class life in interwar Britain, dealing with themes such as:

• Working life (industry and labour, industrial relations, unemployment and poverty)
• Family life (neighbourhood and community, gender roles, children's experiences)
• The State (welfare, housing, policing)
• Working-class identities (culture, leisure and collective mythologies)
• Political struggle (trade unions, the rise of the Labour Party and its opponents, Conservative hegemony, political extremism).

Time and Place: 1688: The Glorious Revolution

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

In November 1688 the Dutch prince William III of Orange invaded England, and James II, King of England, Ireland, and Scotland, fled London. By February 1689, William and his wife Mary were offered the English crown.

The constitutional settlement following the Glorious Revolution shaped the formation of the British state for centuries to come, and the ensuing military strife contributed to Britain’s rise as an international power. At the same time, the revolution created conditions for the development for a thriving commercial society and a vibrant civil society.

This module will examine the political and religious strains that gave rise to these momentous events. You will see how they were perceived at the time, and how they are interpreted by present-day historians. You will also examine the revolution’s consequences.

Time and Place: 1838: The Coronation of Queen Victoria

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

The coronation of Queen Victoria in 1838 brought to the throne the first woman in over one hundred years. Almost at once the initial popular interest in her desirable qualities - her youth, her femininity, her purity - began to sour as she was revealed to be a staunch partizan of the unpopular Whig government, and then chose for her Consort a German, the soon-­to­-be Prince Albert.

This module will examine two major themes. Firstly, it will use the early years of Victoria's reign to explore the painful birth of 'Victorian' England, ­ caught between the aristocratic assumptions of the eighteenth-century and the more middle-class principles of the nineteenth. Secondly, it will tie together these threads by returning to the Coronation of 1838 and examining its place in the long development of royal ritual, in order to assess how far the 'invented traditions' of British monarchy have contributed to the stability of the nation.

Among topics to be considered will be the rise of the middle class, the role of women in early Victorian England, the conflicts of religion, the politics of reform and the struggle for the constitution, the rise of respectable society, the impact of technology, and the rise of the popular press.

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

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

Time and Place: 1916: The Somme

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

There were nearly 60,000 British casualties on the first day of the Somme. The final tally was nearly 420,000 British casualties. This represents a significant proportion of total British war casualties. Nearly all of those that fought are now dead and the war is rapidly passing from living memory.

This course will ask: what were the experiences of those who fought? how did experience and expectation vary by class and age? is it true that the ‘flower of British youth’ perished in Flanders fields? what long term impact did the carnage have on the attitudes of the British people? how is the war represented in art and literature and in what ways have these representations been used to portray particular views of war?

The war is often seen as a great watershed - between the Victorian nineteenth century and the modern twentieth century - but historians increasingly question the extent to which changes brought about by the war were anything more than transitory. Nevertheless, the lives of many who were non-combatants did change profoundly. About 800,000 women entered the workplace to replace men who were called up.

This course asks: how did war work affect women’s lives and expectations? in a wider context, did the needs of ‘total war’ and desire to secure victory at all costs transform the political aspirations of working people?

Time and Place: 1929: The Weimar Republic

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

In 1929 the stock market crashed and further de-stabilised the already fragile Weimar Republic.  This year also marks the publication of Alfred Döblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz, one of the great works of modernist literature. 

This module looks at the history, politics, art and philosophy of the Weimar Republic (1918-1933).  In addition to reading excerpts from Berlin Alexanderplatz and Christopher Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin, you will also study the innovative cinema of Fritz Lang, F.W. Murnau, Bertolt Brecht and Leni Riefenstahl, developments in German Expressionist painting during this period, and Bauhaus architecture.  You will read some seminal political and philosophical works of the period in the writings of Carl Schmitt, Walter Benjamin and Martin Heidegger.  You will take a multi-disciplinary approach to some of the most important political and artistic experiments in the twentieth century, and will acquire invaluable background knowledge about the collapse of Weimar and the rise of National Socialism. 

Time and Place: 1938: Kristallnacht

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

During the night of the 9th of November 1938, SS and SA forces launched an assault on German Jews; on their property, their synagogues, and their businesses. This so-called ‘Kristallnacht’ can be understood as a violent rehearsal for the Holocaust which Nazi Germany implemented three years later. It also marks the end of over a century of a prolific and (mostly) peaceful co-existence between Jews and Christian non-Jews.

This module concerns the relationship between Jews and Christian no-Jews since the early 19th century. It focuses on the complex processes of political emancipation, of social integration, and of cultural adaptation through which Jews became an integral part of the German political, social and cultural life. At the same time, these processes changed Jewish religious, economic, social and cultural life.

This module will concentrate on the period from the mid-19th century to the beginning of the Holocaust, emphasizing Jewish life in imperial and Weimar Germany as well as under Nazism. Issues of Jewish identity will be discussed along with aspects of modern anti-Semitism. You will gain an understanding of this history of Jewish/non-Jewish relations in all its richness, alongside its problematic aspects leading up to 1938 and the Holocaust.

Time and Place: 1942: Holocaust

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

This module looks at the attempt by the Nazis to create a ‘Master Race’ by exterminating the Jews of Europe and by targeting other groups including gay people, Gypsies and people with disabilities. You will study the legacy of anti-Semitism and racism towards Gypsies, along with other forms of discrimination inherited by the Nazis and used by them to create their own racist policies.
You will consider issues such as: how was the so-called ‘Final Solution to the Jewish problem’ put into effect? why is 1942 a key year in the development of the Final Solution? what part was played by the perpetrators across occupied Europe? is it accurate to characterise most people as bystanders? what sort of people were rescuers? what were the experiences of the victims and what were the possibilities of resistance?
The issues will give rise to many questions about why the Holocaust happened. The module will examine how it was possible to  carry out this plan of mass murder so effectively, and to do so in such a short time, when the plan relied on the active involvement of many people, and the passive acceptance of even more.

Time and Place: 1956: The Battle of Algiers

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

The starting point will be 30 September 1956 when four Algerian women placed bombs in the European quarter of Algiers - a key moment in the Battle of Algiers. The module will commence with the precise context for this action, namely the unfolding war in Algeria between the National Liberation Front (FLN) and the left-wing Republican Front government. It will examine the motivations for this violence and the particular involvement of the Algerian women in the anti-colonial struggle.

The course will then move on to consider the wider international context for the Algerian crisis. In this way 30 September 1956 will be related to:

• the rise of pan-Arab nationalism encapsulated within Nasser's Egypt
• British and French imperialisms expressed through the Suez Crisis
• the Cold War confrontation in the Middle East and North Africa
• the role of Israel in the Middle East
• US foreign policy in the Middle East and North Africa and the tensions this produced between the old colonial powers and the USA
• the foundation of the EEC
• splits within the left and the rise of the new left that criticised the USSR
• the rise of the non-aligned movement
• Americanisation and the Western European 'economic miracle'. 

Time and Place: 1963: Sexual Revolution in Britain

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

According to the poet Philip Larkin, sexual intermodule began in 1963, and the ‘swinging sixties’ have been characterised as a decade when sexual relationships were subject to fundamental change.

Taking 1963 as a starting point, this module will examine the shifting nature of sexual and emotional intimacy across 20th century Britain. You will examine how appropriate it is to characterise certain decades as periods of sexual revolution and others as periods of sexual conservatism, and how to account for such a historical change.

You will pay close attention to long-term demographic shifts and attempt to account for the rising popularity of marriage until the late 1960s, and its declining popularity during the 1970s. You will examine the social implications of birth control availability, the significance of historically-specific shifts in the age of first marriage, courtship etiquette, changing sexual practices and cultural constructions of ‘love’.

Time and Place: 1968: Rivers of Blood

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

Time and Place: 1984: Thatcher's Britain (Observing the 1980s)

15 credits
Spring teaching, Year 2

George Orwell's 1949 novel 1984 describes a totalitarian government bent on total manipulation. For many on the left, Margaret Thatcher's government represented elements of an 'Orwellian state', in which the social democratic consensus established after the end of World War Two was replaced by a free enterprise economy and a centralised state. For those on the political right, the 1980s Thatcher governments championed the re-assertion of individualism, British nationalism and a retreat from the so-called 'nanny state' in which the fight against the 'enemy within' was as important as the fight against the enemy without. In cultural terms, most writers point to the 1980s as being marked by creative pessimism, with 'anti-Thatcherism' the dominant cultural theme.

This module will examine key events of the 1980s and reflect upon whether Margaret Thatcher's most famous quote, 'There is no such thing as society', is a suitable epitaph for the 1980s. Topic studied include: 1982 Falklands War; the 1984 miners' strike; the re-emergence of mass unemployment, peaking in 1986 at over 3.5 million; privatisation of industry and challenge to trade union power and the violent mass protest against the Community Charge (1990). Rather than producing a top down political history of the period, this module is interested in exploring the wide variety of evidence available to the contemporary historian. It is built around the Observing the Eighties project which includes oral histories from the British Library and holdings of the Mass Observation Project and ephemera from the University of Sussex.

History Special Dissertation

30 credits
Autumn & spring teaching, Year 3

Ethics

30 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 3

This module will look at the central questions in normative ethics and meta-ethics. These will include: what makes an action right; whether there are moral rules; whether there are moral facts, and if so, how they can be known; whether there are external moral reasons; and of the relation between moral truths and non-moral truths. Positions to be examined include non-cognitivism, naturalism, non-naturalism, internalism and externalism.

Figures in Analytic Philosophy

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 3

This module will look in detail at the position and arguments of one or more major figures in analytic philosophy, such as Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Kripke or Lewis.

Figures in Classical Philosophy

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 3

This module will look in detail at the positions and arguments of one or more major figures in classical philosophy. The module will often focus on Aristotle, considering his metaphysics, or his ethical theory, or both, but it may sometimes deal with philosophers in the Hellenistic and Roman periods of the classical European tradition, and it may sometimes deal with classical philosophers of other traditions.

Figures in Post-Kantian Philosophy

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 3

In this module you will look in detail at the position and arguments of a major figure in post-Kantian philosophy, such as Hegel or Heidegger.

Figures in Social and Political Philosophy

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 3

In this module you will look in detail at the position and arguments of a major figure in social political philosophy, such as Rawls, Marx or Habermas.

Language, Truth and Literature

30 credits
Spring teaching, Year 3

Drawing on resources from analytical philosophy, continental philosophy and literary theory as well as engaging with particular fictional and poetic works, this module offers a critical investigation into some of the most important issues in the philosophical treatment of literature, narrative and fiction. You consider topics such as: metaphor and metaphorical meaning; the relation between fiction and truth; the logical status of fiction; and intentionality and interpretation. You explore questions such as: what does it tell us about language that something like literature is possible? Is there a type of understanding proper to the understanding of a poem? Why is philosophy troubled by fiction and fictionality?

Metaphysics

30 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 3

Modern European Philosophy

30 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 3

The module will offer a thematically nuanced investigation into the work of some of the key European philosophers of the past two hundred years. Figures to be studied might include: Hegel, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Sartre, Heidegger, Levinas, Lukacs. Adorno, Arendt, Foucault, Derrida and Habermas. You can also expect to examine some of the most signifcant work done in two or more of the following traditions: phenomenology, hermeneutics, deconstruction, critical theory, discourse, ethics, and feminism. Because of the wealth of thinkers and ideas in the area, the module can vary substantially from year to year; in each year, there will be one or more unifying themes, such as critique, art, truth, faith, law, or ethics.

Philosophy of Language

30 credits
Autumn teaching, Year 3

This module will be concerned with the nature of language in general and with the meaning of particular kinds of expression. Its focus will be the influential works of the analytic tradition by Frege, Russell, Quine, Grice, Kripke, Putnam and Davidson. We will consider what sort of thing the meaning of words might be; whether we should distinguish between sense or cognitive significance and reference; how we manage to refer to things; how to make sense of claims about necessity and about what people think; how names and natural­kind terms work; and how we might respond to scepticism about meaning.

Special Subject Capitalism and Ethnicity

30 credits
Autumn & spring teaching, Year 3

Special Subject: Britain and the Second World War

30 credits
Autumn & spring teaching, Year 3

This module concentrates on the impact of the Second World War on social, cultural, economic and political relations in Britain 1938-45. The extent to which the war had a profound impact on British society is the subject of vigorous debate among historians in secondary literature. A complicated historiography exists for many of the topics included in this module, and the reasons for this changing interpretation of the past will be explored. The topics covered by this module include: 1930s appeasement, civil defence and preparation for war, civilian evacuation, the blitz, the fall of Chamberlain and the Churchill coalition government, Dunkirk evacuation, war economy, rationing, agriculture, women in factories and auxiliary services, combatants' experience, D-Day landings, American service personnel in Britain, Beveridge report and the post-war welfare state, the General Election of 1945. The emphasis of History Special Subjects is to examine a particular period in detail using primary sources and subsequent monographs and articles. Primary sources include: Parliamentary Papers; government publications, contemporary social investigation and comment; contemporaneous essays and monographs; oral historical accounts; memoirs and diaries, films, paintings, poems, photographs etc. Subsequent analysis, in the form of books and articles are secondary sources.

Special Subject: Democracy and War

30 credits
Autumn & spring teaching, Year 3

Special Subject: Domesticity and its Discontents: Women in Post-War Britain

30 credits
Autumn & spring teaching, Year 3

Special Subject: Modernism

30 credits
Autumn & spring teaching, Year 3

Special Subject: Palestine in Transition: World War 1 and Beyond

30 credits
Autumn & spring teaching, Year 3

Special Subject: Reforming Islam in the 20th Century: Modernism, Revivalism, Extremism, Terrorism

30 credits
Autumn & spring teaching, Year 3

Special Subject: The American Civil War in Historical Memory

30 credits
Autumn & spring teaching, Year 3

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 Century of the Gene

30 credits
Autumn & spring teaching, Year 3

At the beginning of the 20th century no-one knew anything about genetics (the word itself had yet to be coined), yet by the century's end, you could buy cheap, do-it-yourself genetic tests on the internet. You will investigate the ways in which advances in scientific knowledge have affected our sense of ourselves, so that the very phrase 'human nature' has increasingly come to mean something fixed by our genes. The language of genetics has had a powerful effect on political dismodule; the eugenic ideal of creating a superior type of human was supposed to have died with Hitler, yet seems to live on in routine genetic testing and screening, and in the fantasy of 'designer babies'. The idea of a genetic blueprint, and of being able to read, and perhaps to edit and re-write, the DNA 'code', has shaped popular culture, from television and cinema to novels and computer games.

You will examine a broad and diverse range of primary sources, from accessible scientific texts to science fiction (novels, TV and movies) to examples of how the mass media report science, in order to track the often imaginative uses of ideas like cloning, mutation and genetic engineering. No knowledge of biology is needed for this module. The goal is for you to understand the ways in which non-expert publics have understood genetics. Biology's grip on the public imagination helped it become the defining science of the 20th century. Genetics redefined the public sphere in 20th century because of the promise, or threat, that it would reshape humans and the world we live in.

Special Subject: The Civil Rights Movement

30 credits
Autumn & spring teaching, Year 3

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.

Special Subject: The European Experience of the First World War

30 credits
Autumn & spring teaching, Year 3