University of Bristol

This course examines key trends and changes in contemporary television drama. This includes the exploration of different genres and narrative forms, along with the impact of new styles and technologies in changing industrial contexts, to include both broadcast and streamed services. The course also explores broader theoretical ways of understanding contemporary television, such as its relation to modernity and the nation state, globalization, and the place of television in contemporary culture. Although much of the emphasis is on English language television, students are invited to explore comparative examples from other countries and cultures in the context of developing a specific area of focus for a case study.

This course provides an overview of the economics of Globalization and Development. The first part of the course takes a historical perspective and focuses on globalization and development up to the Industrial Revolution. The course discusses the main driving forces: geography, culture, and institutions. The second part of the course first introduces several models of development and underdevelopment, with an emphasis on capital accumulation, rural-urban migration and the possibility of poverty traps. Next, it moves on to explore the influence that international trade, financial globalization and international migration have on modern development. Finally, the course turns to examining in more detail the agricultural and industrial sectors and what governments can do to facilitate their transformation as well as the development of the whole economy.

This course examines a selection of epic poems from ancient Greece and Rome - all studied in translation - to trace the development of the genre from the oral tradition of Homer through the literary composition of later Greek and Latin poets. Authors and texts studied in this course may include Homer, Hesiod, Apollonius of Rhodes, Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, and Statius. Themes studied may include genre, gender, myth, the gods, destiny, mortality, narrative technique, oral, and literary culture, or paradigms of heroism. Students also reflect on the cultural and political contexts of these works, including differences between Greek and Roman epics.

The course explores the concept and principles of marketing. It reflects upon the factors that affect markets, demand and supply, the range of stakeholders associated with any given market, the function that marketing fulfills for organizations, customers, consumers and society more broadly, and the key principles and practice of marketing. In this way, it provides an introduction to essential concepts associated with marketing and consumption, while also highlighting interconnections between marketing and other fields of study.

Students explore a range of different types of painting from a number of different cultural traditions, geographical, and historical contexts. They consider the ethical questions that arise through the global trade in different pigments and supports. Adopting a transhistorical approach, they also examine the possibilities and challenges these materials present for makers and conservators. One key theme is the issue of representation itself and how this is achieved through the medium of paint, as well as how the viewer interprets the painted surface.

The course examines how Ireland’s landscape has changed in the period 1850-present, and examines the sources and methods we can use to understand the history of landscape. Throughout this course students try to make sense of the overlapping influences of conflict, economic change, and social life on the making of the landscape and explore the impact that place and land has had on the creation of modern Ireland.

This course introduces students to the uneven scope, scale, and pace of change in contemporary Britain. Students interrogate the ways in which different narratives of continuity and change emerged in and about the 20th century in Britain, and the purposes they have served. By exploring different areas of life – from politics, voting, and protesting, to working, shopping, belief, and love – students engage with alternative ways of understanding this period in British history. In this course students tackle big historiographical debates in the field and develop a more complex understanding of the political turmoil, economic uncertainty, and social upheaval of the 20th century.

This course provides students with an understanding of the basic concepts used in the preparation of financial information and will introduce them to the forms of financial statements that managers need to be familiar with. In addition, the course introduces students to appropriate forms of finance and the means of raising money to fund enterprises, the financial planning this entails, and forms of feedback and accountability to actual and potential fund providers.

Students taking this course learn about the history, theory, and practice of decolonization. This includes a critical look at decolonization versus decolonial thinking in practice, including the institutionalization of calls to ‘decolonize’ which seek finalized end points rather than ongoing modes of decolonial critique. Students undertake specialized study through examples and case studies which may include topics such as decolonizing history, heritage, public history and museums, decolonizing universities, curricula and education, decolonizing environmental activism, art and art history, literature and public spaces.

This course explores one or more key issues in Value Theory through the close reading of two or more central works by key historical thinkers in the area and by the critical analysis of the ideas and arguments these works present. The course also introduces students to some of the key secondary literature on the relevant texts and consider how the ideas presented in these texts relate to each other and to issues in the modern philosophical debate.