University of Bristol

This course covers the essential techniques of orchestral writing. It examines the capabilities of the individual instruments, section by section, using practical demonstrations wherever possible. Students learn to blend instruments within their family groups and eventually to combine these groups into full orchestral textures. Examples used are drawn mainly from Classical and Romantic orchestral literature, together with some pieces from the early 20th century.

This course explores the figure of the child in English literature of the 19th and 20th centuries. The class discusses several questions including the following in order to examine this concept in further depth: How and for what purposes has the child been deployed in literature, both as a character and as an implied reader? How is the child (reader or character) constructed as different from the adult, and how does the advent of psychoanalytic models of subjectivity at the turn of the century affect the construction of childhood? How are child characters used to explore concepts such as innocence, nature, knowledge, goodness, and evil? How are implied child readers positioned in relation to adults, and in relation to ideology and the reproduction of cultural knowledge? What narrative and literary techniques are used to achieve this positioning?

This course explores scientifically validated strategies for living a more satisfying life. Throughout the course, students analyze the latest results from research in psychological science about how to be happier, how to feel less stressed, and how to flourish, even in a challenging environment. The course provides students with opportunities to put some of these strategies into practice in their own lives and to build some of the habits that will allow them to live more fulfilling lives.

This course examines key concepts of well-being and livelihoods and provides a grounding in the principle issues of medical and applied anthropology, population, and health studies. Topics include health and nutrition, population and the demographic challenge, migration and refugees, well-being, disease and illness, and poverty and inequality. Students examine concepts of well-being and livelihoods, from social and biological perspectives, and at the local and global scale. Students study the principal biological and cultural influences upon well-being and livelihood, and locate these in their broader economic, social, and ecological context. The course demonstrates how the traditional anthropological focus on the local community and small-scale society can be applied to the wider national and international picture of well-being. The course also surveys methodologies used in the fields of applied and medical anthropology, demography, and population studies.

This course examines plays and performances produced in a range of colonial and postcolonial contexts. By introducing key theories of postcolonialism, it explores the strategies of power that are wielded by colonizing nations, and demonstrates how theater has been used within various cultures as a tool for resistance.