University of Bristol

Understanding consumption and consumer behavior is an essential part of the marketing process and key to the long-term success of any organization. This course focuses on the processes through which individuals or groups acquire, use, and dispose of products, services, or experiences. This course explores a range of approaches to consumption and consumer behavior, encouraging students to critically evaluate their relative merits. Accordingly, insights are drawn from a range of disciplines including psychology and economics, science and technology studies, sociology, cultural theory, and anthropology. In addition to exploring the significance of consumer behavior for commercial organizations, the course demonstrates how consumption is positioned as both a problem for and solution to a number of contemporary social and policy challenges.

This course introduces students to (1) the main disciplines which shape education, including sociology, philosophy, economics, history, and psychology, and the accounts they give of the relationships between education and social change; (2) the structures of formal education in the UK and the different conceptions of the value and purposes of education they represent; (3) how key stakeholders, such as policymakers, professional associations, teacher unions and employer bodies, have influenced the ways in which education is organized, for example, by raising the school leaving age, the introduction of a National Curriculum, or Academies; (4) the potential of education to create a more just and socially cohesive society, and what structural, organizational, and individual barriers help or hinder the realization of this vision; and (5) the role of educational theory and research in identifying and analyzing critical educational changes, using concepts such as, marketization, widening participation, social justice, and social inclusion.

This course explores the representation of revenge across a wide selection of literary texts, some of which are read in translation. Among the topics investigated are tensions between the vengeance of the individual and the operations of law, the moral and emotional transformation of the revenger, the haunting presence of the dead, and ideas about pollution and expiation. Starting with plays from the classical period which form an essential background to revenge tragedy of the 16th and 17th centuries, students study a range of tragedies, relating individual texts to dramatic ideas of genre, to traditions and conventions of stage representation, and to the historical contexts of the period. 

This course reviews the variety of methodologies and approaches that comprise the discipline of archaeology today. It introduces students to the history of archaeological research, from the antiquarians of the 18th century to contemporary debates on the interpretation of the past. A range of essential archaeological concepts are introduced alongside key field and laboratory methods, including survey techniques, relative and absolute dating, DNA analysis and environmental archaeology. The ways in which archaeologists have employed the evidence from objects, bodies, buildings, and landscapes to reconstruct past human societies are considered, with case studies exploring how particular archaeological cultures (for example the ancient Greeks) or issues (for example the origins of agriculture) can be addressed.

The course examines the development of art in Britain, and its struggle to assert itself in the wider international art world. Students take as a starting point the careers of four artists who are central to the canon of British art, and whose work still sparks debate. These case-studies vary from year to year. Previously, they have included William Hogarth, William Blake, J.M.W Turner, Walter Sickert, Vanessa Bell, Bridget Riley, Steve McQueen and Lubaina Himid. Possible examples are Lucian Freud, Tracey Emin, Grayson Perry, Pauline Boty and Olafur Eliasson. Building through the course is a larger discussion about the idea of a tradition of British art, and the value and stability of an artistic canon. Is there such a thing as tradition, and if so, what are its themes and preoccupations, and where might it be tending?

In this course students examine challenges related to measuring and modelling sea rising level, and they learn to appreciate why the sea level is rising and how sea level rise is estimated through a combination of observations and modelling. Reliable estimates of future changes are crucial, and students examine how knowledge of past sea level changes can be used to project future sea level rise, and students assess the limitations of such methods. Since, the ice sheets are the most important driver of sea level rise over the long-term, these are a particular focus of the course. The course also examines the economic and social consequences of sea level rise.

This course examines the contemporary international business issues and challenges posed to managers and organization operating across national borders. The course is highly interactive and covers issues such as the role of multinationals and foreign entry strategies. The course also provides opportunity for students to develop their analytical and transferable skills. By the end of the unit, students would have developed the skills to critically evaluate issues and challenges facing organizations operating across national borders.

The course introduces students to some overarching questions associated with literary, artistic, and intellectual culture in medieval and Renaissance Italy, and will provide them with some of the linguistic and analytical tools and terminology for approaching literary and visual texts from these earlier periods. The course thus develops broader critical skills as well as prepares students for specific medieval and Renaissance cultural studies.

The course surveys the fairy tale in English from the 17th to the 21st century. Students survey the first translations of fairy tales into English by the Grimms, Perrault, and Hans Christian Andersen – and explore the context of the huge popularity of these tales. Students investigate their early reception and influence, including on novels and tales written in English, before moving on to 20th and 21st century rewritings. Students also spend time on film adaptations and book illustrations. Detailed consideration is given to a range of critical approaches including psychoanalytical and feminist readings, and the classification of fairy tale plots. Close readings, comparing the language and emphasis of different versions of the same story, is also central to the course.

This course explores television programming in relation to its production and cultural contexts, initially by comparing the vision and practice of early British television (in the so-called Golden Age of the 1950s/60s) with the present complexities of the international television industry and contemporary consumer culture. Students also consider how commissioning decisions are made, and how notions of "quality" and expectations of public service shift in an increasingly plural environment that includes non-broadcast provision of television programming. Lectures and seminars are supplemented by screenings of a range of programs that may be seen to reflect the broader contextual changes of industry, markets, and the public sphere. Students deepen their understanding of practical creative decision making at various levels of the broadcasting industry by researching broadcaster requirements and working on commercially viable group TV program proposals to be presented/submitted at the end of the course.