King's College London

This course introduces students to the history of the world from 1780 to 1900. It focuses on the idea of modernity, following four major themes that help explain the making of the modern world: War and Empire; the Material World; Politics and Revolution; and Societies and Cultures. A series of chronologically organized lectures and seminars address significant events, topics, and concepts relating to the history of Britain, Europe, and other world regions. This course asks students to think thematically over time; to detect connections and contrasts between phenomena in different places; to recognize that all regions of the world have complex histories; and to develop a world historical imagination.

This course teaches the history of the ancient world across three continents and 1800 years. It shows how the classical world of Greece and Rome developed alongside the civilizations of the Near East and beyond. It explores the evidence on which the history of the period is based, and introduces students to the most recent interpretations of the past. The course follows the rise of Rome first in Italy and then in the Mediterranean and northwards as far as Britain, also exploring its cultural impact in different parts of the Empire.

The course introduces students to key arguments about the various ways that economics increasingly underpins the cultural sector and the creative industries. The module outlines broad concepts that provide the students with foundational knowledge about cultural economics, cultural markets, and cultural value. Recent changes, such as the digitization of culture are introduced which help students identify and understand how the economics of culture is subject to change. Students learn about the way cultural labor is valued and often de-valued and the structures of cultural economies which enable inequality. A wide variety of cultural sectors and products are examined including cultural heritage, festivals, and cities of culture. Students consider the impacts of cultural production on the environment and innovative ways to change the footprint of culture, media, and creative industries.

This course examines language, discourse, and communication across different contexts within medicine, illness, and health. It explores some of the dominant policy and media discourses of health, focusing on issues such as mental health, relationships of power between patients and health professionals, the framing of personal risk and responsibility in health promotion, and the representations of emerging diseases. Students examine the discursive negotiation of personal experiences of health problems, for example through narrative reconstructions of illness experiences, positioning of "sick" and "healthy" people, doctor-patient interactions, and the use of online forums for advice and support. The course covers a range of approaches and methods that are used in health discourse analysis, such as illness narratives, discursive psychology, conversation analysis, discourse metaphors, and critical discourse analysis.