King's College London

The course places anti-discrimination law in a broader context: theoretical justifications for the anti-discrimination principle are examined, and use is made of historical and social science material where appropriate. The course makes clear the assumptions which underlie traditional thinking concerning anti-discrimination law, and expose these to critical scrutiny. This task is especially important because of the recent expansion and consolidation of anti-discrimination law in Great Britain, as a result of the Human Rights Act 1998, the new anti-discrimination directives under Article 19 TFEU, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and the Equality Act 2010.

This course introduces students to the key texts, arguments, and controversies in European political thought from ancient Greece to the end of the 17th century. This is based on the close reading of classic and complex texts, situated in their broader intellectual and historical context. A single canonical thinker – such as Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Hobbes or Locke – will typically be central to each week’s teaching, but these thinkers are read in relation to the political environments that shaped them and the debates in which they participated. Where possible these key thinkers are considered alongside the work of other thinkers as well as other relevant primary texts. Students explore the early development of key ideas and issues – such as kingship, natural rights’, republicanism, and the relationship between church and state – that have formed, and continue to form, the conceptual bedrock of Western social and political debate. 

Chariot racing, gladiatorial combat, athletic performance, often violent, as well as the theatre and other forms of popular entertainment played a major part as spectacles in the lives of the citizens of the Roman empire throughout antiquity. By virtue of their close connections with other central areas of ancient life, including religious belief and practice, economic organization, political power and patronage, or the construction of political and/or ethnic identity, the forms taken by entertainment in any region or period are very revealing of contemporary concerns and values. This course explore the ancient evidence for Roman entertainment and spectacle from the Republic to late Antiquity, including a wide range of archaeological evidence, including art, architecture and inscriptions, as well as texts. It investigates ancient attitudes to spectacles as well as the responses of modern scholars to an aspect of Roman culture which has caused difficulties for advocates of the Classical world as epitomizing civilized values. 

This interdisciplinary course aims to make sense of what it means for children to grow up into adults. It considers competing arguments that childhood has been extended in recent decades and that children are growing up "too fast," and it assesses the factors that contribute to a successful transition to adulthood. The course draws on perspectives from psychology, sociology, public health, cultural and environmental studies, anthropology, and geography. Students gain an understanding of the different perspectives from which this range of disciplines debate issues around transitions to adulthood, problematizing the key concepts and assumptions underlying these debates and critically examining processes of personal development and identity formation.