King's College London

This course engages with some of the key theories, approaches and findings that explore how language and social interaction underpin organizational life. The course draws on an interdisciplinary research field to interrogate the unique properties of "organizational discourse" and "institutional talk." It is structured around studies of organizational texts (e.g. recruitment brochures, mission statements, websites, and adverts), as well as studies of social interaction in organizational settings (e.g. business meetings, call centers, healthcare delivery, and sales encounters). 

Science is a source of a great deal of our knowledge about the world, but what gives it its claim to epistemic authority? Is there something special about the scientific method, or is it an extension of everyday reasoning? To what extent can science tell us about things we can’t observe? And how might we reconcile a positive answer to the previous questions with the knowledge that science is a social enterprise and subject to many of society’s failings? 

Social justice has long been at the heart of 'development' – alongside economic growth, environmental sustainability and accountable governance. Further, these other goals are often regarded as instrumental to justice: growth enables surplus for redistribution; sustainability ensures fairness to future generations; and accountability promotes more equitable shares. Rather than debate ‘social justice’ in abstract terms, this course engages with embedded, ethnographic perspectives: why does injustice prevail; why do inequalities persist; why are states violent; how do people come to resist and mobilize for change; engage with the state; or turn to violent opposition? In listening to people’s perspectives, understanding their beliefs and desires, the course also introduces the anthropological approach to development at large. 

This course is an in-depth study of art production in the Classical world, providing a history of making from Graeco-Roman techniques to their reception in the Renaissance and use until the present day. Students engage with the materials, tools, and processes involved in the production of sculpture, pottery, painting, glass, textiles, and jewelry among other art forms. Students study the complex sequence of actions involved in their production, following the artist as maker as well as investigating the client behind these commissions.

This course looks at how multinational enterprises (MNEs) navigate in the international landscape given country and institutional differences.

The course introduces students to the extraordinary range of American poetry in the first half of the 20th century, which includes, for example, the radical experiments of Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, Mina Loy and William Carlos Williams; the conservative modernism of Robert Frost; the European-oriented neo-classicism of T.S. Eliot and H.D.; the cerebral playfulness of Marianne Moore and Wallace Stevens; the political daring and earnestness of Muriel Rukeyser; the marriage of avant-garde irreverence with a democratic openness to popular culture (cinema, jazz) represented by Langston Hughes; or the subtle social, sexual and racial awareness to be found in the work of Gwendolyn Brooks.

This course covers the history of war from as far back as the 13th century right up to the height of large-scale, industrialized warfare in World War Two and the global, colonial violence of the 20th century. It does not strive to provide what would end up inevitably being a superficial coverage of all wars in all regions of the world. Rather, different, select periods or conflicts are considered as illustrations to help us explore the central theme of escalation over time and the emergence globally of modern war and violence. This is the spring-only version of the course.