King's College London

The course explores the international political economy of sanctions in the constantly changing context of economic warfare and geopolitical rivalry. The aim is to investigate various theoretical approaches to sanctions and to apply those to case studies (e.g. Iran, North Korea, Russia, China, Venezuela, Cuba, Iraq, etc.). Sanctions are analyzed with reference to wider political debates over essential topics, such as national security, state sovereignty, economic warfare and sustainability, legality and legitimacy. The plurality of visions is explored by listening to alternative voices and narratives. By counterposing the justifications for the use of sanctions by sender states to diverse perspectives, expressed by the target states, as well as to increasingly heterodox views of third parties, students develop their critical thinking, and obtain a comprehensive and holistic understanding of sanctions.

This course considers how contemporary world cinema imagines the non-human, via a focus on those uncanny figures that are disturbingly close to the human; cyborgs, vampires, people who turn into animals, and aliens who pretend to be humans. It introduces some of the critical terrain of the posthuman, and connects it to cinematic questions of identity, genre, and style. It addresses topics such as feminism and queer theory, globalization and biopolitics, technology and nature, while analyzing a range of sci-fi and horror cinema, as well as speculative and fantastical art films. 

This course introduces students to the study of History and Political Economy. Students consider the difficulties related to data collection and the use of proxies in historical contexts. They review the main methodological approaches used by scholars in this field, and they  probe the advantages and limits of History and Political Economy as a discipline in answering some of the most challenging questions of our time: Why do humans cooperate? What are the origins of democracy and the rule of law? Why are some countries more developed than others? And what lessons can we draw from historical institutions to redesign our own?

The course covers the history of Britain from the late 18th century through to c.1870. The focus is on political history broadly defined. Consideration is given to the impact of ideological, sexual, demographic, social, cultural, and economic change on the political process and policy-making, as well as more conventional issues such as constitutional reform and party politics. The course seeks to provide students with an appreciation of the wider contexts in which politics took place (social contexts especially), as well as a secure understanding of political developments themselves. 

The course addresses the place of race and racism in Western and non-Western political theory (to the extent that these should even be considered separate entities). The course fosters a conversation between a variety of different Western and non-Western thinkers in order to ask questions as how important ideas of race are or should be in political theory, how certain ideas of race came to dominate in certain contexts, how explicit or implicit racism is in certain thinkers and ideologies, whether we should consider key thinkers to be racist or whether those ideas can be separated from their other political arguments, and what it means when such questions are overlooked.

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?