University of London, Queen Mary

This course starts off by investigating whether montage appears as a general artistic principle across the arts approximately at the same time or whether we can identify a single art medium as its birthplace. Drawing on pinnacles of modernist art including futurist and dada collages and photomontages, film city symphonies, and city novels the course analyzes stylistic, narratological, and perceptual aspects of montage in different media and their relations to broader cultural formations such as urban modernity and radical politics.

This course explores current theoretical approaches and research in the area of language development and cognition in neurodiverse populations. These topics are included: Theoretical and methodological issues in the study of neurodiversity and language difficulties in childhood, including dyslexia, developmental language disorder, reading comprehension impairment; autism spectrum disorders; attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; assessment and intervention for developmental difficulties in speech and language acquisition.

In this course students learn about the sources and determinants of economic inequality. Students begin by thinking about how we should understand top income and wealth concentration: The fact that rich people are so much higher than the rest (the so-called "1%." New and old theories of income and wealth concentration are studied. Students then think about what generates overall inequality. Is it luck? Higher education? Having rich or better educated parents? Finally, the course discusses how income inequality manifests itself, specifically whether income differences are mostly driven by education level, industries, or occupations.

From Amazon.com to the Mall of America - some of the world's most sophisticated selling technologies emerged in the United States. In fact, some have called consumption America's true national pastime. But how did this culture of consumption take shape? And what does it mean for a global community today? Surveying the transformation of America's consumer culture, this course explores what power the consumer has commanded in American society. The course examines how critiques of consumption shaped the course of American politics, economics, and social order. 

In the period covered by this course, from 1871 to the present, interactions between Gentiles and Jews in Germany underwent a dramatic and unprecedented set of upheavals. What were the main problems, struggles and achievements in this period of German-Jewish history? This course initially focuses on debating the chances and limits of emancipation and assimilation of Jews in Imperial Germany and on discussing the so-called Jewish Renaissance in the Weimar Republic. A survey of the expansion and the role of antisemitism and its political manifestations in German society will provide a platform for studying the Nazi take-over of power and the Holocaust. The course concludes with the post-war history of Jews in Germany, addressing contemporary challenges such as the integration of Russian-speaking Jews and the future of German Jewry. Students consider the ethical questions that arise when approaching a challenging area of historical enquiry, and learn to identify information needs appropriate to different situations. 

Taught by numerous site visits to historic buildings alongside lectures and seminars, this course introduces students to the study of architecture by exploring buildings in the London area from the start of the 17th century to the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837. During the course, students witness London burn to the ground, be comprehensively rebuilt, and then expand from a small European capital into the largest city in the world. Along the way, students encounter a wide variety of buildings including cathedrals, palaces, churches, synagogues, breweries, shops, and hospitals. Students acquire skills in looking at, reading, and understanding buildings and become adept at using them as historical evidence. Students also learn how to relate architecture to its social, political, and intellectual context, and develop insights into the ways that buildings may carry and convey meaning, whether to an expert or to a more general audience. No prior knowledge of architecture or architectural history is required to undertake the module. When timetabling, allow yourself an hour's travel time either side of the class for site visits.

Health communication is becoming increasingly important in a world faced with new health challenges from obesity to Ebola, anxiety to diabetes. This course considers the role of language in our experience of and beliefs about health and illness. Students learn how health communication differs among various communities, both monolingual and multilingual, from the grassroots level, such as in families, to broader groups, for example, between health professionals and patients. It also considers the effects of social diversity, such as the age, gender, and ethnicity of patients and healthcare professionals. Students become proficient in analyzing a range of relevant uses of language, including narratives about health and illness, the representation of health and illness in the media, computer-mediated communication about illness, and public health information, persuasion and campaigns.

The Romantic movement originated in the 18th-century revival of balladry and romance and later absorbed the political and intellectual energies of the French Revolution, transforming received modes of expression and sparking a far-reaching debate on the power of the imagination and the nature of authorship. Studying male and female writers from 1760 to 1830, this course traces the development of the Romantic aesthetic, highlighting national and regional strands within British Romanticism while also exploring its engagement with the wider world. The Romantic revolution in poetry features prominently, along with the broad variety of other forms characteristic of the period, including the novel, autobiography, political pamphlets, and literary theory.

This course introduces students to a range of Victorian fiction. It addresses the content, form, and significance of the Victorian novel and how it develops amid the cultural, historical, and intellectual contexts of 19th-century Britain. It also examines the alternative form of the short story and considers what specific kinds of narrative and narrative effects this form enables. Authors to be studied may include Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Lewis Carroll, Wilkie Collins, Dinah Mulock Craik, Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Vernon Lee, Margaret Oliphant, Bram Stoker, and William Thackeray.

This course provides an overview of academic debates centred around evolving gender and sexual politics in contemporary China, which manifests as a unique area for studying the expansion of neoliberal economy, digital technologies as well as its socialist legacies. Bringing together significant theoretical insights and empirical research, teaching of this course will be facilitated through case studies of emerging forms of cultural representation, production, consumption and resistance. Topics will be covered include fandom and the popularity of online literature, influencers and gender performativity, feminist and LGBTQ+ activism and the creation of queer media, in the light of the Chinese context of censorship and governance.