University of London, Queen Mary

In the face of threats of the seventh mass extinction and climate collapse, a planetary emergency has been declared by scientific and intergovernmental bodies. People across global civil society are coming together to respond. This course provides an interdisciplinary perspective on interacting dimensions of key socio-environmental challenges of the 21st century, and responses to them. Considering crises in land, food, water, and biodiversity, students critically analyze the intersections between systems of power and complex environmental processes, and the diverse ways in which people relate to nature and society. 

This course introduces students to a variety of strategies for approaching a selected play text through performance. The course includes a study of the theatrical and non-theatrical documents relating to the play, the playwright, and the cultural context in which the play was produced. Where appropriate, students may study other representations of the play and the playwright in theatre, cinema, radio, and television, for example. Towards the end students develop a performance project based on the play.

This is a course in the history of ideas that introduces students to important shifts in the ways in which history, society, and politics have been thought about from the Renaissance to the 20th century. The course covers key figures in the history of political thought and philosophy, including Niccolo Machiavelli, Mary Wollstonecraft, Karl Marx, Mohandas Gandhi, and Hannah Arendt, and addresses influential debates about such issues as the relationship between politics and morality, the justification for violence, the nature and causes of inequality, the rise of capitalism, imperialism, and the rights of women. Attention throughout is focused on a careful scrutiny of primary sources. By the end of the course, students have deepened their understanding of some of the critical issues that have dominated modern history.

This course provides an in-depth analysis of a central area of psychology known variously as individual differences or differential psychology. Students build on several key areas of psychology that show substantial individual differences including personality, psychopathology, intelligence, and cognition. Students then explore the proposed causes and effects of these individual differences drawing from research using approaches from psycho-dynamics to behavioral genetics. Finally, they explore the evidence behind several key controversies in individual differences including the continuum between personality and mental health, the nature vs nurture debate, race differences in intelligence, and genetic determinism.

This course examines the major developments in United States history from the end of the Second World War to Watergate. The issues to be covered include the onset of the Cold War, McCarthyism, civil rights, the Cuban missile crisis, Vietnam, 1960s culture, Watergate, and the institution of the presidency. The roles played by key individuals, such as John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Richard Nixon, are explored. Declassified documents are used in analyzing some of these topics. The course develops students' basic knowledge of this era in American history, to hone their analytical skills, to develop their ability to examine documentation, and to heighten their ability to respond to historiographical debates. Students develop an understanding of the global impact of American politics, from the Vietnam War to the Civil Rights Movement, and compare international perspectives.

The course focuses on the structure and dynamics of a variety of networks (e.g., the World Wide Web, online social networks, collaboration networks). It uncovers the network foundations of innovation, information diffusion, cultural fads, financial crises, and viral marketing. Special emphasis is placed on the hub-dominated "scale-free"" networks and the "small-world" networks showing the "six degree of separation" phenomenon. The course combines current research on social networks with contributions from relevant organizational and sociological literature.

In this course, students gain in-depth knowledge and understanding of contemporary change in the UK. Key themes to be addressed in seminar discussion include neo-liberalism, the North-South divide, culture-led urban regeneration, urban heritage and identity, migration, and urban health. 

The course introduces students to the key processes concerned with the management of people within organizations. It is pitched at non-specialist level, so it explores concepts, procedures, and regulations that any manager with direct reports is likely to need to know in order to effectively handle their staff.

The course examines the meanings produced by costume in theatre, and film and fashion in the media and everyday life. It explores the relationship between clothing and performance historically and today. It considers how costume and fashion construct class, gender identity and sexual identity, and race. It interrogates the fashion industry's relationship with colonial histories and with questions of ecology and sustainability. It offers students the opportunity to create a costume design portfolio and to bring their own interests in costume and fashion into conversation with theoretical questions of subjectivity.