University of London, Queen Mary

In this course, students examine the origins of the idea of human rights, how it became institutionalized in law and international politics, and how its history and prospects have become so fiercely contested today. Students reflect on the history of abolitionism, human rights, and humanitarianism in a global setting, and analyze the impact of modern international and multi-cultural perspectives on the evolution of human rights history.

The course explores beliefs in witches, demons, and magic, and phenomena such as angels, ghosts, dreams, and miracles using case studies from a range of European countries across the period 1450 - 1750. It investigate the interplay between popular and elite ideas about witchcraft and magic and how these changed over the course of the period. Topics include: witchcraft, sabbats, the diabolic pact, and black magic; witch trials, torture, and execution; demonic possession and exorcism; angels, ghosts, and fairies; and monsters and miracles. Students discuss a range of textual and visual primary sources including woodcuts, witchcraft trials, popular pamphlets, and official treatises (all in translation). 

This course offers an introduction to the historical film genre by examining American, British, European, and Japanese films made during the past 20 years. It considers the debates surrounding the representation of history on film, and the influence and impact that historical films have on the public imagination and understanding of history. Students explore the aesthetic pleasures that historical films offer to audiences, as well as the wider public discussion and debate that historical films provoke among scholars, critics, and journalists in print and online. 

In this course, students learn about the different conceptualizations of emotion both in terms of historical developments as well as contemporary theoretical models of emotions. The course considers the biological basis of emotions in the brain and the body, how emotions are expressed and perceived in faces, bodies, voice, and music. The relationship between emotions and cognitions is considered, including emotion regulation and individual differences in emotions. Finally, cultural differences and disorders of emotion are discussed.

This course introduces some fundamental styles and plays from European avant-garde theatre and sets them within an artistic and socio-political context. Futurism, Dada, Expressionism and the Theatre of the Absurd are included. Special attention is paid to Spanish and Catalan drama. 

The course builds upon all areas of business and their related theories that are introduced by ELE402 Enterprise Management. These include the roles of personnel, marketing, sales, and production. The roles of these departments is further developed in terms of the introduction of a new product and the impact of the business on the development of that product and vice-versa, i.e. the implication of success and failure, risk assessment etc.

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.