University of London, Royal Holloway

This course offers students the opportunity to study the American commercial film industry since 1945, with an emphasis on the changes to the Hollywood mode of production in Hollywood's "post-classical" period, i.e., the decades since the collapse of the studio system in the 1950s. Individual films and filmmakers are considered in principal relation to the institutional, economic, and stylistic changes occurring at that point on Hollywood's historical evolution. Where appropriate, reference are also made to relevant historical context during this period of enormous social and political upheaval and momentous cultural change in the United States. 

This course introduces students to a selection of independent American films which are frequently overlooked by the dominant histories of American cinema. The films selected are chosen from a diverse range of American filmmakers from the 1960s to the present, and the course therefore hopes to provide an account of American film which reaches beyond the dominant Hollywood model. This leads to consideration of the divisions in American society and how these can be perceived through the work of independent filmmakers. 

The course considers how gaming emerged from post-War and Cold War cultures and traces its development alongside a history of contemporary capitalism up to the present. It considers games and their relation to nationalism, gender and sexuality, class and intersectionality, among other things. The course asks students to analyze the complex relationships between political context and games. To do so they develop both deep historical knowledge of the industry and solid theoretical tools through which to understand it. Students consider fan cultures, online activism, and community building around the gaming industry.

This course is concerned with introducing students to theories and concepts in sociology, and their application. Students are introduced to classical and contemporary social theories. They cover the works of the "founding fathers" of continental European sociology, Marx, Weber, and Durkheim, as well as more contemporary social theory including functionalism and symbolic interactionism. 

This course equips students with a thorough understanding of the causes and consequences of brain damage in humans. It provides knowledge on how the study of individuals with brain damage can lead to a better understanding of human brain function, and it educates students on the core ideas of recovery and neuro-rehabilitation.  
 

The musical emerged at the end of the 19th century to become one of the most popular and commercially successful theatre forms in the world. This course looks at the long history of the musical, its many varieties (from musical comedy to the integrated musical, from the concept musical to the rock musical, from SHOWBOAT to HAMILTON); considering its pleasures and its politics, its representations of gender, race and sexuality, the relationship between the stage and film musical. The course looks at the artistic achievements of the music theater form and the peculiarities of its cultural form, the role of narrative, the relation between song and story, etc. The course will examine whether musicals are appropriate vehicle for serious content, whether its apparent frivolity might be of significance and value, and the political significance of kitsch, camp, escapism, and excess in the musical’s formation. 

This course offers an introduction into the core concepts of the digital age, drawing on a rich variety of disciplines. Students examine a number of concepts, including, but not limited to: technicity, affective turn, digital subjectivity and extended mind, creative expression and participation in the digital era, amateur production, Free Software, fun and politics, self-organization, media archeology, and sonic architectures. 

This course introduces to students the neglected field of avant-garde film making through a study of its development in Europe during the 1920s and ’30s and its specific relationship to the thought and practice of the modernist avant-garde in other media, especially art and literature. The emphasis is on filmmaking as a personal practice, and its relation to developments in fine art and literary practices within western culture. Content varies depending upon emerging developments in the field.

Topics include (1) why modern psychology requires an understanding of neuroscience; (2) neuronal structure, function and information transmission; (3) the organization of the nervous system and how this reflects some principles of information processing; (4) methods used to study structure and information processing in the brain; (5) functional architectures in the brain; (6) the neural basis of learning; (7) brain evolution; and (8) the biology and psychopharmacology of reward, reinforcement, and psychological disorders.

This course gives an overview of the key arguments in the sociology of religion, including the social, cultural, and political significance of religion to the individual, social groups, and society at a national and global level. The course begins by covering the classical sociological theorists on religion (Durkheim, Weber & Marx) and examines the key debates around secularization and post-secularization. It then considers the social and cultural significance of new religious movements and the rise of spirituality and New Age movements in the West. Finally students consider the growth of fundamentalism around the world and how religion is becoming globalized.