United Kingdom - England

This course takes students on a journey from the seemingly familiar surroundings of everyday France to a more complex and enriched understanding of the key debates and issues which have defined French and Francophone identities over the centuries. Using source material in French (also available in translation for ab initio students), it focuses on figures and places that seem easily recognizable to many students and scholars of France and explores the networks of often competing ideas and values that have shaped who or what they are perceived to be today.

This course navigates across European art movements, highlighting an intensive exchange and collaboration between German and Russian artistic and intellectual circles involved in the radical avant-garde practices after the First World War and the October Revolution (1917-1930). Covering debates on the artistic strategies of intervention in society, politics, everyday life, mass media, and urban planning, each session focuses on a theoretical response to a specific problem and a case study of artistic practices across various media and forms, including fine art, architecture, cinema, literature, and theatre.

This course introduces the concept of climate justice through the world-leading sustainability research being done at the University of Sussex. Climate justice brings a focus on social equity and historical responsibility to understandings of climate change. It recognizes that climate change exacerbates existing inequalities and has a disproportionately high impact on those who are least responsible for causing the problem. In this course, explore questions of extractivism, climate responsibility, finance and funding, ecosystem uncertainty and activism through a series of lectures, case studies, seminars and workshops. Learn about the colonial roots of contemporary environmental justice conflicts and the range of responses proposed to the climate crisis, while working in groups to discuss, design and propose alternatives. The course is both solutions-focused and interactive, students have the chance to work in groups throughout as you reflect collectively on how they would address particular challenges. Teaching is conducted both inside and outside of the classroom, with workshops taking place in the landscape of the Brighton & Lewes Downs Biosphere Reserve and South Downs National Park. Assessments encourage students to engage proactively in practical examples of climate justice and develop their public communication skills.  Students work on a short group-produced presentation, podcast or video to explore a debate or an example of local activism, and the final assessment will be a blog designed to enhance public understanding of climate justice. 

This course introduces the key principles of mathematical modelling, which then are explored through several real-world examples in disease modelling, environmental planning, and population dynamics. The techniques of calculus are essential, although core concepts such as differential equations are revisited. Students also touch on the mathematical models used in data science, particularly the techniques of principal component analysis and clustering, both essential tools in machine learning models.  

This course discusses what it means to read for the politics of a text and to read a text politically. We reflect on the different kinds of desire at play in the class: desire for social justice, for solidarity, for purpose in what we, as readers, activists and critics, do. In so doing, we learn to situate texts in terms of their contemporary commitments and in relation to our own. In the second half of the class, students discover literature in the context of, and in service to, a series of social movements and hone our skills in the archive to recreate these past moments of insurgency.

In this course, students read a range of literature by writers from the British Romantic period (c1776-1832) – an age of political, social, environmental, and aesthetic revolution. In a period marked by rapid industrialization at home, and overshadowed by the practices and legacies of slavery and empire internationally, writers such as Mary Wollstonecraft, William Blake, Lord Byron, Mary Prince, Jane Austen, Felicia Hemans, and P. B. Shelley were negotiating what it meant to live and write in a rapidly changing world.

This course introduces students to the socio-cultural contexts, functions, philosophies, techniques, and organizing principles of a variety of musics of the world; musics from at least three continents are studied. These musical traditions are approached from both theoretical and practical perspectives, also giving a variety of opportunities for hands-on experience. Course content varies from year to year according to staff interests, availability of musicians to provide workshops, and to ensure freshness of approach. A typical curriculum might cover the following regions and theoretical themes: World Music - Introduction (culture, contact & concepts) South America: Andes to Amazon (exchange) Africa: Jaliya and Mbira (the musician) Indonesia: Sundanese Gamelan (temporal organization) North India: The Classical Tradition (improvisation) Papua New Guinea: The Kaluli (music and ecology) Iran: The Persian Classical Tradition (music & religion).

This course develops fundamental laboratory skills: thin layer chromatography; reflux; distillation; vacuum filtration; determination of melting point; recrystallisation; solvent extraction; rotary evaporation; Soxhlet extraction. Lectures give a core understanding in three main chemical themes: nomenclature, isomerism, and reaction mechanisms. Students participate in workshops focused on lecture content and general academic skills, additionally participating in a collaborative group poster presentation, refining important employability skills.

This course looks to advance students' knowledge and use of the English language in diverse contexts and in developing their appreciation and understanding of aspects of British culture. The course consists of language workshops which focus on intercultural communication skills, as well as English language tuition and seminars on aspects of British culture including UK politics, British business, and trade. Other areas covered include AI applications in British business, as well as practical workshops where students work on supervised self-study activities, designed to boost language learning and/or cultural awareness. For the British culture component of the course, each week is themed: London and the world stage; British history; and British arts and culture. There are weekly trips related to the theme of the week. 

This course examines stars, celebrities, and fandom practices, as they are found in the media and popular culture (film, television, pop music, advertising, branding, news and magazines, the Internet and society media). Stars and celebrities also arise from beyond the mediasphere, with the possibility to consider literary stars, famous artists, royalties, and personalities from the fields of politics and sports. Academic approaches to fan cultures also critically engage with subcultural groups and participatory practices.