Humanities BA(Hons)

Why study with us?

• You will be located in the heart of Brighton’s vibrant cultural quarter joining a unique and intimate learning community.

• You will be encouraged to develop a critical and independent attitude through seminars, individual tutorials, lectures and project work.

• We are committed to small group teaching to develop excellent oral presentation, debating and listening skills. You’ll be able to raise issues, present arguments and voice your particular intellectual concerns while engaging with diverse opinions in productive debate.

• Your final-year project allows you to identify and explore a topic of particular interest to you. You will have regular one-to-one meetings with a supervisor with relevant expertise to discuss your independent research and give you guidance.

• You will gain vital transferable skills including independent research management, as well as communicative abilities, that you can use throughout your career.

• This degree encourages you to challenge received opinions and as such is good grounding for many different industries including publishing, journalism and political lobbying, but equally provides a solid foundation for further study or research.

• Opportunities for activity outside of the curriculum include international conferences with world leading experts; publication in the student blog and in student publications and participation in Humanities Society events.

Course structure 

Year 1
All of our courses in the humanities programme share a first year. Students take six modules that develop the skills central to your studies. These include topics such as historical and philosophical inquiry, cultures, democracy, narrative and society

Year 2 
In year 2, you'll choose two option pathways from 15 routes offered across the humanities courses, and follow them for the rest of the course. Pathways are a set of modules in a specialised area that give students a deep, critical engagement with the subject. 

Final year
Students continue with option pathways chosen in year 2, and undertake a dissertation. You will also take part in an oral exam, presenting your findings for scrutiny in an exam that tests your skills of presentation, communication, discussion and debate.

Our courses are reviewed and enhanced on an ongoing basis in order to make sure that what you learn with us is relevant and that your course enables you to develop appropriate skills. When you apply to study with us, we will inform you of any new developments in your chosen programme through our applicant portal.

Year 1

In year 1 you take six modules that help develop the skills central to your course.

Modules

• Historical Inquiry

  This module will introduce you to the practice of historical inquiry through an exploration of various approaches to the study of the experience of crisis and conflict in the mid-twentieth century.

• Philosophical Inquiry

  This module will introduce you to fundamental concepts and basic methodologies in critical and philosophical theory.

• Studying Cultures

  This module will introduce you to fundamental concepts and basic methodologies in cultural studies, focusing on the distinction between ‘lived cultures’ and ‘cultural texts’, grounded in case studies from Britain in the period 1968–74.

• Democracy: From Athens to Baghdad

  This module will introduce you to fundamental concepts and basic methodologies in democratic theory.

  Democracy as a contested term goes to the heart of debates about the exercise of power in the contemporary world, and is not solely about governance. This module will introduce you to the histories and contexts within which the concept and practice of democracy developed. You will study classical, republican, liberal, anarchist, Marxist, communitarian, and global conceptualisations of democracy. In each case the cultural, political and historical context of these practices of government will be critically discussed and their relevance to current circumstances considered.

  The module addresses the cultural preconditions for democratic freedoms and the representation of democratic values in the social and political movements which have fought to establish democratic freedoms. It will also introduce the different forms of inequality that characterise most democracies.

• Understanding Society in a Global World

  In this module you will be introduced to interdisciplinary methodologies in the social sciences, explore theories of international relations and globalisation, and apply these to important questions concerning living in a global world.

  You will interrogate the claims of social scientists to produce verifiable knowledge about the social world, and evaluate the political implications of different methodological approaches for the study of key aspects of global society. You will explore how concepts and theories are applied to contested aspects of global society, notably environmental sustainability and war/conflict.

• The Politics of Representation

  This module will introduce you to key methodologies and concepts in the formal study of narrative and representations, while encouraging you to critically reflect on how narratives and representations construct particular visions of our world.

Year 2

In year 2 you will choose two option pathways to follow for the rest of your degree enabing you to explore a wide range of subjects using different critical methods. As well as the pathways, you’ll take core modules and start the research for your final-year dissertation project.

Option pathways – you choose two from:

• Politics, History and Ideology
• 'Race' and Resistance
• Self and Society
• War, Violence and Mass Killing
• Culture and Conflict
• Terror and Terrorism
• Globalisation, History and Identity
• Global Politics
• Literature, History and Social Change
• Critical Theory and Radical Politics
• Morality, Politics and the Good Life
• Philosophy and Literature
• Politics of the Past
• Radical Histories
• Global Society

*Option modules are indicative and may change, depending on timetabling and staff availability.

Core modules
Critical Traditions 1 and 2 explore some of the key debates in history, culture, politics, and philosophy since the Enlightenment. You will also take a project preparation module which prepares you for your final-year dissertation.

Final year

In your final year, you continue studying your option pathways developing and extending the work started in year 2, inviting deeper engaged reflection through seminar discussion and coursework essays on the broader themes you have examined.

You will complete and submit a dissertation, drawing on your subject knowledge and research method skills, as you develop your own extended critical response to your chosen topic. You also take part in an oral exam: drawing from a theme in your dissertation, you will prepare and deliver a presentation and take questions. In doing so you demonstrate your presentation, communication, discussion and debate skills.

Meet the team

Dr Anita Rupprecht, course leader

Committed to interdisciplinary study, Anita's primary research focuses on interconnected histories and representations of British transatlantic slavery, the slave trade, abolitionism, and Empire during the Age of Revolution. She is also interested in postcolonial literatures, theory and the politics of contemporary cultural memory. See Anita's full profile.

Other staff who teach on the course include: Dr Rebecca Searle, Dr Michael Neu, Dr Mark Devenney, Dr Clare Woodford, Dr Robin Dunford and Dr Eugene Michail.

International requirements

We can help you meet our English language or academic entry requirements.

Course fees

Info

The fees listed here are for full-time courses beginning in the academic year 2019–20.

Further tuition fees are payable for each subsequent year of study and are subject to an annual increase of no more than 5% or RPI (whichever is the greater). The annual increase for UK/EU students, who are subject to regulated fees, will increase no more than the statutory maximum fee.

You can find out more about our fees in the university's student contract and tuition fee policy (pdf).

The tuition fee you have to pay depends on a number of factors including the kind of course you take, and whether you study full-time or part-time. If you are studying part-time you will normally be charged on a pro rata basis depending on the number of modules you take.

What's included in the fee?

When costs such as health or DBS checks, or use of specialist materials are incurred as a mandatory requirement of the course they are included in your tuition fee.

You may incur additional costs depending on the optional modules or activities you choose. The cost of optional activities is not included in your tuition fee and you will need to meet this cost in addition to your fees. Before you apply check with the school that provides your course using the contact details in the Find out more tab (at the end of this page) for advice about what is included and what optional costs you could face so you can budget accordingly.

See our finance pages for advice about funding and scholarships as well as further information about fees and advice on international and island fee-paying status.

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Campus where this course is taught

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