War and Conflict BA(Hons)

Course structure

You will be taught in small, participatory seminar groups to foster skills in oral presentation, debating and listening. Every seminar is supported by a preceding lecture.

Your academic work will be supported by workshops that develop your academic and independent research skills.

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

Year 2
In year 2, students choose two option pathways to follow for the rest of the degree. Pathways are a set of modules in a specialised area that enable a deep, critical engagement with the subject.

Final year
Students complete their year 2 option pathways and undertake a dissertation. Project findings are presented in an oral exam that tests 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 Student View.

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 crisis and conflict in the mid-twentieth century. You will explore the dilemmas that the study of conflict poses for global and transnational history; the impact of war and crisis on social, gender and race relations, and the international order; and the ways in which memories of this period act in the contemporary world.

• Philosophical Inquiry

  This module introduces you to key topics in philosophy. Studying moral and political philosophy will enable you to explore questions such as How can I act ethically? and Could a more equal society be built? Philosophy of science and epistemology will empower you to interrogate arguments behind various truth claims encountered today. You will explore Plato, Hume, Kant, Utilitarianism; inquire into the nature of art and freedom; and interrogate philosophy’s historical complicity in sexism and racism.

• Studying Cultures

  This module introduces fundamental concepts and methods in cultural studies. Through a case study of Britain in the counter-cultural period of 1968–74, you will explore conflicts involving questions of ‘race’, national identity, gender, class and youth. Focusing on the distinction between lived cultures and cultural texts, you will relate the practices and values of everyday life to the workings of ideology within narrative forms including girls’ magazines, a novel by Angela Carter and a James Bond film.

• Democracy

  This module introduces 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 examining their relevance to our current political circumstances. You will explore the cultural preconditions for democratic freedoms and the representation of democratic values in different social and political movements.

• Globalisation, Conflict and the Environment

  This module introduces key concepts, theories and questions in international relations and global studies. You will interrogate and evaluate the political implications of different approaches for the study of key aspects of our contemporary world. You will explore how concepts and theories are applied to contested global issues, such as environmental sustainability and war/conflict. 

• The Politics of Representation

  This module introduces you to political, historical and structural approaches to the study of narrative and representation. You will critically reflect upon how the stories we encounter construct particular visions of our world. Focusing on issues of narrative, ideology, language and semiotics, you will explore textual and visual forms, including television and film, news media, the internet, imaginative fiction and photography.

Soviet propaganda from the Cold War

Year 2

In year 2 you will choose two option pathways to follow for the rest of your degree – one of the specialist pathways from the named degree, and one from the wider humanities programme. As well as the pathways, you’ll take core modules and start the research for your final-year dissertation project.

Core modules
Critical Traditions in Western Thought 1 and 2 explore some of the key debates and concepts in history, culture, politics, and philosophy since the Enlightenment..

Option pathways 
Choose one specialist pathway from:

• War, Violence and Mass Killing
  You are introduced to key historical, philosophical and political approaches to the study of war and conflict, examine the experience of warfare in the twentieth century and consider the place of violence in human society and politics. In the second semester, you draw upon these approaches to critically analyse both the origins and the conduct of contemporary wars in the Middle East.

• Terror and Terrorism
  You will trace the history of terrorism and the use of political violence by both states and non-state groups to critically engage with contemporary discourses of the War On Terror. Case studies include the Israel-Palestine conflict, Algeria and decolonisation, and the New Left and revolutionary violence in the 1960s and 1970s.

• Culture and Conflict
  This option pathway explores the cultural politics of representation associated with violent conflict. You will study a variety of cultural forms including fictional and documentary film, literary fictions, and photography. You will develop key analytical and critical skills by focusing on representations of the Vietnam War, 9/11, and the Iraq wars. You will also debate the ethics, aesthetics and politics of representation in context of racialised violence, colonialism and state repression.

Watch this film about the War, Terror and Democracy pathway - click on the YouTube logo to watch other films about modules within our humanities programme

And one from the wider humanities programme – you will either follow this option for all of year 2 or you can choose the Humanities Placement: Active Citizenship module and study the option pathway for a semester:

• Literature, History and Social Change
• Philosophy and Literature 
• Politics, History and Ideology
• Race and Resistance
• Self and Society
• Globalisation, History and Identity
• Global Politics
• Critical Theory and Radical Politics
• Morality, Politics and the Good Life
• Politics of the Past
• Radical Histories
• Contemporary Global Challenges

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

Placement

During your second year you can choose to take the Active Citizenship module. This is a 50-hour professional work placement at a not-for-profit organisation.

Your placement could be at a local charity, a non-governmental organisation or a community organisation. Students have taken roles at organisations including Art in Mind, Pathways to Independence and Screen Archive South East.

The university’s Active Student service will help you to find the right placement opportunity, and you will be offered support in putting together your application and your CV and cover letter.

You will have fortnightly academic seminars where you reflect on the links between academic theory and practice, and on the skills you have developed on placement.

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 also 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.

Specialist option pathways

Culture and Conflict: Contested Pasts: Partition, War and Cultures of Resistance
You will consider the representation and remembrance of conflict in Northern Ireland, Lebanon and South Africa. Looking at literature, posters, film, memorials and personal testimony, you will explore the ways in which histories of conflict are rewritten and reinterpreted in the light of changing cultural and political concerns.

Terror and Terrorism: The War on Terror
You will study the war on terror from a global perspective, interrogating the different manifestations of counter-terrorism we see in the world today. You will assess whether these strategies are able to prevent terrorism and consider the forms of resistance deployed by those caught up in contemporary conflicts. 

War, Violence and Mass Killing: The Holocaust and Genocide
You'll explore the modern history of mass killing. Through a series of comparative case studies, including the Holocaust, Armenia, Yugoslavia and Rwanda, you will seek to understand the causes and consequences of genocide, the ideologies which produce it and consider what can be done to prevent future atrocities. 

War damaged buildings after the conflict in the former Yugoslavia

Meet the team 

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Course fees

Info

The fees listed here are for full-time courses beginning in the academic year 2023–24.

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 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.

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