Visual literacy is a key skill and visual culture remains one of the most accessible and important modes through which we represent, understand and critique our world. This module provides an introduction to some of the major trends within visual cultures in European languages, and the development of visual media. Students will work on a selection of visual texts across national frameworks and historical periods to examine their conditions of production, distribution and reception and to explore how meaning is constructed and critiqued in visual culture. In seminars we will engage with detailed analysis of core texts and with critical materials. Students will be encouraged to consider country-specific, transnational and comparative trends through a critical lens.  

Taught and Assessed in English

The aim of the module is to introduce students to significant French texts and to illustrate and explore a range of possible critical approaches to them, including cross-media or intermedial reinterpretations. 

This module will focus on two important French texts per semester (with "text" taken in its largest sense of book, film, art work, piece of music, cultural product, etc.). Each text will form the basis for a close reading, followed by analyses using French cultural, historical, literary and critical theory approaches as well as adaptations into other media (such as film, art and music) where appropriate. 

The module will be taught and assessed in English, but the materials will be made available in both French and English, with French students required to use and cite the French materials. 

This module examines the historical trajectory of Spain and Portugal, their emergence as states in the Iberian Peninsula, their imperial expansion overseas into Africa, Latin America and beyond, the eventual independence of the colonies and their development and consolidation into the various modern-day states we know today. The module will explore the social, political, linguistic and cultural characteristics of these states and its peoples and highlight the importance of understanding their complex history in the formation of their identities, their languages and their cultural and political values. 

The module is taught and assessed in English.

Why has the gypsy culture of Andalucía been so crucial to ideas about Spanish identity and how and why has this changed? How did gender politics and the role of women change after the Franco dictatorship in Spain? How and why has historical memory about the Civil War becomes such a feature of contemporary Spanish life? How and why was modernity experienced as a crisis in Latin America? What is machismo and why is it thought to be so central to Latin American culture? How do revolutionary politics and sexual politics relate in Latin America?

These are just some of the questions that will be explored in MDL 106. Click on the link to the webpage to find out more information.  

The module is taught and assessed in English.

Berlin and Amsterdam: two capitals at the forefront of protest and alternative lifestyles from the early 20th century right up to the present. Where did their radical traditions spring from? What do these protests say about how the cities and nations see themselves? How does creative resistance fuel gentrification and urban tourism? 

This module explores the culture of resistance and protest from the first women's march for the vote and posters and activism against war and fascism, to the creative resistance of the Amsterdam PROVO movement in the 1960s to Black Lives Matter/Kick out Zwarte Piet. 

We will cover concepts such as populism, activism, colonial resistance, feminism, BLM, climate activism. How do these movement use art and image to press their causes?  

This module is year long and worth 20 credits. We will meet once a week and the teaching and assessment are in English. 

This is what Summer and Lena say about this  module:

"In our first year, we took the module Resist! The Art of Protest in Berlin & Amsterdam. We discussed themes such as national identity, which is vital for truly understanding a language and the people that speak it. Many students enjoy the difference between this more lecture-based learning and the classroom setting found in the language classes. A difference that ultimately adds up to a wonderfully well-rounded learning experience where there is something for everyone and everyone is given the opportunity to explore their spirit of inquiry."

This module provides an overview of the historical changes affected the territories of the former Russian Empire from the Revolutions of 1917. This includes the dramatic economic, political, demographic, institutional and ideological changes that occurred in the period. Attention will also be paid to the multinational dimension of the USSR and to the international context within which the USSR rose and declined as a power. Students will be introduced to some of the various theoretical approaches to the history of the USSR and will be encouraged to develop a critical approach to received categories.  

Taught and Assessed in English