Gender, Politics and Society of the Americas (AMER0052)

From a comparative and multidisciplinary perspective, this intermediate-level module takes a gendered perspective to discuss some of the most important political, economic, and social problems of contemporary societies in the Americas. The course is divided into two parts. In the first part, it will assess the quality of democracy from a gendered perspective, focusing on descriptive representation, elections, and voter behavior. In the second part, the course turns to examining the gendered dimensions of public policy, with a focus on specific policy areas (e.g., poverty, healthcare, violence).

This module will use different forms of assessment to test the students’ ability to demonstrate appropriate knowledge of the contemporary issues in the Americas and their ability to use case-study knowledge to build social science theories and explanations. There will be two marked assessments. The first assessment consists of a group presentation and class discussion on an assigned policy area. For the second assessment, students are required to demonstrate appropriate knowledge of the contents of the module by writing a policy proposal with consideration of the gendered dynamics of the politics of policymaking.

This module sets out to examine the relationship between art and art writing. It aims to equip students with the critical skills to question the terms which...

Art as Theory: the Re-making of Criticism (HART0131)

This module sets out to examine the relationship between art and art writing. It aims to equip students with the critical skills to question the terms which produce current discursive frameworks in order to reconfigure the critical field of contemporary and recent art history. The module examines a range of theoretical and art critical positions through close textual analysis, including a sustained discussion of ekphrastic models of descriptive writing - drawn not only from conventional art historical and art critical writing but also from literary and other theoretical sources. The module investigates the possibility of understanding the artwork itself as a work of theory. Testing the limits of art historical approaches that assume the primacy of the historical and geographical circumstances of art's production, the module is designed to open up discussion of the artwork's theoretical and phenomenological demands on us as viewers. Rather than underestimate the theoretical content of art, this course intends to maximise it - by making the object of speculation more porous not only to different geographies but also to early modern art not normally considered in the same breath as modernist and post-modernist art. We explore the possibilities of new types of critical writing in relation to a range of work, not only from Europe and the US but also Latin America, especially Brazil. The module is structured on the basis of a series of in depth case studies, focusing on contemporary art and its recent histories. Rather than privilege the more familiar critics, the course aims to foreground artists writings and take them seriously as writing models before going onto consider larger critical and theoretical frameworks.