Who makes History? What drives them to investigate the past? You’ll meet the women and men who have helped shape the discipline of History, delving into their life and works. How did their experiences and opportunities shape their careers and what questions spurred their curiosity? How did they find the sources they would need, and what methods did they use to analyse them?

In exploring their stories, you’ll ask how the place, time and society in which they lived opened opportunities or created obstacles to their careers, how they collaborated with other scholars or carved roles in learned societies or public debate. And you’ll ask why some historians have been heralded as ‘great’ – their names famous, their books widely read – and why others are consigned to the footnotes of the historical profession, their endeavours in the archives unrecognised. What makes a pioneering historian?

Create a portfolio of investigative and critical writing which explores a particular philosophical topic in depth.

In this module you will be guided with expert support from Lancaster philosophers to develop your philosophical and independent study skills. Through deep engagement with a specific topic you will develop your ability to assess philosophical arguments and make independent judgements, informed by reasoning and evidence. You will engage with a text, problem, figure or body of work chosen by an academic within the philosophy team at Lancaster who is a specialist on the topic and work with their expert support, in groups and independently.

Project topics offered each year will be drawn from one or more of Lancaster’s many areas of expertise, such as:

• Global philosophy
• Comparative philosophy
• Ethics
• Metaphysics
• Political philosophy
• Applied philosophy
• Social ontology and epistemology
• Philosophy of science
• Philosophy of mind
• The history of philosophy
• Feminist philosophy
• Continental philosophy
• Aesthetics

Completion of this module will equip you with the skills and knowledge you need for further independent writing in your final year of study.

Explore how philosophical thinking can tackle real-world problems, from personal dilemmas to global challenges, by linking abstract ideas to concrete decisions.

In this module you will engage with an applied philosophical challenge, using your philosophical skills to provide compelling reasons in favour of your solution. Through production of a short podcast or in-person presentation, you will also develop your ability to engage in philosophical argumentation beyond the written word. And along the way, you’ll gain the tools to think clearly, act responsibly, and engage thoughtfully with the complex world around you.

Specific topics studied each year draw on Lancaster’s wide range of applied expertise and may include:

• Ethics and regulation in traditional and social media, in the era of mass global communication and impact

• Bioethical topics such as euthanasia, rationing, ageism, research ethics and public health ethics

• Health and illness, the concept of mental health, and the role of lay or patient knowledge versus medical expertise

• Ethics in professional and organisational life, including divisions of roles, decent work, unpaid and care work, the rights and duties of corporations and employers and codes of ethics

• Study of different scientific methods and their limitations

Throughout this module you will learn about topics in applied philosophy, while developing and practicing some of the many transferable skills that Philosophy graduates bring to a wide range of professional roles, such as critical problem solving, political and ethical reasoning, the clear identification of problems, and the art of communicating potential solutions to diverse audiences.

Explore the two things that make us human – body and mind. Historians once regarded mind and body as the same across time and place. But more recently, historians have challenged this assumption, showing that changing societies have led people to experience mind and body in radically different ways.

You will explore patterns of continuity and change from the medieval to modern periods by investigating key themes such as:

• How ideas about mind and body have impacted gender, race and social class
• Violence and injury
• Sexuality and gender identity
• Changing experiences of disability and transformations in attitudes to healthcare

You’ll build the skills to historicise mind and body through innovative methodologies such as:

• Disability studies
• Histories of health and medical humanities
• Gender and sexuality studies
• Histories of clothing and bodily adornment
• Interdisciplinary approaches including osteoarchaeology
• Recent developments in material culture
• The study of lived experience

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, a new approach to philosophy began to emerge that questioned and interrogated the inherited western philosophical tradition from Plato to Kant. This new approach was later described as ‘continental’ philosophy.

In this module, you will discover some of the key thinkers from this continental tradition of philosophy. The particular philosophers will vary from year to year, but will include pioneering thinkers who have been particularly influential on later continental philosophers (for example, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Wittgenstein) as well as more recent continental thinkers themselves (for example, Lyotard, Derrida, Levinas, Badiou, Žižek, Foucault, Arendt and Beauvoir). While engaging with their thoughts, we will consider difficult and enduring questions such as:

• What is the relationship between history and truth?

• How does subjective experience relate to universal truth?

• What is the significance of gender and embodiment in philosophical reflection?

• What is the role of language and discourse in philosophical claims?

• How might we conceive of the relationship between power and freedom?

On completion of this module, you will be able to understand and interpret the central arguments made by these thinkers and to assess their distinctive claims, methods and approaches and their continuing significance for philosophy and for how we ought to structure our societies and lives.

What does it mean to die? Is it frightening? Will I see those I love again? What does it mean to kill, whether an enemy, a friend, or myself? Death is a universal human experience but, as you’ll discover, how we confront it has varied across history.You’ll explore varied experiences of death, from end-of-life care to execution, and from battlefields to pandemics.

Religion can shape beliefs and customs, from the theology of the afterlife to funerary rituals and the treatment of the corpse. Yet at the margins have always lain a shadowy world, where the restless dead return, the living seek to summon the departed, and the despairing take their lives.

You’ll discover the different means of investigating death, from the chronicles that describe the walking dead, to the archaeology of burial practice, and from murder trials to palaeogenetics, unlocking the passage of disease.

To what rights are humans entitled? How are those rights balanced with the rights of other organisms and the environment? How are they balanced with the needs of societies and governments? The protection of human rights has been used to justify international conflict and military intervention to save lives, yet human rights critics have argued that they are a form of cultural imperialism limiting the sovereignty of local populations.

You will explore the codification of rights, from Magna Carta and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the Geneva Conventions, and how questions of rights have manifested in movements for decolonisation and self-determination, debates on the use of capital punishment, and campaigns for gendered, disability and same-sex relationship rights. You’ll also explore how societies have considered rights in relation to landscapes, from the right to roam to the protection of spaces, from medieval forests to the creation of national parks.

Critically engage with questions and debates about our socially connected lives and the ways in which we interact and act on the world through language and communication, individually and as a society, to shape knowledge and reality. In this module you will gain the skills and insight to ask questions which change each year but may include:

• How does communication work in our individual and collective lives?

• How might certain kinds of communication bring about ethical and political change (for example, by making something permissible or changing the boundaries of acceptable political discourse)?

• Are lying and other kinds of deception permissible, and if so, when and for whom?

• What does freedom of speech really mean, and how might duties and rights differ in this space for citizens, for the press, for politicians, for academics, and on social media?

• How can collective knowledge practices exclude or harm, do we have duties to address these problems, and what might work to do so?

• What is the nature and appropriate regulation of propaganda and hate speech?

• What are the ways in which patterns of attention and exclusion or inclusion in who we listen to and develop knowledge with may have ethical and political implications?

• What communicative protest and speech acts are legitimate in a democratic state?

You will leave this module with a better understanding of how practices of knowledge creation and participation, and of language and communication, may actively shape and determine the boundaries of our world, and with the skills to critically examine these forces in action across the media, social media, politics and society.

What does it take to have a mind? How does science work? Does human reason equip us to understand the external world? In this module we explore the nature of consciousness and reality, and the methods by which we understand them, focussing on key debates in the philosophy of mind and philosophy of science.

In the first part of the module, you will explore what it takes to have a mind, examining and critiquing some of the wide range of answers philosophers have offered to this intractable problem. Questions you will investigate include:

• What is the relationship between the mind and the brain?

• How do animal minds or artificial intelligence fit into our understanding of thought and consciousness?

• Can science ever provide us with a full understanding of how consciousness is possible?

The second part of the module turns to the nature of science itself. Modern science is often regarded as our most reliable guide to reality, but what justifies this status? In investigating the nature of science, you will learn about some of the most influential twentieth-century accounts of scientific method and theory-testing. Questions you will address include:

• How does science differ from non-science?

• Is there a scientific method?

• Should we believe in unobservable entities posited by scientific theories, such as quarks or superstrings?

• What are limits of scientific and rational inquiry?

Through wrestling with debates about the nature of consciousness, science, and the extent to which we can understand reality you will leave this module equipped with a greater understanding of some of the most difficult and enduring challenges in philosophy: what it is to be human, to have sentience, and how should we understand the vast body of scientific knowledge that shapes our collective world?

Global and local political and economic affairs raise complicated philosophical issues. While political theory and philosophy often focus on normative questions – such as the nature of justice, freedom, or legitimacy – this module centres on the epistemological and methodological challenges that underpin our understanding of political and economic life. These challenges are no less important for how we think about contemporary societies and the difficulties they face and are, as you will discover, closely connected to more normative questions.

Concepts such as democracy or autocracy, money, taxation and national debt, power and economic growth – all are complex and contested:

• They raise metaphysical questions: what sorts of ‘things’ are they?

• They pose epistemological challenges: how can we know or measure them? Is it possible to study them without making assumptions about values?

• They provoke broader considerations: how do large-scale political and economic phenomena relate to individual people and their activities?

Through considering these questions on this module, you will gain an understanding of the special challenges involved in knowledge of our social, political and economic systems, and how philosophical thinking complements the tasks of political science and economics.

Explore the links between humans and their environments around the world from the medieval period to the modern era. Examine how people have understood nature and their place within it over time and across cultures, investigating climate change, environmental disasters and massive landscape transformations.

You’ll situate the natural world as both an agent of change and a system that humans can alter on many scales, developing skills in navigating complex human-environment interactions. You will encounter a range of sources, from texts to images and environmental data, and learn how to analyse them, including through digital methods.

With these skills, you’ll explore regional case studies of environmental impacts on humans and human alterations of the environment, from the impact of warming periods and the Little Ice Age to the transformation of colonial landscapes, the exploitation of forests, minerals, and water and the effects of urbanization.

How do people share ideas? Who controls information? What technologies make communication around the world possible? From medieval to modern history, knowledge and ideas have been written, printed, hidden, copied, gossiped about, archived, and destroyed.

You’ll examine cultures of information and misinformation around the world. Circuits of information have been cultivated in state and religious institutions, social networks, mass media, and, more recently, the internet. From espionage to scandals and fake news, you’ll ask who is shaping information, with what tools or media, and with what political, ethical, social, and economic motivations and consequences.

You’ll study how ideas are transmitted, for example in songs, slave networks, books, laws, maps, advertisements, newspapers, and letters. You’ll build critical skills in assessing provenance and context of information, past and present, preserved and lost, digital and analogue, true and false.

Discover how wars are among the most important drivers of historical change. They have transformed states, societies, borders and landscapes, as well as ideas, identities, and worldviews.

The decision to go to war is rarely taken lightly, but the mechanisms and norms for doing so have varied greatly over time. How peoples mobilize themselves for conflict has likewise been shaped by ideas about rights, responsibilities, and roles, ideas sometimes rooted in shifting concepts of gender and racial ideologies.

War is also a crucible of scientific and technological change. From the longbow to the machine gun, and from photography and reconstructive surgery to the atomic bomb, war has stimulated scientific and technological innovation while unleashing its most destructive forces.

By exploring war and its legacies in all its complexities, you’ll see it not as a unique form of human endeavour, but as a realisation of broader social, cultural, and intellectual forces.

Explore how language is used to interact with others, form social groups and shape society. In this module, you will examine how communication functions socially, from the persuasive language used by politicians and advertisers to the way social organisation is reflected in and reinforced through casual conversations among friends.

You’ll draw on different models in linguistics to explore the way language is used and organised to achieve social goals. This includes:

• Using principles of systemic functional grammar to identify who is represented in texts and how,
• Conversation analysis to uncover the structure and management of conversation
• Methods of visual analysis to consider non-linguistic meanings

By the end of this module, you will become more confident in analysing texts and understanding their functions. You will see everyday texts, such as a phone call with a family member or a letter from your GP, in different light because you will understand the features and structures of language that help to organise society.

Hone a strong sense of purpose and gain the satisfaction of applying your skills and knowledge to a community, charity or student-led initiative.

Your challenge will be to take responsibility for arranging and completing a voluntary or fundraising activity—locally, virtually or during vacation periods at home. You will need to show that you have made a positive difference through this activity.

In class, you will be asked to reflect on this experience and explore the wider social impact of the work. In doing so you will build your confidence in your ability to contribute meaningfully to society through your future personal and professional path.

Move beyond introductory concepts to explore film theory in depth, examining how films construct meaning through form, representation, and audience engagement.

You will critically assess cinema’s relationship with artistic expression and spectatorship, engaging with complex debates that have shaped film scholarship since the medium’s inception. Focusing on advanced theoretical analysis, this module equips you with the conceptual knowledge and critical vocabulary to interpret films using semiotic, psychoanalytic, formalist, philosophical and cognitivist approaches.

You will explore key concepts such as cinematic modernism, subjectivity in film perception and cinema’s evolving relationship with philosophy. The module fosters independent critical engagement with the works of influential theorists, deepening your understanding of theoretical frameworks.

By applying these perspectives to a range of case studies, you will refine your ability to conduct detailed textual analysis. By the end of the module, you will have developed sophisticated theoretical and analytical skills essential for higher-level film study.

In this examination of the evolving landscape of global power, we identify the forces challenging the world’s leading nations and explore the fluid nature of influence in the 21st century.

We will analyse the shifting balance of power, explore the relative decline of traditional superpowers and the simultaneous rise of new actors on the global stage.

You’ll be encouraged to consider how economic, military, and cultural influence is being reconfigured in a multipolar world, reshaping traditional understandings of world order. Crucially, we will also analyse the internal and external pressures these powers face, form rising regional actors, to the evolving nature of global threats, and the erosion of traditional power structures.

Through different case studies and theoretical frameworks, you will gain a nuanced understanding of the complex interplay between rising and established powers and the implications for global stability and future orders.

The future of state-funded welfare is one of the most pressing social questions of our time. This module explores the history, purpose and politics of welfare states, examining what social welfare is, who it is for and how it should be funded and delivered.

You will consider the social and political debates that have shaped social welfare and trace their development over time. Topics covered may include education, health, housing, social security and unemployment. You will explore how welfare systems are funded, managed and organised and analyse the impact of social welfare cuts on poverty and social inequality.

The module also examines the moral and political tensions within welfare debates, such as distinctions between ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ recipients. Engaging with diverse sources—including academic texts, policy reports, and media—you will develop critical insights into the past, present and future of welfare provision.

In your third year you will study at one of our international partner universities. This will help you to expand your global outlook and professional network, as well as developing your cultural and personal skills. It is also an opportunity to gain a different perspective on your subject through studying it in another country.

You will choose specialist modules relating to your degree and potentially modules from other subjects offered by the host university that are specific to that university and country.

The availability of places at overseas partners varies each year. In previous years destinations for students in the Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences have included Australia, USA, Canada, Europe and Asia.

As an advanced undergraduate historian, you’ll identify a historical topic that excites you and where you can make your own contribution to historical understanding, gaining the satisfaction of forging your own research project.

To guide you throughout, you’ll be allocated an expert historian as your supervisor, with whom you’ll meet regularly to discuss your choice of topic and research design, your hunt for primary sources and your analysis of secondary literature. With their support you’ll research and write a dissertation: a written research project exploring a challenging historical problem.

Research for dissertations involves building systematic understanding of your topic and engaging with the latest research, forming critical evaluations of historians’ arguments and deploying the skills you’ve been developing so far in source analysis to identify and address historical problems. You’ll hone your expertise in building a sustained interpretation and writing effectively and engagingly to inform and persuade.

In this module you will develop either a single extended piece or a portfolio of independent philosophical work. This may take the form of either (1) a philosophical dissertation or (2) a communication and engagement portfolio of outward-facing philosophical work targeting a diverse range of audiences.

1) Dissertation

Independent research and sustained long-form writing making up the core of professional academic philosophical study. With the Dissertation option, you have the opportunity to demonstrate your research and writing ability via completion of an independent dissertation project.

You will identify a specific philosophical topic from the wide range of research specialisms within Philosophy at Lancaster and, together with your allocated dissertation supervisor, develop a clear research question. you'll then engage with relevant primary and secondary texts to construct a compelling philosophical argument over a sustained piece of writing.

2) Communication and Engagement Portfolio

From public philosophy articles and podcasts to social media posts, science communications and policy advisory notes, academic philosophers regularly engage with, inform and persuade audiences beyond academia. This requires clear, compelling arguments and an understanding of the target audience.

With the Portfolio option, you will apply the philosophical skills and knowledge gained during your degree to communicate ideas to wider audiences. Working with your supervisor, and choosing from amongst the wide range of philosophical specialisms at Lancaster, you will develop a philosophical claim or perspective on a topic, engage in structured workshops to practice writing and presenting for diverse platforms, discuss your work with peers, and complete a portfolio of public-facing philosophy pieces across multiple media.

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Whichever option you choose, this module is an opportunity for you to complete your undergraduate student journey by demonstrating that you can expand on the knowledge base you have developed through your degree, and use the philosophical skills your programme has helped you develop, to produce your own independent work in philosophy. In doing so, this module will help you demonstrate, and further develop, your advanced research and communication skills, preparing you for both further academic study in philosophy and for professional roles that require skills in research, critical thinking and independent thought.

In this module you will develop either a single extended piece or a portfolio of independent philosophical work. This may take the form of either (1) a philosophical dissertation or (2) a communication and engagement portfolio of outward-facing philosophical work targeting a diverse range of audiences.

1) Dissertation

Independent research and sustained long-form writing making up the core of professional academic philosophical study. With the Dissertation option, you have the opportunity to demonstrate your research and writing ability via completion of an independent dissertation project.

You will identify a specific philosophical topic from the wide range of research specialisms within Philosophy at Lancaster and, together with your allocated dissertation supervisor, develop a clear research question. you'll then engage with relevant primary and secondary texts to construct a compelling philosophical argument over a sustained piece of writing.

2) Communication and Engagement Portfolio

From public philosophy articles and podcasts to social media posts, science communications and policy advisory notes, academic philosophers regularly engage with, inform and persuade audiences beyond academia. This requires clear, compelling arguments and an understanding of the target audience.

With the Portfolio option, you will apply the philosophical skills and knowledge gained during your degree to communicate ideas to wider audiences. Working with your supervisor, and choosing from amongst the wide range of philosophical specialisms at Lancaster, you will develop a philosophical claim or perspective on a topic, engage in structured workshops to practice writing and presenting for diverse platforms, discuss your work with peers, and complete a portfolio of public-facing philosophy pieces across multiple media.

____

Whichever option you choose, this module is an opportunity for you to complete your undergraduate student journey by demonstrating that you can expand on the knowledge base you have developed through your degree, and use the philosophical skills your programme has helped you develop, to produce your own independent work in philosophy. In doing so, this module will help you demonstrate, and further develop, your advanced research and communication skills, preparing you for both further academic study in philosophy and for professional roles that require skills in research, critical thinking and independent thought.

Soviet history is often told through the prism of totalitarian oppression, but beneath layers of state control a vibrant dissident movement was active. In this module, you will explore the breadth, depth and complexity of the Soviet dissident movement and critically analyse the impact that they had on the wider world.

You will explore the nature of political life in the Soviet Union, ranging from the labour camps under Joseph Stalin, to the use and abuse of psychiatry under Nikita Khrushchev and the silencing of dissidents under Leonid Brezhnev. You’ll also consider the role dissidents played in the collapse of the Soviet regime and the position of dissidents in contemporary Russia.

By focusing on political dissidents in the Soviet system, you will critically assess how totalitarian governments function, how opposition movements operate and how the international community responds to this persecution.

Explore the history of South Asia from the abolition of sati to the death of India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. You will consider the social, cultural and political histories through which the idea of India was expressed and contested.

You will examine the debates and rebellions through which the European colonial project was resisted and South Asian identities were expressed and cohered. You’ll begin by considering how, in the nineteenth century, the translations, interpretations and classifications of subcontinental history, society and language were created.

How were ideas of identity, community and freedom formed in response to and against the incursion of European power in the region? Subsequently, how did the idea of the nation coalesce into something beyond Empire to create not one, but two nations: India and Pakistan?

Explore the history of Victorian Britain and its global encounters through the prism of the body.

Embodiment was central to the way Victorians thought about themselves and others. From sexology to racial science and from sport to war, Victorians sought to make sense of their complex and globalised world by reading character from the body, ascribing values, both positive and negative, to the bodies of others, be they colonial subjects, the working class or queer men.

By studying the history of the body, you will gain new insights into this fascinating period of British history as an age of both remarkable optimism and profound anxiety. Drawing upon a rich and evolving historiography, you will engage with cutting edge and inclusive scholarship that considers how the body became the locus of profoundly unequal power relations and a vehicle for deep-seated prejudices that continue to shape our world today.

Gain an in-depth understanding of this dark chapter of Spain’s history. On the 17 July 1936, a group of military generals launched a coup against Spain’s democratically elected Second Republic. The following three years witnessed a bitter struggle to determine the future of Spain. The Spanish Civil War has been dubbed a ‘dress rehearsal’ for the Second World War. General Francisco Franco relied on Hitler and Mussolini to defeat his domestic opponents, while the Republic received support from Soviet Russia.

Yet the conflict had important local dimensions. Spanish socialists, communists, anarchists, liberals and feminists fought to the last against Franco’s ‘Nationalists’. Following his victory in 1939, Franco outlived his international fascist allies by decades, the legacies of which remain keenly present within present-day Spain.

Drawing on diverse primary sources—including autobiographies, oral histories, films, songs, and political speeches—on this module you will develop advanced skills of historical analysis.

With the blurring of the Home and Battle Fronts in Britain in the Second World War, the conventional wartime gender contract — in which men fight to protect the vulnerable at home and women keep the home fires burning — was challenged. In this module you will examine how war was experienced by those who conformed to and those who challenged gender norms, by those included in the war effort and those who stood outside it.

You’ll consider different categorisations of experience (military/civilian; home front/ battle front; male/female) and how historians have grappled with key concepts including the People’s War and hierarchies of service. Through a wide range of primary sources, including autobiographical materials, poems, photographs, films, parliamentary minutes, newspapers, posters and cartoons, you will seek to understand individual and collective experiences of the war and their gendered dimensions.

Examine how cogent issues in crime, justice and punishment have been treated historically from the eighteenth century. Taking advantage of online historical datasets, including Digital Panopticon and Old Bailey Online, you will be introduced to the vast range of historic criminal justice records.

On the module, the classroom becomes the archive. You’ll get hands on with primary sources evidencing the social and cultural history of modern Britain, and act as Digital Detectives to gather evidence to unlock the world of Victorian crime and punishment.

By using digital approaches to this evidence, you will be able to navigate a history from below and explore the impact of crime and injustice on diverse social groups including women, the working classes, migrants and youth. You’ll explore historical experiences of crime, justice and punishment both at scale and at the level of the individual in its fullest evidential context.

Uncover the origins of modern consumer society in Britain. In the century from the abolition of advertising tax in 1853 to the birth of commercial television in the 1950s, advertising became a pervasive feature of modern life, and Britain became a nation of consumers. Through a range of sources, including press reports, social surveys and – of course – advertisements, you’ll investigate the impact of new shopping environments like the department store and the supermarket, and the rise of ethical consumerism.

Advertising is political, and you’ll also examine how it helped Britain win two world wars and market the Empire to its citizens. By the end of the module, you will understand how advertising sells us much more than simply clothes or food, how it shapes the way we view gender and race and how it creates support for a market economy based on the principles of freedom and choice.

The Vikings inspired both fear and fascination in medieval times, and they continue to exercise a powerful hold on the modern imagination. In this module you’ll explore the Viking Age in the Irish Sea region, from the first Viking raids to the emergence of the kingdom of Man and the Isles, a ‘sea-kingdom’.

You’ll have the opportunity to develop an in-depth understanding of compelling texts such as chronicles and sagas, as well as non-textual material including sculpture, coin hoards and place names. The field is flourishing, and you’ll also have access to plenty of secondary literature. You will learn about political history, the economy, culture, gender and status amongst other themes. There will be some focus on the prolific evidence from north-west England, including artefacts in local museums and impressive stone monuments. You’ll participate in at least one field trip within the region.

Explore British foreign policy and the country's broader engagement with the wider world throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Considering broad debates concerning the decline of British power during this period, you will investigate the central themes that defined Britain's overseas policy in this era, including the impact of the World Wars, the loss of Empire, the 'special relationship' with the United States, and European integration.

In exploring these themes, you will consider how people from a variety of different perspectives (British and foreign, politicians, journalists, novelists, activists) conceived of Britain's world-role since the First World War.

In order to incorporate this variety of perspectives, you will draw on a large range of sources, including newspaper articles, novels, poetry and films, as well as traditional archival sources like official government documents, diaries and memoirs.

Today the claim that God designed everything in the universe has given way to the theory of evolution. The usual story of this change is one of conflict between science and religion. But we will challenge the popular narrative.

You will reconsider the rise and fall of the idea that nature was the work of a divine designer, focusing on the period 1450-1800. As well as trying to understand why the design argument became so important in the early modern period, you will seek to understand why it fell out of favour during the 18th century - long before the theory of evolution. But you will not simply be studying the history of ideas. To understand how early modern science changed, you will study a wide range of practices - from intellectual disciplines like philosophy, rhetoric and theology, to material practices including chemistry, architectural design, archaeology, and art.

The thirteenth century brought rebellion against a tyrant, then a revolution: a party seized power from the king to govern England. This period is hailed as the foundation of democracy – but the reality is darker. Religious leaders were empowered to punish kings, rebels fought as crusaders, and people killed and died for a political cause.

You’ll explore events including the making of Magna Carta, the 1258 coup, and the Battle of Evesham that ended England's First Revolution. You’ll meet queens like Eleanor of Provence, leading knight William Marshal, and Pope Innocent III; tyrannical and hapless kings; Simon de Montfort, the revolution's leader; and the low-born people who flocked to his banner.

You’ll investigate their stories through letters, testimonies, and eye-witness accounts, and challenge historical interpretations of this era. What moves women and men, poor and rich, to risk their livelihoods, take life and give their own to decide who rules?

From music, film, and television to sports, fashion, and digital media, explore how cultural texts raise philosophical questions about identity, morality, power, and meaning, and examine how popular culture both reflects and shapes the way we understand ourselves and the world around us. In this module you will look at how philosophers have understood the production, circulation and reception of popular culture, and how it bears on our own autonomy, agency, power, and identity.

You will study themes which may include:

• Philosophical approaches to mass culture, cultural value, art, and aesthetic judgement

• Authorship, mass production, genre, kitsch, remix, and the ontology of reproducible artworks

• Identities, stereotypes, cultural appropriation, objectification, and other political issues in regard to popular culture and mainstream media

• The Frankfurt School on the culture industry and the critique of popular music

• Pragmatist, analytic and continental arguments for the aesthetic and social value of popular music, film, television and other forms

• Philosophical analysis of selected cultural artefacts as case studies – songs, films, novels, and visual art

In studying this module, you will gain an understanding of how philosophy provides tools for interpreting the stories we collectively tell and consume – and how those stories, in turn, influence our sense of self and the very fabric of the societies and world we inhabit.

Engage with cutting-edge philosophical research, working with an academic philosopher on the topic of their live philosophical project and expertise. In this module you may be:

• Reviewing and critically commenting on the chapters of a manuscript

• Reading an academic’s recent publications and coming up with further questions and challenges to build on their ideas

• Discussing your module supervisor's new research and it's relevancy to contemporary philosophical debates

In student-led and discussion-based workshops you will present your own summaries and arguments, take part in guided debates, and work on the challenge of your final written piece: a paper which is not only informed by, but may itself eventually inform, current debates within the discipline. In doing so you will be joining the practice, shared by all professional philosophers, of contributing to the understanding and development of the field itself.

The specific question/s you will work on will vary year by year, but will be drawn from the interests and expertise of Lancaster's philosophy staff. They might include, for example:

• What is the best life for a human being

• What do psychiatric diagnoses mean

• What is personhood and what entities can be persons

• How can we respect human autonomy while making public policy

• What can combatant experience teach us about the ethics of war

One or more options will be offered each year.

In studying this module, you will deploy the skills you have developed in the first two years of your degree, gain in-depth knowledge of an important area of contemporary philosophical inquiry, and further sharpen skills in argument and critique – critical skills for both postgraduate study and a range of post-study careers.

Engage with a significant philosophical text or collection of texts, working with an academic philosopher on the topic of their live philosophical project and expertise. In this module you will:

• Read deeply

• Develop interpretations

• Make reasoned assessments

• Find and engage with secondary literature

• Contribute to contemporary understanding and critique of your text(s)

In student-led and discussion-based workshops, you will present your own philosophical interpretations and arguments, take part in guided debates, and work on a portfolio of critical readings. In doing so you will be joining the practice, shared by all professional philosophers, of contributing to the understanding and development of the field itself.

The specific text(s) you will work on will vary year by year, but will be drawn from the interests and expertises of Lancaster philosophy staff. They might include, for example:

• Work by philosophers whose work had, and continues to have, major impact, such as Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor Mill, Hannah Arendt, J. L. Austin, or Iris Marion Young

• Work by significant contemporary philosophers such as Miranda Fricker, Peter Railton, Martha Nussbaum, or David Lewis

• Work from within a specific philosophical tradition, such as classical or modern Chinese philosophy, or work by nineteenth-century women philosophers.

One or more options will be offered each year.

In studying this module, you will deploy the skills you have developed in your first two years of study, gain in-depth knowledge of an important area of philosophy, and further sharpen your skills in reading, interpretation, and thoughtful response – critical skills for both postgraduate study and a range of post-study careers.

Interconnected global crises and states of ‘polycrises’ or ‘wicked problems’ impact upon the daily lives of millions of people across the globe. Environmental, financial, security, diplomatic, political and military concerns all pose acute problems of knowledge and understanding, require individual and collective action, and raise questions around duties and rights for addressing multi-faceted complex problems.

Philosophical reasoning can play a key role in helping individuals, politicians, states and societies navigate these challenges, and in shaping and critiquing the principles for taking action. In this module you will actively work on developing your own philosophical contributions to addressing global crises, studying topics which may include:

• Themes from social epistemology, including the difficulty of creating shared knowledge in the face of societal challenges; institutions for scrutinising as well as disseminating knowledge claims; the need for diverse perspectives on so-called wicked problems, and also the challenges of combining and reconciling these.

• Themes from the philosophy of collective action and metaphysics, including the ways in which human beings can cooperate outside of formal institutions and create new institutions to address societal and international problems, as well as problems of diffuse responsibility amid complex or changing social structures.

• Themes from political philosophy, such as the difficulties and strengths of democratic institutions and the compromises they require; the challenges of reconciliation and institution-building after war and conflict; the challenges democracies face in light of populism, authoritarianism, corruption in the democratic process, and problems of disinformation.

Over the course of this module you will learn how different philosophical approaches can help us to think our way through our own responsibilities in these times, offering different perspectives on the various roles we can play in surviving, and even flourishing, in times of global crisis.

Politics is one of the most widespread and diverse phenomena of human experience. Yet it is often studied by relying on concepts, theoretical resources, and methodological approaches derived from a single intellectual tradition. This module seeks to reverse this trend by introducing you to global philosophical perspectives emanating from different intellectual traditions on a particular topic.

The philosophical traditions with which we engage will vary from year to year, but may include Chinese, Continental, Analytic, African, Feminist, Postcolonial, and/or Decolonial perspectives. The topics that we look at will also change but may include one or more of the following:

• Democracy

• Modernity

• Secularism

• Pluralism

• Rights

• Political legitimacy

We will consider how the theme(s) we focus on has or have been construed in different settings, and we will inquire into how these different construals can help us achieve a better understanding of today’s sociopolitical landscape, while also providing new perspectives on how to tackle some of the most pressing political problems of our times.

In addition to learning about different philosophical traditions, you will also reflect on the challenges of studying philosophy comparatively and engaging with philosophical traditions that derive from different cultural settings, developing a broader critical understanding of political community and life.

Colonisation fundamentally transformed Jamaica’s paradisical environment. In this module, you will gain a detailed understanding of how this process occurred. You’ll begin by studying how the first colonists comprehended the New World environment and the importance of that environment for shaping settlement. You will then study how settlers exploited the Jamaican environment using enslaved African labour.

In the concluding section, you will examine how colonists sought to mitigate the devastating effects of plantation agriculture through nascent environmentalism. You’ll study this fascinating history using a diverse array of primary sources and by reading deeply in environmental history. In the assessment, you will be able to undertake your own research in environmental history. You will emerge from this module with a detailed understanding of Jamaica’s natural history and the field of environmental history more broadly.

Why does History matter? What does it contribute to our world? Challenge yourself to consider how our discipline is applied.

Beyond working in universities, historians are active in public debate and influence the policies of institutions and governments on matters from the memorialisation of historic figures and institutional links with the Transatlantic Slave Trade to geopolitical threats to UK security. They collaborate with museums, helping visitors engage with material remains of the past, and write books for a wide public readership.

You’ll develop a critical awareness of your discipline and gain confidence in articulating its significance in our world. You’ll also contend with the subjective use of History: how political leaders have co-opted stories of the past to justify war and conquest, and ideologically driven groups claim historical legitimacy. What role should historians play in shaping how our understanding of the past influences the present?

The English East India Company (founded 1600) was the most famous corporation in world history: its business connecting the British Isles across the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans. It was a protagonist of globalisation.

In this module you’ll discover how historians have debated what the Company represented. It did much to stimulate global trade, but was it a private business in the modern sense? It ruled British territory on behalf of the British state, but was it a state in its own right?

You will gain a broad and systematic understanding of seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-century British, Indian, and global history; and develop expertise in and experience of deploying established techniques of analysis: from cultural, art, political, parliamentary, global, economic, constitutional, gender, and business history. Making use of primary and secondary sources, you will be challenged to digest and critique the latest research in this area.

Who does technology benefit or harm, and what should its role in society be? This module examines the social and ethical issues surrounding the development of modern technologies and their use in the modern world, with a vision to shape our future relationship with technology.

Study conceptual questions about the nature of power, justice, freedom and the state – and normative questions about the kinds of political structures we should adopt. This module builds on previous modules on political philosophy and theory by offering the opportunity for advanced study in the area.

We will consider questions such as how can democracy safeguard our interests, and how might it endanger them? What is equality, and is it desirable? What does it mean to claim that we have ‘rights’?

You will read contemporary and historical texts in depth and debate their implications for modern governance and society. You’ll gain a deep understanding of the theories behind key issues in contemporary politics, equipping you to analyse complex political concepts. You will also develop essential interpretive and argumentative skills, enabling you to assess competing viewpoints and contribute thoughtfully and persuasively to ongoing discussions about politics.

An important exploration of the key issues and challenges facing contemporary democratic states and movements in the 21st Century.

Arguably, modern democracy faces multiple challenges such as:

• The rise of populist movements
• Democratic backsliding
• Declining public trust in leaders and political institutions
• Globalisation and transnational government
• New forms of authoritarian leadership
• Increasing repression of dissent and protest

Taking a comparative approach, we will explore how these evolving challenges have impacted the politics of both democratic and authoritarian states, and we will evaluate the effectiveness of the strategies that have been taken to address them.

Using the skills in both research and comparative analysis that you have developed during the programme, you will carry out your own independent research and contribute to contemporary academic debate on the prospects for democracy.

Why do we see gaps between what politicians say on immigration and what they do?

In the United Kingdom and in most of the Global North the movement of people across international borders is a key political issue of our time. The public, researchers and politicians across the political spectrum participate in passionate debates about immigration. Political parties make strong claims about how they would “manage” or “cut” migration, recognising that it is a key voting issue.

Meanwhile, the systematic study of human movement supplies us with robust evidence concerning such questions as:

• Is migration desirable or not?
• How should we understand its effects on origin and destination countries?
• How to address it in policy terms?
• Is migration a matter of human rights?
• Can border control be reconciled with respect for the rights of people on the move?

The module draws on cutting edge research in political science, international relations and similar fields. It equips you with fact-based evidence so that you can confidently participate in the ongoing societal debate on what it means to inhabit a world on the move.